Ascendant (The Royal Marine Space Commandos Book 3) Read online

  “That’s about the size of it, Sir. We’re not done here yet.”

  “I had hoped you might have room for a breather, but it appears not.” Bonneville nodded and looked at something off-camera. “We need to reinforce you as soon as possible. If the Deathless come back, I don’t want us caught with our pants down. The Navy is sending reinforcements for Vice Admiral Staines and I’m sending a full battalion to New Bristol for deployment as quickly as you can grow new clones.”

  “Yes, Sir, that will be helpful. Who will take command, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Take command?” said Bonneville, frowning, “I’m not changing my lead coach halfway through the game, Atticus. You’ll remain in charge, Lieutenant Colonel, and stick with the mission until it’s done.”

  There was a pause while Atticus processed that, then a look of mild panic rushed across his face.

  “With respect, Sir, I’m not qualified to be bumped up so many ranks,” he said in desperation.

  “If it were with respect, Atticus, you wouldn’t presume to lecture me on the rules of battlefield promotions. You’re more than qualified, I checked. You passed all the requisite courses years ago, you have the necessary experience, and you have served as a Captain for, let me see,” the General looked at something, apparently flicking at a data slate.

  Atticus forestalled him, “I know how long I’ve been a Captain, Sir, thank you.”

  “Quite. If you don’t want me to remind you of the exact number of years, perhaps we could just agree that it has been far more than any Captain still in active service? You’ve been allowed to pass up promotion opportunities several times because of your distinguished service record and because we had plenty of alternatives more interested in advancement. I’m afraid we’re now long past the point of being able to indulge your preferences, Edward. This isn’t a democracy and we’re in a real shooting war for the first time in years. You’re the man on the ground, you’re already familiar with the enemy, you have more experience than any of our serving Lieutenant Colonels, and you have a good relationship with local government. I’ve already discussed this with the Governor and she described the idea as ‘capital’, reporting also that she found you good to work with. Sorry, Lieutenant Colonel Atticus, but I really don’t have a choice here,” Bonneville said with a shrug that was just the right side of mildly apologetic with a touch of rank-pulling ‘get over it’ for good measure.

  Atticus sighed resignedly as the General concluded his monologue. He’d had a good run. In fact, he was pretty sure he held the record for longest serving Royal Marine Space Commando Captain since the corps had been renamed. The rank bump had been something he had avoided because it would mean stepping away from the frontline.

  “Yes, Sir. I understand and thank you for holding it off this long. I’ll miss being on the frontline, though.”

  “Atticus, I don’t think you quite understand. Neither you nor I have ever been on a frontline like this. This is the first serious war in centuries. It was bad enough when we thought they were the first alien contact but now it turns out they’re the deadliest species known to man, namely man. That’s worse, in my book. Plus, their ancestors sound like they could very well have been total crackpots, which is probably not a good thing. You’re still going to be very much on the leading and bleeding edge of this war unless it shifts away from New Bristol,” Bonneville said.

  “Understood, Sir.” Atticus brightened a little. Maybe promotion wouldn’t be as bad as he had feared.

  “On the other hand, they do seem to be startlingly incompetent, don’t you think?”

  "Yes, Sir. More experienced, maye. We have some ideas about that but no real evidence so far. We’re hoping that Warden and Cohen’s plan to visit the enemy at NewPet will yield the necessary intelligence.”

  There was a pause while Bonneville thought about this. Then he nodded.

  “Speaking of Warden, he’ll need a bump as well. He’s ready to be a Captain, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Undoubtedly, Sir.”

  “Good, because the mission profile that he and Cohen drafted will need at least a full company. I’m going to be sending you the best-qualified people I can to form your new command. They will be full companies from existing units, of course, so they’re familiar with each other. Governor Denmead will act as my proxy for the promotion ceremony.”

  “I’d like to keep my existing command team if I may, Sir.”

