Warrior Chronicles 3: Warrior's Realm (10 page)

“For now, your weapons officer will take command. A temporary bridge crew will return to the
Taurus
with Speral.”

“Yes, sir,” Neil was confused. “A temporary crew, sir?”

“Yes, Neil. General Addison has requested that you be permanently assigned as his bridge captain. You will need an abbreviated command course that will commence at 0700 Argyre. That is four hours from now. You will be dirtside for fourteen days. The General has delayed his next mission until you are back aboard your ship. After you leave here, you will continue your command course remotely, with exams given as you are available.”

Platt didn’t know what to say, so Book told him to pack a bag and signed off.

--

On the surface, Cort woke up from a deep, exhausted sleep that he always seemed to find in Kimberly’s embrace, whether or not she had caused it. Slipping from their bed, he led the wolves out of the room and took them for a run, returning an hour later to Kim and a quarters filled with the smells of frying bacon, buttermilk biscuits, and coffee. After greeting her and giving the wolves a treat, he poured himself some coffee and sat down at the table in their kitchen. He had just bitten into his first slice of bacon when the comm in his ear chimed.

“Addison.”

“General, it is Admiral Book. I hope I am not disturbing you, sir.”

“Actually, you are, Admiral. I was just sitting down to breakfast. But if you don’t mind listening to me chew, I can spare you some time.”

“Thank you, sir. I do not want to jump to conclusions, but we may have a major problem. Our engineers have gone over the data from the enemy ship. The ship itself is interesting, but more so is what was in the ship. We found bodies, or rather bodies and body parts. The ship was a transport of some sort, either military or civilian, and was filled with over one thousand beings. I suspect it was civilian because we did not detect enough weapons to arm a military force that size.”

“Military or civilian, they are still our enemies, Admiral.”

“Yes, sir. I agree. My concern is the bodies. They appear to be Blatterians, sir.”

“Blatterians? You mean Lap’s people? Oh fuck.”

“Yes,sir.”

“How sure are you Admiral?”

“Physically, they appear to be identical in anatomy. Spectral analysis shows them to be much darker in tone and somewhat larger in stature, but they are almost definitely related. I spoke with our medical people and they believe the two probably evolved from the same species. We cannot speculate further without a specimen.”

“Send Captain Platt back to me. We’re going to get you that sample. He will be back in class tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.”

Disconnecting from Book, Cort said, “Kimberly, is Bazal still here?”

“No, he’s gone back to Government World. Why?”

“Ask him to join you here as soon as possible. Once he gets here, send him to Argyre. But tell him to be discreet about it. I don’t want anyone else knowing. Have Speral ship him there. Don’t tell anyone else about it.”

“Okay, why?”

“Once he is on Mars, I will share the details with you. Trust me, okay?”

Kim realized she was not going to get anymore from Cort, so she said, “You better not be taking him to a strip club.”

“What do you know about strip clubs? You saw them in one of my movies, right? Do they even have those these days?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

AFS Taurus

Cort pushed the last of the corpses into the airlock. He had spent most of the last half hour floating through the remains of the ship they had destroyed the day before, and was thankful that the debris hadn’t spread further. In addition to the bodies, he also grabbed a few pieces of equipment that looked interesting, and as soon as the airlock was closed behind him, ordered Platt to jump back to Ares space.

Argyre Military Headquarter, Mars

Bazal arrived on Mars before the
Taurus
had collected the samples and delivered them to the Ares Federation labs. After biologists had analyzed the bodies and delivered their findings, Cort and Bazal met privately to discuss them in the Proving Ground. As they moved around the park-like area where Cort’s elite teams once trained in their FALCONs and CONDORs, Zandra explored the area she was seeing for the first time. The training had since moved to Earth, but the area still served as an exercise area for Argyre’s security people and wolves.  On this occasion, a dozen heavily armed fighters were stationed outside and on the transparent Formvar roof of the facility. What Cort had to discuss was not meant for anyone else to hear.

Tell me about the history of Lap’s species, Bazal.
Cort thought to the telepath.

Mizur was correct, then?
Bazal responded.

It appears to be worse than that. We collected samples of the species recolonizing the crystallized planets. They are closely related to Lap’s species. So closely in fact, that they could breed. Frankly, the only reason Lap is still alive is because Mizur could not read the invaders, but you say you can read Lap’s people.

I do not believe Lap is more than he appears. In my sight, he is more dedicated to the Collaboration than he is to his own kind. What will you do, Cortland?

What I always do. I will kill my enemies. But if they look that much like Lap, they may have spies within his people. That means they may have agents within his government. And that puts me in a bind. I cannot share information with him unless I know that information is secure. Do you have any suggestions?

Just one, Cortland: Talk to him. Bring him here.

Cort considered what Bazal had said.
No. I will go to him, but I want you to go with me. If his government is compromised, bringing him here could expose our preparations for war.

