Shadow of the Blue Ring (41 page)

The Al’cari captain was now gasping for breath, his wounds slowly and painfully claiming his life. James hated having to put down an unarmed captive but he raised his weapon and took the shot, ending the Al’cari’s life, if only to prevent his suffering further. It was a remarkable request that the Al’cari captain had made, ‘put his people out of their misery by destroying them, it is the only way to save them from eternal torment’. James had no idea what he was referring to or who the Al’cari masters might have been but one thing was clear… these people could never be allowed to take possession of the Shadow Bringer.

“Thirty five years we have been at war with them and no one among my people ever spoke to one,” said Kalmar, looking down on the Al’cari captain’s body, “if only we had known… we thought them to be mindless beasts this whole time. A lost race, controlled by an unknown master, sent out to recover the weapon and told that if they fail they will be subjected to horrors on their return. It doesn’t change the fact that we still need to get that last piece of the weapon though. At least we know where it is now. We can go there and we can end this for good.”

“I just wish the choice before me was easier,” James sighed, “wipe them out to put them out of their misery or spare them and send them back to a torment worse than death. I cannot make this decision, I cannot do this.”

“War never gives us easy choices James,” said Kristea, “no person should ever be put in a position to make a call like this but this is where we are at. It’s three days back to Tolis from here, you have some time to make up your mind. Just know that whatever you choose to do, you can count me in, I’m more than happy to ride this one out alongside all of you guys again.”

“You’re more than welcome, captain Kristea,” said James, “we can use every last bit of help we can get.”

“It’ll be just like old times again,” Kristea smiled, “now come on, we’ve got everything we need from this place. We should get back to your ship.”

James gestured for his crew to follow him as he went to board the flyer, Kristea and Tasos alongside them. The rest of the Akrian soldiers were boarding their own transports and they were taking off one by one, heading back to their mother ship high above them. Had it not been for Tasos’s actions in overruling his father, they would likely have become sport for the Lataka thugs or simply left stranded on the surface of Alatennia with no hope of rescue. Tasos had never been the most popular member of his crew back in the day, he had been perceived as arrogant, a little bit full of himself and quite dismissive of others. His latest actions, however, may have caused many of the crew to now see him in a different light, although it was unlikely Melina would ever want to speak to him again. She looked as if she wanted rip his head off after what he had done to her previously.

“Tasos certainly showed a lot of initiative to overrule his father the way he did,” James said to Kristea as the flyer took off, taking them back up into orbit, “perhaps maybe this is a sign that he is maturing as a leader?”

“He would certainly make a great soldier,” Kristea agreed, “plus he has a good heart, he cares about his people, he isn’t afraid to take action when it needs to be taken.”

“But you’ve spent a lot of time with him recently,” said James, “just how good of a leader will he be when its his time to take over?”

“Well, as much as he would make a good soldier, he is certainly no politician,” said Kristea, “leading our armies or commanding a fleet, I would be happy to follow him into battle. Put him at the head of that council though and I cannot see him being a success. He is too headstrong, too keen to get in on the action. For all of Jovan Artennes’s failings these past few weeks, his work over the past six years has been nothing short of admirable. He rebuilt the alliance from scratch let us not forget.”

“It can’t really be that bad can it?” James asked of her, “you don’t think there is any way he can become the leader that the alliance will need him to be?”

“It depends on the alliance itself,” said Kristea, “if we resolve our conflicts and maintain peace with the Vulians, I think he could handle being in charge over an era of peace. If we go to war or we find more races out there like the Lataka or the Al’cari, I fear for what he might do. I will continue to act as Tasos’s minder over the years and I will continue to teach him what it means to be a leader when his father is unable to do so but he is already into his mid twenties now, he is no longer a child and there is little we can do to change him. I’m terrified that this could be the end of the Artennes bloodline, James, I really am.”

Tasos had always been more troublesome than he should have been but the end of the Artennes bloodline? It was understandable that he might want to rebel slightly having been so sheltered his entire life. Perhaps it was unwise to have taken him on the revolution six years ago, it may have been the catalyst for making him the headstrong character he had become these days. There was still time for him to mature though, not to mention that to continue the bloodline, he would need to take a wife and have a child of his own, preferably a son. Perhaps this on its own would force him to mature into the leader they would need.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure it will never come to any of that,” James said eventually, “once we have dealt with the Lataka and the Al’cari, we can focus on making Tasos into the leader that he needs to be. I mean, Jovan Artennes has at least fifteen years left before he has to step down, right?”

“A lot can happen in just a short space of time,” said Kristea, looking as if there was something else that was concerning her regarding the subject, “all I want is for Tasos to be mature enough to take over from his father once he is no longer around.”

James knew that Tasos trusted him, maybe even looked up to him as a role model after their time in the revolution. If there was anything that he could do to ensure that the young heir became who he needed to be in the end, he would do it. Right now though, he was just relieved to be off the surface of Alatennia and thankful to Tasos for saving their lives. He was even more thankful to once more be seeing the silhouette of the Evening Star in front of them, ready and waiting for the crew to re-board, carrying the third piece of the Shadow Bringer. They were close now, close to ending the conflict and bringing the alliance to peace once more. The only problem was that the hardest part was still yet to come.