  “That’s fine; you’ll need additional personnel, of course. A battalion commander gets a whole bevy of adjutants and other buggers to follow them around. You’ll get used to it, just remember to delegate everything and trust your people to do their jobs. Check your roster, promote whoever you feel is qualified then let me know which gaps I need to fill. I’ll try to send people you’ve worked with before to fill any positions necessary.”

  “We’ll need to promote Jenkins and Milton,” Atticus mused.

  “Fine, just send me the list and I’ll rubber stamp the promotions. Over and out.”

  “Yes, Sir. Over and out.”

  The promotion ceremony had been brief, understated and yet still, somehow, excruciating for Atticus. Warden had practically fallen off his chair with laughter when he learned that Atticus was to be made up to Lieutenant Colonel. He had stopped laughing very quickly when Atticus had told him that he, too, was to be promoted.

  They had then gone over the promotions for their teams. Colour Sergeant Jenkins was being made up to Warrant Officer and given the title of Colour Sergeant Major. Sergeant Milton would take Jenkin’s spot as the new Colour Sergeant of Lympstone Company, which Warden was now taking over as Captain.

  Denmead had pushed the congratulations and back-slapping speech as far as she could without causing Atticus to blow his top. Her political acumen came to the fore as she expertly judged the fine line between embarrassing but entertaining pomp and a joke taken too far.

  The crowd of colonists had been suspiciously large, Atticus had thought. He wondered which of his supposedly loyal troops had stitched him up there. There has been a lot of banners as well but nothing handmade, all good quality, professionally printed stuff.

  The fireworks that had gone off at the end of the ceremony were evidently a surprise to Denmead as well as to everyone else. Atticus thought he sensed the hand of Marine X in that one.

  The piece de resistance had been the drone flyover by the children’s militia pilots. The drones flew low, spewing red, white and blue smoke trails, and Atticus couldn’t help but admire the ingenuity of it all, even as the prime suspects grinned uncontrollably and took photos.

  After that, the embarrassed promotees were dragged off to a badly damaged but partly cleaned bar in Ashton for celebratory drinks.

  “I swear Fletcher, there’s a perfectly intact piano upstairs,” said Goodwin, pointing to the mezzanine floor that protruded from the remains of the wall.

  “Can’t be, look at this place, it’s a bloody mess. Never mind New Bristol, it looks like Old Bristol on a Saturday night. There’re no windows, the bar is shot full of holes and look, half the optics are missing!”

  “Well, it is a war zone, you know.”

  “Yeah, but my point is, you can’t play a broken piano.”

  “I can’t play the piano even if it were in perfect working order, but you can,” Goodwin pointed out, reasonably.

  “Yeah, come on, Fletcher, give us a tune,” Milton joined in the cajoling.

  “Look,” Fletcher said, turning and almost losing half her pint with the vigorous motion, “Sergeant Milton, sorry, Colour Milton, it’s hard enough to play the piano in a standard RMSC clone, but it’ll be damn near impossible in this hulking great brute of a thing.”

  “She has a point,” conceded Milton, “but what’s the worst that could happen? Maybe you’ll be able to play loud enough to drown out Ten’s, what did he call it? Some word which apparently means singing along to ancient music, without being in tune.”

  “Carry okey doke
y, I think,” slurred Fletcher.

  “Yeah, anything’s got to be better than him singing about getting postcards from chimpanzees for the third time,” grumbled Goodwin.

  Fletcher shook her head in defeat and trudged upstairs, slightly wobbly on her feet, her clone’s huge bulk shaking loose dust with every step. The mezzanine curved out over the stage below with the grand piano positioned so the pianist could look out over the audience while the singer strutted their stuff below.

  She sat down on the large bench, gingerly applying her substantial rump to the seat. Fortunately, it had a strong but elegant frame, built in an imitation art deco style. It was easy to produce such furniture with modern 3D printing techniques, so even a piano wouldn’t have been too hard to make, although this one was no masterpiece. Still, it should be perfectly functional if the bomb damage to the bar-come-nightclub hadn’t been too extreme.

