Origins

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To Jake and Benji – my best buddies

They say that writing is a solitary process, and to a degree that's true, but I couldn't have written
Origins
without the support of a network of people.
Origins
is the third book in the Lazarus War series (well, the fourth if you include
Redemption
), and I've come to rely on these people to get me through the process.

More than ever, my wife Louise has helped me with ideas and proofreading. I really couldn't have done this without her. We got there in the end! The rest of my family deserve credit too: they have to put up with me when I'm “in the zone” and getting that next scene written is all that matters…

My agent Robert Dinsdale provided essential feedback and encouragement throughout. His views on the Lazarus War universe have helped it become what it is.

I'd also like to say a big thank you to my editor Anna Jackson. Anna took a chance on a debut author; she's edited all of my books to date. Her editorial input has been vital, and she too has shaped the direction of the series. Everyone at Orbit has gone above and beyond, and I'm privileged to be supported by such a great team.

“The UAS
Endeavour
's mission remains of interest to all Alliance military agencies… It was the first and only time that any meaningful dialogue has been established between humanity and an alien race. Exactly how this was achieved, and whether it can be replicated in the future, remains unclear. All files pertaining to the
Endeavour
operation continue to be protected by Congressional Code Alpha-9, a rarely invoked secrecy clause which permits Alliance agencies to withhold disclosure of materials said to be prejudicial to state interests…”

Extract from
Secret Histories: Conspiracies within the Alliance
, by Professor Frederick Boswell, published 2279

“Everyone has heard of the
Endeavour
, right? She's the modern-day
Mary Celeste
. She went missing with all hands, never accounted for. Probably the greatest mystery in space-faring history. Not just her, but the rest of her fleet as well – sixteen starships in all.

“Ships go missing all the time. We're at war – whether the Pentagon wants to admit it or not – but a fleet of that
size
, that
magnitude
? No, that doesn't just happen. Someone knows where the
Endeavour
, and her sister ships, went. We're not being told the whole truth.

“Either that, or they weren't being honest about why she was really out there. Governments have a history of lying to their people. History has shown us that the bigger the government, the more likely they are to lie. And the Alliance government? Well, that's just about the biggest Gaia-damned government that the human race has ever seen…

“Not counting the Asiatic Directorate, of course.”

Interview with Azra Asami, head of the Anti-War Coalition, broadcast by Core News Network, 27 July 2281

“The
Endeavour
's mission was nothing but an unmitigated success. What's to hide? She went out into the dark, settled the Treaty, and that led to the longest period of peace the Alliance has ever enjoyed. The Krell threat was neutralised overnight. Sure, we lost some people out there. Sure, that's a shame. But it's a cost exercise, and from where I'm standing the books balance.”

Extract from speech made by President Francis to Alliance Congress, 29 November 2281
(prior to his assassination by Directorate forces)

AFTER ACTION INTELLIGENCE REPORT

*** EYES ONLY ***

CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET (RED UMBRA)

TO:
SECTOR COMMAND, CALICO BASE

FROM:
CAPTAIN T. OSTROW, MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

SUBJ:
OPERATION PORTENT (DAMASCUS), FURTHER ACTION REQUIRED

OPERATION DATE:
10/08/2283

Captain T. Ostrow, Alliance Military Intelligence
Universal calendar date: 1 October 2284

Six months after the Damascus operation

We deployed out of the Jaguar's aft ramp.

Rounds slashed the air, pinging against the dropship's hull, ricocheting around inside the cabin. That and the snow made it hard to see where we were, let alone who was out there, and we were greeted with a wall of white: cold and impenetrable.

“We're taking some serious fire,” Lieutenant James said. He was piloting Scorpio One, our designated transport. “I can't stay on-station much longer—”

The dropship swayed in the high wind, undercarriage grinding against the roof of the building on which we had landed. Quite frankly, that James was able to keep the boat in the air at all was impressive.

I zoned out: had more important things to worry about, such as staying operational. My null-shield lit – creating a miniature lightning storm in reaction to the incoming fire. The heads-up display on my tactical helmet flashed with warning icons, the communicator-bead chiming as bodies went down. Simulants were dropping all around me. Three greens on my left flank bought the farm before we'd even got out of the damned dropship: bodies cut to ribbons by armour-piercing, depleted uranium rounds.

And it wasn't just Scorpio One. My ear-bead was filled with panicked reports from the other squads, officers calling in casualties across the theatre.

“Lazarus Legion!” I yelled. “Form up on me!”

As some asshole once said, no plan ever survives contact with the enemy.

Six hours earlier, the briefing room aboard the UAS
Independence
was filled with personnel. Mostly, not simulants but real skins – troopers dressed in fatigues waiting for the drop. It was a big turnout: the Lazarus Legion, of course, but three other simulant teams as well – Hooper's Raiders, Baker's Boys, and the Vipers. They were all good outfits, squads that I'd specifically picked for this operation. Together with James and the flyboys of Scorpio Squadron, the
Independence
's briefing room was packed out.

“We're currently six hours from the objective,” I said. “Welcome to Rodonis Capa; a star system unremarkable in the extreme, located on the Rim of Asiatic Directorate territory.”

