Blood War 1: Last Stand of the Legion: Rift (9 page)

             
"They are already here. Hurry."

Istas quickly read the rest of her assignment, memorized her new identity then destroyed the note. She reached behind her left ear and pushed what appeared to be a mole
but was actually a button for her embedded communication device. She dialed in the frequency on the paper. She tore open the clothing bag and began putting on the Naval uniform inside.

LYTEN SYSTEM

RIFT

VON FLEET CORPORATION

RIFT MAIN OFFICE

Colbert Carroll picked up the phone that was flashing red. It was the
corporation's own encrypted private line, a direct line to his immediate superior and used only for subjects that were highly sensitive.

"Carroll here."

"Carroll, there is a Von Fleet ship in orbit. Members of our military section will pick you up soon. You are to do as they say and go where they tell you to go. This should be considered a message that is directly coming from the Chairman."

"Sir," Carroll said.

"Before you leave, you will do an emergency upload of all the information you have in your data bases. The ship is waiting for the data. Then you will destroy all your databases with our emergency destruct program. You will not tell anyone that you are leaving. You will tell your subordinates that this is a surprise security drill. The vessel will take you and your family to an undisclosed location for your safety. You will not tell anyone else in the headquarters what is happening."

"If I may
, what has happened?"

"Our
clients have advanced their time line and are entering the Lyten System as we speak. If you do not get a move on you will not survive. Do you understand?"

"Sir."

Carroll hung up and sat down at his console. He hoped he could remember his password and the procedure. His hands were shaking as he began to type. They were not supposed to attack this soon. The agreement according to his superiors was Von Fleet would receive notice long before the attack was launched, long enough to concoct a reasonable excuse for the evacuation. He forced himself to focus on his computer. He finished the steps for the upload and hit the send button. He watched as terabyte after terabyte of data was swiftly uploaded into the waiting computers on the vessel in orbit. When the upload was finished he initiated the emergency destruct program and his computer memory and all it files were destroyed.

He had met one of the
alien's representatives once. He wasn't even sure if she had been one or something else. It had been years before when the Chairman had summoned him back to Sol on urgent business. He was not told why, only that the Chairman of the entire Von Fleet Corporations vast empire desired his presence immediately. He had been rushed from the spaceport directly to the Chairman’s office. It sat at the top of the largest pyramid office building on Earth; it was over six hundred stories high. The Chairman’s office was at the top of the pyramid. Two huge security guards in all black uniforms and info helmets with the faceplates down rail pistols on their belts, they looked like two statues one on each side of the door. As he approached the door they immediately opened it for him.

When he walked in he was not sure which surprised him more
- the spectacular view or the beautiful woman sitting next to the Chairman. It was a clear day and you could see for miles. The City State of New York went on for as far as you could see, even from this vantage point you could not see its end. All manner of vehicles flew past the window - freighters, personal craft, cabs, the types and purposes seemed endless. The view alone seemed to represent the power of Von Fleet and earth.

As imposing as the view was
, the Chairman was even more imposing. He was the oldest person Carroll had ever seen. There were rumors he was well over two hundred years old. Carroll was not aware of any regeneration that was capable of keeping someone alive that long but then he was not the Chairman. The Chairman was in many ways more powerful than the Security General, so there was no telling the resources he had at his fingertips. His old hard eyes missed nothing, as he looked Carroll over. If he was that old he had seen it all and in his one look Carroll felt as if someone had interrogated him. He doubted the old man missed anything.

"Quite a view
, is it not?" the Chairman said.

"Uh, yes sir it is. I am not sure I can really take it all in."

"Not necessary if you follow my directions and do as I say. You could quite easily have a similar view. So sit down and let us begin."

Carroll sat down in front of the huge desk. Holo's of the today
’s stock market numbers on earth and several of the Confederations other worlds scrolled by to his right. Von Fleet operations were displayed in another holo as graphs representing operations across the corporation's empire.

"Mr. Carroll
, I would like you to meet Miss White."

Carroll nodded to the woman with white blonde hair.
She was a classic beauty with the perfect features of a model, yet there was hardness to her face that made her appear more imposing than attractive. She just stared at him coldly.

"Miss White represents a large group who is interested in doing business with us. A very large group."

"Yes sir."

The Chairman reached under his desk and an electronic
security wall suddenly surrounded them. It glimmered and changed colors, it shielded from any video or audio surveillance. He had heard of the security wall but he had never been in a meeting where it was needed. It was used only for the most sensitive of conversations at the highest levels.

