Extinction (74 page)

~

The next day, the team leaders met with
the VIPs and their advisors to go over new information and the analysis that
had been on the debrief information.

Mike was a little distracted as he
thought about Daria going to tell Davies about their conversation. He hoped his
friend would believe her when she told Davies that Mike had no ill feelings
about the situation. Daria and Mike agreed that unless Davies wanted to talk to
Mike about it, it would be best if the two men never spoke of it with each
other.

Mike was pulled back to the meeting as
the Detrill emperor stood. “As you know, my people are fascinated with
shipbuilding. We were the primary designers and builders of the ships from the Nortes’
old empire.”

The emperor touched a panel and an
image, of a fleet of ships in a solar system, came up on the screens. “These
images were brought to us by the team who has been in this system for the past
five months. They used their stealth craft to sneak in to our target system and
obtain these photos.”

As everyone looked at the images
changing on the screen, Mike spoke up. “Sir, those aren’t the same ships we saw
departing the interrogation planet’s system.”

“Good eye, Surgeon.”

Mike was a little surprised that the emperor
used or even knew his combat call sign.

The emperor continued, “When we first
saw these images, we were taken aback. We couldn’t believe that the warriors
had been able to design, much less build, ships of these magnitudes on their
own. We thought it might have been plausible that they found another species to
subjugate and take over the shipbuilding for the Detrill.

“You see, during the uprising, the ship
designers were either involved with the separation or were killed back in the empire
to ensure that the legacy could not continue. There were plenty of Detrill left
behind to repair ships and sustain the fleet for a short period of time, but we
felt confident they wouldn’t have any ship designers because education among
the slaves was strictly controlled and enforced. With all of the advanced
designers dead, there would be no one left to teach the next generation of
Detrill slaves how to do that job.”

The emperor then changed the images on
the screen. “Then we came across information that was gathered by Captain
Riley’s team at their dig site. The warriors had a war with a species called
the Cherta. Ultimately the war was a draw and both sides receded back to their
home territories, with very little ground gained or lost by either side.

“The interesting part is, based on the
information we received from the dig site, we believe the ships we are seeing
in the target system are of Cherta design.”

The emperor brought up images from the
history files along with the new recon images. The ships were definitely
similar, though there was about six or seven hundred years between the designs.

“Though the ships are obviously
different,” the emperor continued, “you can see enough similarities in the
design and manufacturing technologies to know they came from the same species.”

The screens were now highlighting areas
on the images, showing the similarities between the ships. Technical
information was scrolling along, also showing similarities in design and
function.

The empress now stood as the emperor took
his seat. “Also from the information obtained at the dig site and through your
new acquaintances, Jeeves and Fouter, we know that the warriors took a great
many of the Cherta captive and created a new class of slaves for the empire.
The new class became advisors to the warriors and their war council because there
was no more Nortes royals to lead them.”

The empress took a deep breath. “Through
your briefing packets, you have learned that we had a planet dedicated to
growing the warriors for the empire. You should also have all of the details we
have on the security systems in place to keep unauthorized parties from
accessing the planet and using the warriors for themselves.”

“If I remember correctly,” Emily began, “the
system is supposedly hidden by natural camouflage caused by some sort of cosmic
anomaly that I quite honestly couldn’t understand, no matter how many times I
read the technical brief.”

“That’s true, Captain.” The empress looked
directly at Emily and smiled. “I don’t understand it myself. I’ve always been
more musically inclined rather than adept in astrophysics. Regardless, we are
guessing that somehow the Cherta slaves were able to obtain the planet’s
location and then get that information back to their people. There are other
possible scenarios but we think that’s the most likely one.”

The president stood to address the room.
“We don’t know much about the Cherta other than they were also conquerors much
like the warriors and the empire they served. From the information we have,
they were a much more benevolent society and did not use slavery as the Nortes did.

“But slaves or not, they were the ruling
class for every society they conquered and did not live as equals with those who
were taken into the fold. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want our
cooperative Coalition, even with all of its flaws, turned into a dictatorship
by the Cherta or any other species, benevolent or not.” The last sentence was
punctuated with the president hitting the table with a closed fist.

Murmuring broke out among the gathered
group with everyone agreeing with the president’s statements. Mike spoke up
above the murmurs. “Okay, if these are the Cherta, then where did the warrior fleet
go? We saw them amassing their ships and then departing together. During our
recon of the target system and surrounding areas, we never saw the warriors or
their fleet.”

One of the panel’s analysts stood. “We
don’t know the answer to that question at this point. We have theories, all of
which are outlined in your materials. As you may already know or have read, the
warriors have a genetically created, um, firewall for lack of a better term.
This firewall keeps them from knowing, finding, or going near their birthing
planet. So they may be aware the Cherta have found it but they’d be powerless
to stop them.

“I know that doesn’t answer your
question of where that fleet went; it just kinda tells us where we know it
didn’t go and why.”

The empress stood again. “Based on our
knowledge of how the warriors fight, we believe that they are staging their
forces between ours and the Cherta. They will want to have a jumping-off point
that will allow them to fight either enemy at any given time.