Faces were bathed in the soft green glow of the projected graphics, as the display powered up and the briefing began. We were sailing in-system, moving on the singular point of interest in this sector. The star was faded and bitter; a G-class sun that had been in decline since before Neanderthal man had left his caves. Six whittled nubs of rock, any atmosphere they had once possessed long bled off, circled the star. Those worlds were largely inhabitable and long dead. The exception: that was our target.

“This is Capa V,” I said, zooming in on a muted white ball. “This is where we're going.”

Capa V was a world barely within the circumstellar habitable zone, a planet that clung to the heat and light of its distant mother-star.

“I'll bet it's lovely in the summer,” Martinez said, with his usual dryness. He yawned; from the look on his face he hadn't long been awake. “Someone wake me up when we get there.”

“Bottle it, padre,” said Jenkins. “This is it.”

Martinez had been acting as unofficial chaplain to the platoon, offering sermons of damnation and damnation in equal measure. There was even a rumour going around that Martinez had been ordained. Sperenzo's team were of the Creed – Latter Day Catholics, proper fanatics – and it was open for debate whether the Venusians would disobey an order from me if it were at odds with one of Martinez's. The Venusians, identifiable by their tanned skin and Latino features, watched Martinez expectantly.

He raised a dark eyebrow. “For real?”

Lieutenant Keira Jenkins looked to me, the prickle of anxiety about her lean face. “I got a feeling. Now settle down, people, and listen up.” There were murmurs around the table, but no one spoke out of line. “The floor is yours, Colonel.”

Jenkins was harder, angrier than I'd ever seen her. We'd been conducting raids like this for the last six weeks: searching for anything that might lead us to Vincent Kaminski or the survivors of the Damascus operation. The result was that Jenkins, more so than the rest of the team, had become an over-coiled spring. Long hours aboard the
Independence
waiting for intelligence to come in had been filled with zero-G gymnasium sessions. She was more than ready for this.

Looking at her, then at the image of Capa V, I suddenly felt very tired. I couldn't take another false lead, not when we'd had so many already.

“You take this one,” I said to Jenkins. “I want to see how you'd do it.”

“Copy that.”

Captain Baker, commanding officer of Baker's Boys, jabbed me in the ribs with his elbow. “Won't be long before you lose her,” he said. “Sooner or later she'll want a team of her own.”

Baker was probably the oldest Sim Ops officer on the Programme – certainly the oldest survivor of the
Liberty Point
Massacre – and had been a veteran of the Alliance Army long before induction. His Boys, on the other hand, were all fresh faces – barely a handful of transitions between them. The eager look in their eyes was unnerving.

“Later rather than sooner, I hope,” I said.

“Pay attention, people,” Jenkins said, and the room fell silent. “As the man says, our destination is Capa V. Known to its Directorate residents as ‘Cold Death'.”

A briefing file opened on the display.

Capa V was a uniform, brilliant white: a world in the grasp of an ice age from which there would be no return. Great ice shelves claimed half of the planet, frozen seas the rest. Only very occasionally were there breaches in the ice: blue streams indicating liquid water down there, streaks of black where rocky plateaux broke through. Empty, featureless plains were the order of the day.

“Looks cold,” Baker said. I knew exactly what he was trying to do: to test Jenkins, to push her to the limit. But on an op like this? I already knew that wasn't a good idea. Regardless, he went on, “And you know how my rheumatism plays up in the cold.”

“Stow it, Baker,” Jenkins said. “Local weather is a pleasant minus twenty, but expect it to feel even colder with the wind chill.” The image magnified. “At your age, you'll probably want to stay buttoned up.”

Sufficiently cowed, Baker went quiet.

Jenkins continued. “There are three settlements on Cold Death, and our target is here.”

A small outpost – labelled QUIJONG BASE – lay in the south, nestled at the foot of a titanic mountain range. The base specifications rolled over the display and I quickly took in the relevant details. Several kilometres squared, over a hundred buildings and hangars of unknown purpose: arranged in a neat network, interspersed with work-yards and open areas, gridded by roadways with the occasional concrete barricade. Numerous communications towers and potential HQ locations. Lots of surface vehicles, but no visible air support. A single landing bay sat on the edge facility, suggesting that the compound had at some time been air-capable, but this was currently empty: dusted with a thick layer of snow.

“Six days ago, an M9 Sentinel surveillance drone captured a data-feed from this outpost. This contained an embedded security key known to be employed by Directorate forces when handling the movement of captured enemy combatants. Command believes that there are POWs down there.”

“Prisoners of war?” Sperenzo said. She was a small, compact Venusian woman – one of Martinez's kin, her face claimed by a mess of gang-tattoos, hair cut short to her scalp.

Jenkins nodded. “Like I said, this is the shit. What's more, Command has been able to identify that these POWs are from the Damascus incident.”

“Fuck me,” Baker said.

I fought the urge to smile.

“How'd they find that?” Martinez asked, his eyes narrowing as he inspected the intel. “Seems too good to be true…”

“Maybe it is,” I said.