Carroll could only stare. It was too much to take in all at once.

"We have entered into a very lucrative deal with Miss White's people. While you will not be involved in the day-to-day operations, you will play an important role in our agreement. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir."

"Mr. Carroll, you are about to learn something that, if you were to share it with anyone, it will cost you your life. Do I make myself clear?"

"Uh, yes sir
," Carroll stammered.

The Chairmen's old wizened face turned to the woman sitting beside him. He nodded and she nodded back. Carroll had thought of what happened next thousands of times yet he still could not believe what he saw. One second the woman was sitting quietly next to the Chairman
; the next she was holding Carroll aloft with one hand.  Carroll remembered looking into her eyes just the thought caused him to shiver with fear, even years after it had happened. Her eyes were as cold and predatory as those of a reptile. She held him aloft for some time before she shook him like a rag doll and put him back down in his chair.

"As you can see
, Miss White is an extraordinary creature. She is not enhanced nor was this a trick. She is no human breed Mr. Carroll she is from another race. A race I did not know existed before a year ago."

"But she looks human. I can't tell the difference. I...I"

"Alien is your word Mr. Carroll. No, I am part human but I am mostly Xotoli. I am what is called a Xotec, a member of a race that has been selected for the privilege of being part Xotoli. It serves our purposes for representatives to look like the race we are dealing with. It makes things easier shall we say," Miss White said.

The Chairman
’s wizened face changed into the closest thing to a smile Carroll had seen as observed Carroll's reaction. He waited a few moments before speaking, letting the astonishing information slowly sink in.

"You will take back
with you a program to load onto your computer. Then you will destroy the original. You will memorize the password and the procedure for uploading the data the program is collecting. You will be told when and where to upload the data. Otherwise you will conduct yourself normally. No one is to know about this."

Carroll could only nod in agreement.

"Are you clear without saying anything else?" The Chairman said. "Say it."

"Yes, yes sir. I am clear."

"Good. If I had to spell it out for you we would not be using you for this important task."

"Yes, sir. Thank you sir."

"Mr. Carroll, if you ever mention this to anyone, Miss White or one of her associates will come for you, and it will not be pleasant before you are allowed to die. I hate to use such threats but this is potentially the biggest deal in human history and neither you nor anybody else will stand in the way of the corporation’s fiduciary responsibility to our investors. If you do as you are told you will be rich beyond your wildest dreams and become a valuable part of the most powerful corporation in the known worlds. Understood?"

"Yes sir."

Miss White slowly smiled a cold smile and said.

"I think I will come for you myself if you do not perform to our standards Mr. Carroll."

Carroll had not been able to take his eyes from Miss White since she had lifted him so effortlessly. She had held his eyes like a snake held the eyes of its prey. From that moment on Carroll would periodically be told to send certain files to a certain address. He knew it was a very important source of revenue for Von Fleet; in fact it was one of the main sources of revenue according to what he was told. Von Fleet had been smuggling tens of thousands of metric tons from their natural resources division to the Xotoli for years.

Given he was in an entirely separate division that only handled the military contracts of the corporation
, he did not have regular contact with the ongoing operations. He was simply to do as he was told and supply the information a program installed on his computers was gathering. He never understood what he was sending; it was fire walled off from the corporation’s information systems. He never tried to find out what it was, but given the location of his office at the Fleet Headquarters, he surmised that it was intelligence about the location and details of the fleet. He had been assured that it was strictly in preparation for contact from the Xotoli and they wanted to make sure there was no chance of accidentally causing a military incident.

He had just finished the upload and his computers destruction when two of Von Fleet military personnel burst into his office.

"Sir, the shuttle is ready. We must hurry."

Carroll let them lead him out of the office to the concerned stares of his co-workers. Some he had known for decades. He could not look them in the eye as he passed. He smiled and said
,

"It's just a surprise drill. I will be back in a few hours."

Carroll was rushed out to the shuttle. His family was waiting on board with a thousand questions that he ignored for the time being. He sat down and looked back at the building housing thousands of people he had been responsible for, for over ten years. All he could think of was how grateful he was that he had been chosen by the corporation to be saved. The shuttle immediately took off to rendezvous with the Von Fleet ship.