  Fletcher gave the ivories an experimental tinkle then, satisfied that the keyboard was working as expected, began to hammer out a rendition of that perennial favourite, Over the Hills and Far Away. It drew immediate cheers and applause from the Royal Marine and civilian audience alike. Ten’s drunken signing was soon drowned out entirely by other drunken people joining in on the familiar tune.

  Once she realised the crowd were backing her, Fletcher got a lot more enthusiastic. She stood up, pushing the stool back so that she could really give the piano a bashing with her clone’s enormous fingers.

  “Amazing that it’s still in tune,” yelled Milton to Goodwin over the noise of the singing.

  “I don’t like tuna sandwiches,” replied Goodwin.

  Eventually, even Ten began to sing along with Fletcher’s music, his brief irritation replaced by the drunk’s unshakeable belief that they can carry any tune. There were many things that Ten did well and with great showmanship; drunken singing was not one of them.

  But they carried on, nonetheless, belting their way through the popular verses and even a few that were familiar to the Marines and, it seemed, Governor Denmead, but not to most of the colonists. When the last verse was done and the last key tinkled, the crowd chanted Fletcher’s name.

  Abashed, she walked to the front of the balcony and bowed flamboyantly, accepting the applause with as much grace as she could manage and all the elegance that her huge frame allowed. The crowd clapped enthusiastically

  An ominous creak momentarily quieted the crowd as Ten stood up from his bow.

  And then, with an almighty crash, the balcony carrying Fletcher and the piano broke free from its brutalised supports and crashed down onto the stage, right on top of the unfortunate Ten.

  There was a moment of stunned silence as dust rose from the massive pile of rubble. Then Fletcher staggered out of the cloud of muck and onto the floor, covered in filth but otherwise unharmed.

  “Encore!” someone shouted, and the Marines all fell about laughing.

  2

  Aboard Albion, the cloning bay was running at full capacity. All three Troops of Warden’s Company were redeploying into Deathless clones in preparation for the voyage to the NewPet system, releasing a steady stream of standard RMSC bodies to be returned to storage, some a little more heavily abused than others.

  The techs had made some adjustments to Albion’s equipment in order to handle the very large Ogre clones and the strange body shapes of the Harpies, but both were being processed, now that the bodies had been shuttled across from their storage bays on Ascendant.

  “Plenty of meat aboard Ascendant,” Cohen had reported once the inventory was complete, “but the equipment is geared toward standard deployment of stored personalities, not a redeployment from a living body.”

  And that had meant either killing the Marines still running standard RMSC bodies - not an option - or moving the Deathless clones to Albion and adjusting the cloning bays to handle the larger frames. It had taken a while to thrash out the details, not to mention the time required to setup and secure the encrypted backup links that would save the Marines’ personalities back to Ascendant if their bodies were killed in action, but everything was now up and running.

  “Do you know anything about this guy?” said Beaufort, staring at a monitor reporting progress on the download of Penal Marine X to his new body, “I heard he was some sort of criminal.”

  Petty Officer Brin, the other cloning tech, looked up from his own monitor and sniffed. His younger colleague was often more curious than was good for her; this was one of those times.

  “His name is listed as ‘Marine X’,” said Brin, looking back at his own monitor, “and you don’t lose your naming rights without having done something very wrong.”

  “So how come he’s here, then? Why bother shipping him out when he should be chilling somewhere on a base doing punishment duties?”

  Brin said nothing for a moment. Then there was a ping from the monitor.

  “None of our business,” he said eventually, fiddling with the controls, “let’s just get them up and running and let the Captain worry about who we’re deploying, yes?”

  “Just seems weird,” muttered Beaufort, checking the controls on her monitor as Brin leant over the clone he was preparing, “I mean, I didn’t get shipped out when I got done for that stuff back on base, not that I did any of it,” she added quickly.

  Brin had heard it all before and tuned out as Beaufort whined away about the injustices of her career and the long list of slights and grievances that had culminated in her posting to Albion, still an Able Rating despite her years of service.

  Then Brin’s clone coughed and tried to sit up and Beaufort finally stopped talking.

  “There you go, Sir,” said Brin, helping the clone to sit and swing his legs down to the ground, “bound to be a little confusion just after redeployment but you’re ok. Do you remember where you are?”