Whatever the truth, Jenkins was more than sold on the idea. “The Directorate might have people in deep,” she said, “but we have people in deeper. An intel source has identified this as a prison facility. The source has so far proved reliable.”

“About those maps,” PFC Dejah Mason said. “What are those things?”

Always with the questions
, I thought. Dejah Mason was the youngest member of the Lazarus Legion. Whether her inquisitive nature was as a result of her age or her disposition was hard to say, but she was a damned good soldier. Young, blonde and Martian, I feared for any man or woman who dared underestimate her.

She pointed out a circular formation in the middle of the map; as big as a dropship, glazed with ice but not snow. It was made of metal: like a concealed missile silo or the entrance to an underground facility.

“It looks like a pit,” Mason said. “Or a covered shaft.”

Jenkins scrolled over the site, magnified the image. “Possible mine,” she said. “Limited heat detected, no radiation.”

Mason frowned. “So we don't know?”

“No,” Jenkins said. “We don't. That a problem, Princess?”

She was using Mason's new callsign; the tag by which she'd become known since dropping the label “New Girl”. Mason pulled a face as she looked down at the holo.

“Not necessarily,” she said. “But it doesn't look… right.”

“Christo,” Baker said, rolling his eyes. “We know all we need to. Let's get down there already!”

“What's the mission plan?” Captain Hooper of the Raiders asked. He was Tau Cetian, and the youngest officer on the strike force; right out of officer training. The holo-badge on his lapel flashed “99”: indicating the number of transitions he'd undertaken. Not bad numbers for a kid only five years on the Programme. If he made it, I predicted good things for Hooper.

“Objectives will be uploaded to your suits before we drop,” Jenkins said. “But in short, we'll make planetfall together and spread out once we get dirtside. Primary targets are these buildings.” Flashing indicators marked the sky-eye view of the settlement. “Live capture and retrieval is our goal. Like I said, I've got a feeling about this place.”

I hope that you're right, Jenkins. I really do.

“What's the predicted level of resistance?” Mason asked.

Jenkins sighed. “Mili-Intel suggests minimal. There's a garrison down there, but they don't know that we're coming.”

Sperenzo whistled. “So far as we know.”

“In any event, consider enemy forces secondary,” Jenkins said. “Repeat: objective is retrieval of personnel. We're coming in-system dark, and Intel hasn't heard any Directorate chatter concerning our presence.
Independence
has already knocked out their communications satellite, so they won't have the chance to call for help.”

The
Independence
would be anchored in high orbit; observing the objective and our progress. She was fitted with the best in stealth tech – hopefully enough to evade the Directorate's counter-surveillance. The orbital comms rig – the satellite to which Jenkins referred – had been blasted to space junk an hour ago. There was plenty of debris circling Capa V, and so the ground forces were unlikely to have read much into the loss of their comms.

Even so, I scrolled over the global map of Capa V. Our objective was in the south, and a few thousand klicks north was another base: largely uninhabited, according to surface scans. Further still was a refinery platform, protruding from a frozen sea.

“Going to have to watch for activity from those outposts,” I said. Something about them made me feel uneasy. “The idea that they could mount a response to our incursion can't be ruled out.”

Jenkins pulled a face. “Apparently both are automated. Command says that they aren't of tactical significance.”

“I've heard that before.” I keyed a command on the console, updated the tactical brief. “I want
Independence
to keep eyes on those outposts at all times.”

“Affirmative,” Jenkins agreed. “As we're expecting this to be a live exfiltration operation, Scorpio Squadron will be providing air support and pilots.”

She glanced over at the flyboys, across the tac-display. Lieutenant James and his team were already skinned up, looking every bit the part of Alliance Aerospace Force pilots. They were using next-generation simulants. Those were gene-engineered skins designed to be lived in, replicas of human bodies with enhanced capabilities and response times. The trade-off to looking real was that the bodies were not as strong or durable as combat-sims. Even now, I'd never actually seen James' real body.

“We'll be dropping in MX-11 Jaguar heavy dropships,” he said. “Lazarus Legion and Baker's Boys will be on Scorpio One; the Vipers and the Raiders on Scorpio Two. The third and fourth Jaguars – Scorpio Three and Four – will be empty. They'll be available for evacuation of any recovered personnel. Once the ground pounders drop, all dropships will remain on-site for close air support.” He waved at the station map. “The Jags have anti-personnel rockets and heavy slug-throwers. That should keep the Directorate heads down until you search those buildings.”

Air support was likely to be the key to the success of this mission. In the event that we found prisoners, it would allow us to get people off Capa, but also provide some shock-and-awe. If the Directorate were caught by surprise, a couple of dozen Banshee anti-personnel missiles would cause quite a stir: persuade them that a much larger strike force was inbound.

“Just try not to leave us behind this time,” Jenkins said.

James looked affronted.

“What?” Jenkins said, in mock-ignorance. “You have form, jockey. Just sayin' is all…”

“All right, people,” I said, ending the discussion. I didn't want this briefing to be derailed. Over the last few weeks, Jenkins had vociferously argued that James was the only reason we were out here. Maybe she was right, but dwelling on it didn't change things. “Let's do this—”