Hidden Empire (58 page)
The gathered Quls were shocked. Tal Aro’nh looked confused and alarmed. “But Adar, what relevance do human … diversions have
to our duties in the Solar Navy?”
Kori’nh regarded the old man sourly. “They have every relevance, Tal Aro’nh. What if one day the Mage-Imperator declares war
against the humans? Would it not be best to understand a bit of their strategy ahead of time?”
“A war with the humans?” the Quls muttered to each other.
Tal Aro’nh looked angry now. “Impossible, Adar! The Mage-Imperator would never demand such a thing.”
Kori’nh’s voice was as flat and threatening as a naked blade. “So, Tal, do you now presume to know the thoughts of the Mage-Imperator?
Do you understand why and how our leader arrives at the decisions that affect his entire empire?
K’llar bekh!
Shall I slice off your testicles and see if you suddenly have access to the
thism?”
Tal Aro’nh backed down immediately. “Not at all, Adar.” He snatched up the datacard. “We will assess these simulations and
play your… space games here, privately, without embarrassment.”
Kori’nh had already attempted the games himself, running simulations in his quarters. Most of the scenarios were simplistic
and naive, with a childishly clear objective, usually to conquer a world. But the Adar insisted, and the Quls gathered up
their orders and departed for their own warliners.
Two days later, Kori’nh engaged his subcommanders in direct human-style space combat—without pomp and tediously rehearsed
maneuvers, without a plan that every officer knew beforehand.
Every one of the subcommanders failed so miserably that even Tal Aro’nh had the good grace to be embarrassed.
A
ll EDF recruits were summoned to the Mars base’s lecture hall for yet another emergency briefing. Tasia accompanied Robb Brindle
into the cold, harshly lit room constructed in a domed-over crater. She felt a knot in her stomach, a growing dread about
the reason for the mandatory gathering.
“This isn’t going to be good,” she said.
Robb looked at her with his large, honey-brown eyes. “Lately, these briefings are always about bad news,” he said. “I wonder
what’s happened now.”
The other recruits were restless, too, talking uneasily among themselves. The trainees had spent a month practicing with various
configurations of attack craft, dropping bombs in the isolated red deserts, shooting at gigantic targets painted on the mile-high
canyon walls.
A lieutenant now, an easy promotion thanks to the huge increase in recruits due to the military expansion, Tasia excelled
in solo missions, flying her reconfigured ship fast and hard, intuitively understanding the different mechanical systems because,
as a Roamer, she had learned to be flexible.
Due to the sudden immense mobilization against the mysterious aliens, the Eddies had been required to take whatever vessels
they could get, cobbling together a fleet from a thousand modified types. Many of the confused recruits complained bitterly
about the nonstandardization, but Tasia recognized the differences and capabilities of ships and kept track of each one’s
advantages in various situations.
Roll with it
.
The only time she’d had trouble was during regimented ground missions, when she’d been forced through nonsensical marches
and choreographed infantry drills that reminded her of primitive folk dances. Tasia hadn’t functioned well when asked to be
a mindless part of a team. After one such assignment, Robb Brindle had joked, “With your attitude and your independence, Tamblyn,
you’re on your way toward either a court-martial or a general officer’s commission.”
Now, when all the recruits had settled down in the domed lecture hall, the lights dimmed. Overhead, the dome showed only the
night of space and the dazzling pinpoints of Phobos and Deimos racing each other across the sky.
The podium shone under a single spotlight and the EDF liaison, Admiral Stromo, stepped to the center. Tasia’s stomach sank
even further. The liaison officer would not address them unless this was a matter of grave importance. The recruits muttered
themselves into silence, but Tasia felt the tension grow in the crater auditorium.
The jowly admiral spoke without preamble. “We have obtained more images of our alien enemies,” Stromo said. “My highest tactical
advisers are studying every fragment of these signals, but I want you all to see them. Understand what we are up against.”
“If those aliens ever show themselves, we’ll kick their butts,” muttered one of the recruits near her. His comment was answered
by rowdy chuckles from his friends.
“We have learned of three more Roamer skymines de-stroyed in the past month. Five total. We obtained these transmissions from
the last minutes of one such facility on a gas giant called Welyr.”
In utter silence, the trainees watched a projection in the middle of the lecture hall. Spiked crystalline spheres rose above
Welyr’s clouds, ignoring the winds and storm systems and descending upon a skymine.
Admiral Stromo’s voice echoed through the hall, adding unnecessary commentary. “The skymine captain—a woman—sounded an immediate
evacuation, and numerous scout ships attempted to escape. The captain ejected her cargo of ekti, but the invaders showed no
interest in it.”
As the recruits watched, the disengaged cargo hold full of stardrive fuel tumbled away from the skymine and plunged into the
ocean of colored gases. “The Roamers repeatedly tried to surrender, but the aliens refused to respond. They just… attacked.”
Shareen Pasternak
—now Tasia remembered the woman’s name. The Welyr Chief had met sometimes with Ross. Now they were both victims of the new
enemies.
Stromo fell silent again while in the image the habitation dome detached from the skymine. Tasia knew that such an action
would have been the Chief’s absolute last resort, a decision no Roamer captain would make unless she was convinced all hope
was gone.
“Observe. Even when the skymine captain tried to evacuate her crew, the aliens came after her. Intentionally and maliciously.”