LYTEN SYSTEM

PLANETOID D50

FORWARD OUTPOST CHARLIE

It was busy on the tiny base on D50 in the second
asteroid ring of the Lyten System. The morning launches of Legionnaires and the Swift Boat for their daily security patrols was taking place. Lieutenant Orlando Mustafa stood in the base's tower to watch the launchings. He touched the wall and it had transformed into a huge window. D50 was a frozen rock. Yet it held a beauty for Orlando; his home was the polar opposite of D50; Chava his home planet was green and lush with vegetation. D50 was a small planetoid that never quite made it to becoming a planet but it contained water, and ice. It was perfect for a large forward outpost. The Confederation acquired it from Von Fleet and turned it into a Forward Outpost for the Anchorage. The base was entirely underground except for the Tower. The underground portion of the base was large enough to house the Legionnaires, Swift Boat crews and the personnel needed to support them. It was all his command.

Orlando had grown to enjoy the bleakness of the overgrown rock. With
its craters and mountains created by meteors as the only features, Orlando felt he was as close to living in space, as he would ever get. Space stations were artificial but D50 was real - it had the physical dirt and dust of a real piece of the universe. He had wanted to go into space since he was a child and now he lived in it. So his duty was not a chore but something he looked forward to and he relished his time on the rock. The surface was quiet now - all that was visible was the white blinking lights of the doors for the hanger bays. Orlando could just make out the huge yellow Xs painted on the outside of the grey bay doors in the low light of the distant sun. There were no repair parties out this morning so the only sign that the tiny planetoid was occupied were the lights and the hanger bay doors.

As commander of the garrison he could have delegated the morning launches to someone else
, but he liked to watch the ships effortlessly leave the planetoid and disappear on their patrols. The hanger bay doors warning light began flashing red as they started opening for the launch. The red and white lights creating a morning light show that Orlando never tired of suddenly lighted the landscape. He could see the walls of the crater in dramatic red and white relief as the doors opened. It gave the scene a dramatic, almost theatrical feel.

The Legionnaires morning patrol began to emerge. From the Control Tower Orlando could just make out the outline of those incredibl
e black teardrop ships of the patrol emerge from underground. Both patrols had requested to leave early this morning and it had given Orlando an excuse to make sure he was in the Tower alone so he could enjoy the quiet and beauty of the space around him.

"Tower
, this is Patrol Unsworth requesting permission to launch."

"Patrol Unsworth
, you are clear on heading 142.783."

"Roger Flight. 142.783."

The rest of the Legion patrol emerged from the hanger bay. The hanger door slid shut behind them and the patrol disappeared in the darkness of the sky. Only the dust that was kicked up by the hanger door closing gave any indication that the patrol had been there moments before. The red lights on the hanger bay door next to the Legion's began to open. It was time for the Swift Boat to launch for its daily patrol.

"
TS 111 requests permission to begin patrol."

"Roger,
TS 111 you are clear on a heading of 153.429."

"Roger tower, 153.429"

The Swift Boat slowly emerged from the hanger bay. Despite the TS 111's age it still looked formidable. The small ship was black and grey in color; its sides bristled with weapons and extra armor. It may have been a small ship but it packed a much larger punch that its size would indicate. It had been designed to screen for Task Forces and still carried enough firepower to patrol by itself. The TS 111 cleared the mountains and then accelerated away, its engines glowing white and red against the black sky.

A door opened behind Orlando. It was Sub-Lieutenant Laverick.

"Sir, I did not expect to see you here. I had morning watch."

"The patrols left early this morning and I thought I would take the watch until you reported."

Orlando turned toward the Sub-Lieutenant and that was when he saw that he was covered with blood.

"What?....."

Sub-Lieutenant Laverick raised his weapon and blew a large hole in Orlando's chest. He died looking at the stars he so loved from the floor. Laverick went to the control panel. He turned on the video feed from the hanger bays; he could see the men and women moving about the bays securing equipment after the launches. None were in exit suits. He reached over and threw the emergency lock on all the doors leading from the hanger bays. Then he hit the emergency open for the hanger doors. The doors flashed open. The men and women in both hanger bays were instantly killed as the oxygen was released into the vacuum of space. Their bodies were pulled out into space with any loose equipment. He watched emotionlessly as the bodies floated past the Tower. Some of their faces showed the instant agony of explosive decompression.

He reached into his suit pocket
, pulled out a communication device and spoke a language no human had ever heard. When his communication was answered he went down the stairs to the Tower's escape hatch and put on an exit suit. He stepped out into the void of the planetoids’ surface, his footsteps causing puffs of dust to rise with each step. He did not bother to close the door. The rest of the station’s oxygen blew out in a hurricane behind him.  He simply stepped to the side as papers, equipment and even the body of Lieutenant Mustafa came tumbling out with the stations atmosphere. Calmly he waited for the ship to pick him up. His work was done for now.