  The clone looked around, blinking and flexing his fingers. Then he nodded.

  “Yes,” said Captain Warden, staring at his new fingers and marvelling at the way they moved, “I know where I am and what we’re doing. Any problems during the transfer?”

  “No sir, smooth and easy, nothing at all of interest.”

  “Good, that’s exactly how I like these things to go.”

  Then there was a cough from across the room and the other clone, the one Beaufort had been monitoring, came round.

  “What the fuck!” it said, clearly angry and scrabbling at the edges of the slab on which it lay, “I mean, what the actual fuck!”

  Warden and Brin turned to see the clone flopping around as Beaufort hurried over to help him sit up.

  “Er, Marine X,” said Beaufort nervously, hands hovering over the clone’s arms as the technician tried to decide how best to help, or even if it was safe to help at all, “you’ve been deployed after your, er, death.”

  There was a moment of silence as Marine X focused on the technician and frowned, still trying to work out where he was and what the hell was going on.

  “You’re aboard Albion, Sir,” said Beaufort, “you, er, you were in an accident, Sir. With a piano.”

  “Wait, what? Sorry, the ears on this thing aren’t working properly, I could have sworn you said ‘piano’.”

  “It’s a most amusing tale, Marine X,” said Warden, striving manfully to keep the grin from his face, “and I’m sure Milton will be keen to walk you through the video.”

  Marine X looked around then glanced down at his fingers.

  “Death? So this was a straight deployment?”

  “Yes, Sir,” said Beaufort, “straight into a Deathless clone, no problems,” she went on, checking her monitor, “clean and easy, complete transference.”

  Marine X heaved himself upright and frowned. He peered at Warden, who was at the same height, then glanced down at his hands again.

  “This seems a bit small for an Ogre,” he muttered, looking over the rest of his body, “shouldn’t I be a bit, you know, taller?” he stared meaningfully at the unfortunate technician, who swallowed nervou
sly and glanced at Warden.

  The Captain nodded encouragingly, utterly refusing to help her explain.

  “Er, well, it’s not exactly an Ogre, Sir,” said Beaufort quietly, “we didn’t have one to hand so, er.” She stopped as the frown deepened on Marine X’s face. “Sorry.”

  “Not an Ogre,” said Marine X testily, taking a tentative step on what seemed to be very long and thin limbs, “so what is it?”

  He flexed his arms and there was a sudden rush of air. Beaufort jumped quickly back as Marine X turned, trying to see what was going on behind him.

  “What the hell? Have I got wings? Are these wings? What sort of shitty nonsense clone have you stuck me in?” he asked, turning back to the technician. Everyone ducked as his wings swept around the room again.

  “It’s a Harpy, Marine X,” said Warden, “one of the winged clones the Deathless use for scouting and sniping.” He jumped clear as X turned again, wings still outstretched. “Maybe you could fold away your wings? They do rather fill the room.”

  Marine X frowned again and paused, standing quite still as he concentrated. Then there was a snap and his wings folded away neatly onto his back. He looked again at his thin, graceful legs and arms, unnaturally narrow hips and slim chest.

  “I really wanted to play with an Ogre clone,” he murmured, his disappointment obvious, “they look like such a lot of fun.”

  Beaufort smiled nervously.

  “But you’ll be able to fly, Sir,” she blurted, trying to put a positive spin on the situation. Marine X glared at her, an expression so angry and hostile that Beaufort took half a step back.

  “Marines,” said X slowly as if explaining a new concept to a child, “fight on land and water. That’s it. The only purpose of height is to fall from it as quickly as possible.”

  “Beaufort is right, though, Sir,” said Brin, “and that clone is a remarkable piece of engineering. The Ogres are big and tough and surprisingly quick but these Harpies are entirely another thing.” Marine X looked at him and raised an eyebrow, unconvinced. “The bones are super-lightweight but engineered with titanium, so they’re ridiculously strong. And the flight muscles are, weight for weight, about three times as strong as an Ogre’s.”