In the projected images, the predatory crystalline spheres blasted the habitation module into molten shrapnel… and then returned
without hurry to chop up the rest of the cloud-harvesting facility, leaving the debris to tumble down into the clouds. All
hands lost. Tasia swallowed hard, driving down the anger and impatience to do something. She hated just sitting here on Mars.
“Several of the Roamer scout ships remained aloft for a week, trying to survive in the upper atmosphere of Welyr,” Stromo
finally said. “Those vessels recorded the images you just saw, but they did not have sufficient life-support resources or
long-range capabilities. When rescue finally arrived, there were no survivors aboard.”
Robb Brindle looked at Tasia, knowing the pain she felt. He reached out to squeeze her hand, but she barely felt it. Her fingers
were ice-cold.
The images stopped. “That is all,” Stromo said. “Raw data, with no conclusions. Our experts are studying these recordings
and will give you further intelligence as it arrives.”
The light on the stage faded, and the Admiral said, “Dismissed.”
Tasia barely said a word as they filed back toward their barracks. Robb Brindle walked beside her in silence, giving his quiet
support. She hoped he understood how much she appreciated it. By now he knew better than to try and cheer her up or engage
her in innocuous conversation.
As they entered the communal room near the lockers and sleeping quarters, Patrick Fitzpatrick pointedly looked at Tasia and
turned away, raising his voice to his companions. “Hey, at least it was only
Roachers
who got killed.” He reveled in his callous wisecrack. “Next time, though, it might be real people.”
Tasia bristled. Robb stepped in front of her and glowered at the young man. “Hey, vacuum brain—maybe you missed the briefing
where they told us who the real enemy is.”
“Oh shut up, Brindle,” Fitzpatrick said, annoyed that the young black man would take sides against him. Robb shook his head.
“Your stupidity is more dangerous than those aliens are.”
With exaggerated patience and a steel-hard smile, Tasia touched Robb on the shoulder. “Thanks, Brindle. It’s nice to have
a shining knight, but I have my own suit of armor—and it’s pretty damn tough.” She stepped around him toward the sarcastic
trainee. “You have two choices, kleeb: Either apologize, or go to the infirmary.”
Fitzpatrick just laughed at her. Therefore, he had chosen the infirmary.
Tasia used the low Mars gravity to her advantage and launched her full body weight at him, swinging simultaneously with both
fists to hammer his jaw and the top of his head. She sent him into the metal wall, kicked off from Fitzpatrick’s chest and
heard a few ribs crack as she bounced away and rebounded from the ceiling. Tasia didn’t waste her breath, concentrating all
of her energy into knees, elbows, feet, and fists.
The sarcastic young recruit fought back ineffectively, as if he’d always had other people around to protect him. Tasia smacked
him hard in the nose, a choice blow that caused blood to spout from his nostrils. The gushing scarlet seemed to strip all
the bravado from Fitzpatrick.
As if Tasia were a matador waving a red cape, his friends joined in against her, punching from behind, landing a hard blow
across the back of her head. Outnumbered, she whirled to face the new antagonists, never backing down.
So Robb Brindle was drawn into the fray after all.
Both Tasia and Fitzpatrick ended up in the infirmary with bruises, contusions, cuts, and a few cracked bones. She found it
ironic that she was tended by her own compy, who had been upgraded with first-aid programming to make her more useful at the
base.
Both recruits received disciplinary censures—which meant nothing to her, but she could see from the squirming uneasiness on
the spoiled trainee’s face that he was more afraid of his rich parents than of any damage it might do to his military career.
Tasia was released from the infirmary two full days ahead of Patrick Fitzpatrick III. Both of her brothers would have been
proud of her.
B
ecause Corvus Landing was so far from any heavily populated Hansa colonies, Beneto’s roundabout passage took more than a month.
The time gave old Talbun the opportunity to tidy up all the matters in his life.
Carrying a small potted treeling so that he could remain connected to the worldforest on the long journey, Beneto traveled
on three different ships, transferring from a passenger vessel to a merchant ship and then to a freelance explorer, before
he finally arrived at his new home.
He landed at Colony Town, accompanied by cargo containers, crowded cages of noisy and uneasy livestock, supplies, and equipment,
as well as special gifts from Theroc. Content and smiling, Beneto stepped out and breathed the strange air, smelling the fragrances
of an untamed world where Terran agriculture was only beginning to secure a stable foothold.
Corvus Landing was a young, geologically quiescent planet with a generally mild climate and minimal native vegetation. Even
the seas were shallow, and the landforms were smooth, with nothing more extreme than hilly plains.
Dazzled by the clear sunlight without the shade of a dense forest canopy, Beneto drank in the details, felt the sunlight tingle
his exposed green skin. Through the information he’d learned via telink, he knew that fierce storms occasionally whipped the
land with hurricane-force winds that crossed the open plains. Tapping into memories related by Talbun, Beneto experienced
one of these tempests secondhand, seen through the eyes of the local worldforest grove.
In consideration of the weather, Colony Town’s shelters were low aerodynamic structures. The agricultural grid of cereal grains
was able to withstand the harsh storms. The resilient grasses always sprang back when the sky cleared and the sun returned.
Beneto had no qualms whatsoever about being here. Even the small tree he carried seemed delighted to reach its new home.
