Prophet and the Blood March (Prophet of ConFree) (17 page)

"Heritage, Boots. Are you getting this?"

"Boots, Heritage, we read you clearly."

"All right, Commander – assuming what you say is true – which I do not – what exactly is the perilous situation that we face here, if it is not the presence of a pirate gang as well as an illegal intrusion by aggressive ConFree military units into UMC vac? You don't belong here, mister! My standing orders are to repel any ConFree intrusion into UMC vac!" I had my sights set on one of the two armored troopers. One twitch of my finger and he would die in a hail of xmax. My heart was thumping wildly but I was as cold as ice and my sight never wavered from the target. I knew Scout was covering the officer.

"The perilous situation is the presence of Brights on this planet. And what has happened to them. May I ask your name for the record?" the Prof asked.

"Boots, Fly. Touching down if you want me. Request orders." We could hear the Pterosaur, settling down not far from the burning
Golden Summer
.

"Fly, Boots," the captain said. "Deploy your unit for combat, but do not initiate it without my orders. We have an intrusion of cloaked Legion soldiers. They claim they have defeated our cloaking. Stand by to fire autoresponse mode. Commander, if your troops fire, their positions will be targeted with autofire. Cloaked or not."

"We have no intention of firing, Captain."

"If your intentions are peaceful take off your helmet."

"With pleasure." The Prof unlinked his helmet and pulled it off, clipping it to his belt.

"Yes, there are Brights on this planet," the captain stated. "What about it? The pirates brutalized them. We came here on an anti-piracy mission and knew nothing about these Brights. Now we're trying to track them down. Except it appears that you kidnapped them. Right?"

"Not exactly. Tell your man to open my belt pouch – yes, that's the one – and remove the doc card. Take a look at it, Captain. It's classified Cosmic Secret but I have been authorized to pass it to the responsible UMC official on this planet – that's you. Your UMC Chairman has also received a copy of this document. The information is from a reliable source who has provided significant, critical galactic-level intelligence information in the past – repeatedly. And saved countless lives. We believe the source. The source states that there is a high probability that the Brights plan to target the planet Earth with a guided asteroid which will fall into the Pacific Ocean and utterly destroy the city of Ultima Spring from the initial blast and resulting tsunami. It appears very likely that a large portion of Earth will suffer catastrophic long-term effects from this deliberate act of war. "

The Mocain captain stood there reading the document from a nearby scanner. "Are you receiving, Heritage?" he asked.

"We have received,"
Heritage
replied.

"Flash critic to DefCom, and to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, right now."

"Done."

"This is a very imaginative story, Commander," the Mocain captain said. "I'm not sure why we should believe it. Why are you here, what is your mission?"

"Our mission is to gain contact with the Brights, interact with them, explain to them that humans are not their enemies, and persuade them not to target Earth with that asteroid."

"Let me get this straight. The Brights plan to attack a major UMC world, and ConFree wants to prevent it. That does not compute. In view of the state of relations between the UMC and ConFree, why should ConFree care?"

"Captain, I will explain. The Brights are pretty much invulnerable. They can come into our universe at will, and they can quickly annihilate any perceived enemies. I've personally seen them do it. I don't want them to decide that humanity is their enemy. I doubt they will have any interest in distinguishing the UMC from ConFree, or from the pirate gang. They may have already decided there is no intelligent life in this galaxy, and if they decide humans are enemies, the UMC and ConFree will both perish. Now do you see how perilous is this situation? Their people have been attacked, kidnapped, raped and brutalized by humans. Whether the humans are pirates, UMC Startroopers, or Legion soldiers may be too fine a distinction for the Brights to make. They are merciless to their enemies. Those pirates have put all humanity in mortal danger."

"Heritage, I need a flash critic response on whether or not that document is legitimate."

"Will do."

"Captain, we must cooperate. Not as UMC and ConFree reps, but as fellow humans. My unit includes psychics and telepaths who can communicate with the Brights. We are doing so, but actions speak louder than words. You have one male Bright, recently captured. I'd suggest you treat him well. I'd suggest you give him to us so we can reunite him with his comrades, and show that we mean no harm."