Government World, then?

Yes, but we will go heavily armed. Bazal, this brings us to another issue. You are too important to risk your safety. I am assigning a security team to you, and you cannot commune with them. Do you understand? You cannot influence their ability to defend you.

I understand, Cortland.

Good. We have also designed a new tank for you. It will protect you much more effectively than your current one. I will inform the team that you have the ability to communicate telepathically, but I want you to use the ability with them only when necessary. Do not under any circumstance, influence my people. Are we clear?

Sadly, yes.

Don’t say it that way. If I lose you, there will only be war. Until balance is achieved, neither of us can be lost.

Agreed.

They fell silent as they both contemplated what they had agreed to.
Peace
would submit to
War
and
War
would protect
Peace
.

--

“General, we have done more than improve Ambassador Bazal’s tank, sir.”

“What do you mean, Dale?” Cort asked.

Dale Frame was the head of Weapons and Armor Research for the Ares Federation. Known as the WAR department, Dale and his team of scientists and engineers built the machines of war, to be used by Addison and his warriors.

“We have made upgrades to the FALCONs and HAWC suits, with additional software enhancements for the CONDORs. Specifically for the Atlas versions, sir.”

The Atlas interface was Cort’s method of controlling his powered armor. Developed in the late twenty-first century, the system got its name from the location of the harness. The port was on the outside of the Atlas vertebrae in Cort’s neck. By monitoring nerve impulses, the harness synchronized the power suits’ movements to Cort’s movements. In the case of the ten meter tall HAWC suit, Cort was paralyzed and restrained in a fitted recliner inside the torso of the armor. The suit then responded to the his nerves as if it were his body.

“Oh? How did you change it?”

Frame said, “Most of the changes are related to power efficiency, but we have greatly improved weapons control. Especially for the HAWC. Your railgun will track in nearly real time, and acquire targets nearly sixty milliseconds faster across one-hundred and twenty degrees. In conventional mode, it will also cycle faster. The weapon could have already fired faster, but the projectile fabricator was not able to keep up. Now it can, you can print slugs as fast as you can fire them. With the cargo pack, you can fire five rounds per second for up to five minutes straight. That is fifteen-hundred rounds without a reload. You have one round per second for the plasma.  That is nearly a half hour of non-stop firing. Your capacitors are more efficient as well. Your cycle in fractional mode is now two seconds.”

“Nice work.”

“That’s not all, sir. We also increased your armor efficiency. The new capacitors will take twenty percent more energy before your armor goes ablative. That’s for both the CONDOR and the HAWC.”

“Wait,” Cort said. “Dale, you mentioned a cargo pack. What is that?”

Frame smiled and said, “I was wondering if you caught that, sir. It is a multi-purpose backpack. Its mounting rails do not interfere with the railgun or your sword. In addition, it can be used to mount the suit to the outside of a vehicle or ship.”

“Okay, I will play around with them. Thanks, Dale.”

“Yes, sir. All the suits utilize active pass-through camouflage now, and you can switch it on and off. Medical was complaining that people were getting headaches from the ‘always-on’ cloaking effect when they were around each other. This shuts them up.”

Cort laughed, “Until they find something else to bitch about.”

Unknown System

“Sir, Lap has returned to Government World. Bazal traveled with him but has not been seen since arrival there.”

“I am sure he knows about Mizur by now. After Ofzoy was crystallized, both Mizur and Bazal were secluded for some time. It is probably a state a grief. In any case, we have other issues. A colony ship was destroyed en route to their target world. Our first concern was interference by the humans, but no alien ships were in the system.”

“A transition event, perhaps? They are uncommon, but have been known to happen using their jump system, sir.”

“There was no tachyon event recorded, therefore it could not have been a transition. We are investigating whether or not a ship may have drifted into the system. The odds are against it, but we must consider every possibility. Each of the thousand queens we lost carried mature casings. That’s over fifty thousand young perished. We cannot discount an enemy attack.”

“How could the enemy have known it was a colony ship?”

“They could not have,” the black insectoid said with a long hiss. “Most likely, it was an accident. We have lost ships before. Never one loaded with queens, but we have lost them before. Still, we cannot discount Addison. Where is he?”

“According to our team on Solitude, he left for the Ares homeworld. They believe he went there to meet with his military advisors. He did not appear to be in distress.”

“Has he ever been know to have been distressed?”

“Not that I am aware of, sir.”

“Thank you. Please keep me informed.”

“Of course, sir.”

Government World

Not wanting to tip his hand and make the
Taurus
public, Cort had Speral deliver his team and Bazal in her own ship. The
Taurus
was in orbit, but only the new arrivals knew about her. Stepping onto the landing area, Jeff Pence and Lex Sike surveyed the area as Cort and Lap exited the ship, followed by an oversized security team.