“We are putting together logical guesses
as to where they might be. Once we have put together a comprehensive list of
systems, we will be sending out recon groups to look for the warriors. The only
good thing about the Cherta becoming involved is that it will delay the
impending invasion of the Coalition we’re certain the warriors were planning.”

Another ship captain stood. “Is there
any possible way of aligning ourselves with either side?”

The president nodded ambiguously. “Based
on what we know of the Cherta, they won’t be open to that because it would make
us equals instead of a citizen group within their empire. However, we are
definitely not ruling out the possibility. Now that we know who we are dealing
with, we are working on the details to set up an envoy in an attempt to make
contact with them and hopefully come to a peaceful and mutually acceptable
resolution. The information we have on them is more than five hundred years old
so it’s completely possible they have changed the way their empire is run, just
as the Nortes and Detrill did in that time.”

The president was about to continue when
the empress added, “The warriors have a saying: The enemy of my enemy—”

Emily allowed her inner dialogue to
become external and she accidentally interrupted the foreign dignitary, “Is my
friend.”

“Excuse me?” was all the empress said.

“I’m so terribly sorry, Your Highness”, Emily
stammered. “It’s just that we have the same saying: The enemy of my enemy is my
friend.”

“Oh young one, if that were only true.”
The empress smiled as Emily shrank in her seat, clearly put in her place for
interrupting. “The warriors’ saying, if I may finish, is unfortunately not as
promising. Their saying is: The enemy of my enemy, will be torn limb from limb
and their hearts eaten while they still beat, to show what will happen to anyone
who does not succumb to our might.”

“Yup, that’s different, all right.” Mike
winked at Emily to try to make her feel just a little bit better.

Seth’s heart was
pounding
. H
e
was running faster
than a Shirka with his fur on fire.
There were no more points of cover
or even concealment a
s
he retreated to
the
newest skirmish line his
fireteam had set up
.
He wasn’t sure
whether
it was the zigzag pattern he was running in or the
ineptitude
of his enemy that kept him from
getting shot, but he didn’t really care so long as his luck held out for
another twenty meters.

“
Just fucking run
,
Cadet! Why are you dancing
out there?!
”

Seth could hear
Surgeon’s voice coming over the
comlink
but he didn’t want to waste any oxygen on a reply, quip
p
y or otherwise. The enemy rounds seemed to be
getting
closer as evidenced by the heat Seth
could feel passing by his face and the exposed portions of his arms. The enemy
used a metal slug that was propelled so fast that it superheated the air it
traveled through. The round also tended to melt right through Coalition armor
and sometimes even set their targets on fire.

Seth dove into
the rock formation the rest of his fire
team was using for cover, and as he did so, an enemy round grazed
his right boot and melted a good portion of his boot’s heel.
“
Damn. I just broke these in
”,
h
e
said through ragged breaths.

“
If you’re done resting over there,
”
Joker started in on him,
“
we could use another rifle on our one-two corner.
”

Seth was about
to retort that he hadn’t brought one when he realized that Jenson and Boddie
were lying near the one-two corner, dead. Seth had two rifles to choose from
;
there always seemed to be an extra rifle lying around lately
—
too many in fact. Seth picked up Boddie’s
rifle and took all of the extra ammunition he could from both of his
dead
friends.

Surgeon was
walking the inner perimeter to check on his men and also the status of their
current position
s
. The war was
taking huge tolls on the Coalition
;
fighting on a
multitude of fronts against two superior forces
wasn’t
going to last very long. Today they were fighting the Cherta, or at least the
Cherta forces. Surgeon had gotten
a glimpse of the
alien enemies earlier but he didn’t
recognized their
species. Luckily, they were fairly horrible soldiers and couldn’t aim worth a
shit. Days like today sometimes gave Surgeon just a smidgen of hope that the
Coalition could pull out of their funk and win a major engagement or two and
turn the tide in their favor.

Surgeon opened
his
comlink
to his wife’s team.
“
Daria, I hate to bug you, but
we’re getting our asses kicked out here. Do you have any sort of time frame for
me?
”

Emily answered
for her friend
.
“
I wish I had
an answer for you, but I don’t. The fact that the Cherta forces are pushing so
hard for this moon makes me even more certain that I’m right it contains
something very important to them.
”

Surgeon had
fought alongside Emily for
more than
eight months now
and had seen her evolve from a science geek to a truly impressive combat line
officer, but she still needed to be
reined
in once in a
while.
“
Ma’am, I understand
that it might be valuable to them, but we have no idea if it will be valuable
to us. It might just be something
extremely
culturally
important, a religious icon of some sort. Something that won’t
have any value to us in this war.
”

“
I know what you’re saying, and I’ve thought of that, but I know I’m
right. I know that we can use to our benefit whatever is in this chamber. I was
here when I was sixteen
;
I wrote a doctoral thesis on
this chamber. It’s important. We need it. I’d bet my life on it.
”

“
You already are
,
Captain.
”
Surgeon paused before he spoke again.
“
We’ll back your play
,
Emily, but at some point we
have to leave
even if we don’t
get what we came for. Otherwise, we
may get into the chamber but we’ll never get back to the fleet to use it.
”

“
Understood. I trust you to decide when we’ve crossed that line. Let
me know when it’s time to go.
”
Emily ended her side of the conversation.