"That's not bloody likely! Your story gets crazier and crazier. Why are the Brights targeting Earth? We haven't done anything to them. Why not target a ConFree world? Why us? And when is this going to happen?"

"Captain, we don't have a date, but we know that unless we take steps to counter it, it will happen. We also expect Bright starcraft to show up very soon, on this world, probably to free their people and punish anyone they believe has been responsible for attacking them. The Brights are grateful to their friends, but vengeful to their enemies. I'd suggest you join us in helping the Brights realize that all humans are not their enemies."

"You want their ship. ConFree wants that alien ship, right? That's your mission."

"We have no interest at all in that ship. We are focused entirely on the survival of humanity, and unless we can agree on a united and peaceful response to the Bright starcraft when they show up here, we will not survive, and neither will humanity. Captain, you'd best forget about that ship as well, and decide what you are to do if the sky suddenly fills up with Bright starcraft. They are the ones who will inherit that ship, not us."

The Mocain captain stood there looking down at the Professor. It was quite a sight, that huge Mocain, clad in bronze-colored armor, looming over the Professor, who appeared to be almost child-like in comparison, even in his sinister black Legion armor. But he was looking up at the Mocain, fearless and insistent, ignoring the other two UMC troopers who were still aiming their SG's right at him. I had one of them in my sights, and Scout had the other one. The angel of death had them both in her icy grip.

The captain picked up the chair that he had stumbled over and brought it up to the starlink tac-table, then dragged another chair over. "Have a seat," he said. "Let's talk." A wave of relief washed over me, a physical force. My whole body started shaking, inside my A-suit, and my eyes were suddenly watering. I couldn’t help it. Thank Deadman, I thought. Thank Deadman!

It was a long night. The rain finally let up but we stayed out there, Doggie and Blackie and Scout and me and Saka and Smiley and Ice and Nitro, my good buddy Arie. We moved around a bit, just for security, but we stayed there guarding the exterior of the portmod and keeping an eye on the Mocain troopers. They were cloaked too, but the difference was we could see them and they could not see us. When their second squad filtered in after dropoff from the Pterosaur we dispersed a bit more, because it started getting crowded. They were cloaked too, of course, but we could see them as well. Endless hours passed, as the Prof and the Mocain captain continued their discussion in the portmod. Outside, we were getting overloaded on adrenalin and tension and lack of sleep. The Mocains had been told that we had broken their cloaking so they must have been very jumpy, but we had been told that the enemy would be autoresponse firing to the source of any fire from us. Autoresponse fire was instantaneous and so we knew if we fired we would be located and fired upon – instantly. It kept us awake. I guess we were just about as miserable as those two pirates, Monk and Miss Octopus, who had been dumped outside the portmod, hands and ankles tied together. They lay there in the rain and the cold, abandoned.

Scout and I remained close to the portmod to more accurately target the occupants. By then they had closed the door but both Blackie and our eyemotes gave us an excellent view despite that. At one point a couple of Mocain troopers brought the Bright captive into the portmod. And shortly after that the Prof called Ice in. She had been in there for hours, sitting around the tac-table sipping dox and chit-chatting while we were struggling to stay awake.

"He's having trouble understanding why we are being polite while the others, the thoughtless dead, were waging war on them," Ice said. "I think that's what he means."

"What should we tell him?" the Mocain captain asked.

"Tell him…" the Prof began.

"Just a mo," Ice interrupted. She was still for awhile as the Bright stared intently at her. He was a male, slight in stature, pale faintly glowing flesh, thin golden hair, yellow eyes, clad in camfax pirate fatigues. "I told him he can see the emblem on our armor. We are blood pledged to his people. We will die to defend them. The thoughtless dead are not humans. They are subhumans, an outlaw criminal subspecies that lives outside our society. They are like the Demons. When we catch them we kill them. He is now safe and five of his comrades are safe as well. Because of us."

"Good," the Prof said. "Good. How does he react to that?"

"He wants to see them." We were not supposed to be paying a lot of attention to the dialogue inside the mod. We were supposed to keep an eye on the two UMC squads outside. But it was hard to ignore what was going on inside.

"Bees, Prof, report," the Prof said on his tacnet.

"Prof, Bees. We're safely on board the Vampire. Request permission to…"

"Bees. Set up a vidcam to transmit images to us, now. Set up that tac freescanner and set it to our zero. Put all five Brights in the viewscreen and transmit. Let them broadcast whatever thoughts they want. This male Bright – Gidnurpel – he wants to see the others."

"Yes sir. Request permission to…"

"No! Report back the instant it is done."

"Yes sir."

Δ

A far-off pink sun rose slowly to herald the new day, peeking through the cloudy sky, lighting up the west. It was a wet gloomy morning, the forests black, wreathed in mist, the swamp giving off clouds of noxious gas. Bliss, huh? Sure didn’t look like it. I was ready to drop, still on high alert, surrounded by hostile Mocain troopers who were likely just as short-tempered and weary and angry as I was.

It seems the Prof was happy with the vid relay. The Bright male – Gidnurpel – was happy, too, as far as we could tell. He spent a lot of time communicating with the female Brights on the tactical freescanner, which had been transformed into a two-way device before we embarked on the mission to Bliss. It didn't work on a galactic scale but it worked fine point to point from orbit. The Prof had been lugging ours around in his backpack, and we had finally found a use for it.

"Commander," the captain said. "I have received confirmation from my Hqs that the document you showed me has indeed been passed to our Chairman by the ConFree Ambassador. As to the veracity of the information, of course we cannot say. However, my new orders are to cooperate with the Legion intruders with the objective of avoiding hostilities with the Brights, should they appear."

"That's good," the Prof said. "That's very good." It was the understatement of the year. "In that case, Captain, how about let's have both sides deactivate their cloaking. That's a dangerous situation out there, and your men must be just as tired as mine. Let's give them a break."

The Mocain captain hesitated. On the one hand, it would be useful for him to learn our numbers. On the other hand – he would have to show us his strength as well. He had no idea if our claim to have defeated his cloaking was real, or a bluff.

"It will be understood," the Prof continued, "that either side may resume cloaking at any time, for any reason or for no reason."

"Agreed," the Captain said. "We'd best make this a joint order." That's when the Prof and the captain stepped outside the portmod, without cloaking, and ordered both sides to deactivate their cloaking.

We did so, and so did the Mocain side. I was still pretty jumpy, but I was about worn out and I welcomed the change. It was a little shocking to see all those Startroopers in the flesh, even though we had known they were there.

"Commander," the captain said, "we plan to set up a field kitchen to feed our troops. Please tell yours that they are free to join us should they wish to do so."

"Why, thank you, Captain. That is most generous. We shall do so," the Prof answered.

And that's how we found ourselves in a Mocain Startrooper field kitchen, lining up with our enemies for hot chow. After that scary and miserable night, it was exactly what we needed. The field kitchen was very compact, but amazingly efficient. They even had hot dox.

We troopers sat on the grassy field while the Prof and the captain sat together on a couple of portable field chairs. By that time everyone had their visors open to scarf up the breakfast, which was possibly the best thing I had ever tasted. We were sneaking glances at the Mocain troopers and they were sneaking glances at us, although both sides were primarily concerned with the hot food. It was good to get a clear view of those troopers. There were several Mocains among them but most of the troopers were Inners, not Mocains. There were a lot of captured races or friendly ethnics, whatever term you wanted to use, in the old System empire and in the new Mocain coalition. Many of them I would have assumed were Outworlders had they not been wearing UMC armor.

I was sitting not far from the Professor and I could hear snatches from his conversation with the Mocain captain.

"I'd like you to know," the captain said, "that we're going after that alien ship. Don't try to stop us. We've been ordered to secure the ship, and I probably don't have to tell you that a very heavy task force is on its way, right now, to reinforce us."

"Doesn't that contradict your earlier order to avoid conflict with the Brights?"