Chapter
Seventeen

Th
e
Hear
t
o
f
th
e
Blu
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Ring

The moment the ground teams had returned to the ship from Alatennia, the Evening Star had made for the Valoran sector with all possible haste. According to Kristea, the alliance fleets, including the Vulians, had remained at Tolis, ready to defend against any potential counter-attack by the Al’cari and the Lataka. So far, they had not retaliated but James was not prepared to take any chances. They knew where the final piece of the weapon was being held, the only thing left to do now was to rally the alliance fleets and reach the Al’cari base. It would not be easy going and there was a chance that the alliance could see many more casualties along the way but it had to be done. There was a far harder choice to come though. James had to decide whether or not to detonate the Shadow Bringer and wipe out the Al’cari base or take the weapon and detonate it away from any habitable systems, sparing the Al’cari but sending them back to their unknown masters where they would apparently suffer a fate worse than death at the hands of their masters.

The passing days had not made the impending decision any easier. The Evening Star had passed the borders of the Yangtze and Galante sectors and they were just hours away from making contact with the alliance fleets. James really wanted to do everything that he could to end this fight without a full scale battle having to break out but he could not see any way in which the Al’cari could be swayed from their task if the fate of their entire race depended on the fate of the Shadow Bringer.

If James’s unlikely attempts at diplomacy were to fail, an all-out conflict was inevitable and it would mean going head to head with those dreaded Al’cari battlecruisers again. It was going to take one hell of a plan to be able to get the fleet through these massive ships and then assault their base on the ground but there just had to be a way to do it. With Juarez and Raviano leading the fleets, as well as the combined expertise of his crew, they would surely work out a plan.

As they drew closer and closer to Tolis, James found himself nervously pacing up and down his quarters, going over every possible scenario in his head. How could he end the battle with as few casualties as possible? Could the Al’cari be saved from their enslavement? Should he detonate the Shadow Bringer at the Al’cari base or should he take it away to dead space and dispose of it there? So many difficult questions, so little time to come up with an effective solution.

“You seem troubled, James,” said the voice of Iyacs, “is the impending conflict with the Al’cari causing you some distress?”

“I just don’t know what I should do…” James sighed, sinking down into the chair at his desk, “. . . I want to end this thing so badly but having to wipe out a whole population to do it… it just isn’t right.”

“In the war against the Xerions, many Jaiytid leaders found themselves with similar decisions to make and none of them were taken lightly,” Iyacs explained, “war can sometimes require the sacrifice of a few to save many. If a population of several thousand Al’cari slaves and Lataka mercenaries must be eliminated in order to ensure the safety of tens of billions of innocent civilians, is that not a logical sacrifice?”

“It might be the logical thing to do but that doesn’t make it right,” said James, “I suppose that whatever we choose to do, this battle is going to end very badly for someone. Is putting several thousand Al’cari out of their misery to save them from a life of torment really the best option here though?”

“I don’t know what it is that you want me to say, James,” said Iyacs, “a mercy killing on this scale has not been done before, I cannot calculate the repercussions of something like this. Decisions such as these are best left to the judgement of organic beings, not left up to the calculations of a machine such as myself, not even a sentient one.”

“I don’t know…” James pondered the decision before him, “. . . I still believe that the Al’cari can be saved, I just don’t know how we’re going to do it.” “Then you must figure out how you and those under your command may best extract the weapon from the base while battling the Al’cari who will be fighting with everything they have to protect it. Do you believe that it is possible to leave with the weapon in the middle of such a conflict?”

“No, in the face of what we’re going to be up against, it will be hard enough just getting the weapon assembled down there,” said James, “getting it out again after putting it all back together is going to be near impossible. We have to try though, if we can detonate it without destroying anyone or anything, we have to try.”

“And if you cannot?”

“Then we will have to destroy it there and then,” James concluded, “if there is no other option, I will detonate the Shadow Bringer at the heart of the Al’cari base and see this thing ended for good.”

“No one will judge you for doing what must be done, James,” said Iyacs, “if you can save the Al’cari from their fate, you will have achieved something that many would consider to be impossible. If you cannot, then the Al’cari and the Lataka will have chosen their own fate.”

“I guess…” James sighed, although he wasn’t going to pretend it was an easy conclusion to come to. Diplomacy was a long shot, the chances of it even being considered by any in the fleet were slim to none. Regardless of what happened in the upcoming battle, the Shadow Bringer was going to be detonated one way or another and if it had to be at the centre of the Al’cari base, so be it.

James continued to think over it in his head for the next few hours, not allowing himself to be disturbed by anyone on the outside of his quarters, not even by those on the bridge who were calling him back to the command deck now that they were about to arrive at Tolis. As the ship dropped out of warp into the Tanchanis system once more, James finally decided to make his way back up to the bridge, the weight of the choices he would soon have to make pulling down on him hard as he went.

Everyone was already gathered on the bridge and a channel had already been opened to the rest of the alliance fleet, Juarez and Raviano both already connected via the bridge’s main view-screen. The size of the fleet had grown considerably, each alliance race looked to have sent reinforcements to join up with the remains of the fleet that had previously entered the Blue Ring. There were a considerable number of troop transports among them too, the alliance having prepared for the probability of a ground assault against the Al’cari base.

“It’s good to see you back again, James,” Juarez said as James took up his seat in the captain’s chair, “we feared the worst when we realised where you had gone but I’m glad to see that you managed to get what you went out there for.”

“It was a necessary risk, general,” said James, “we’ve got all three of the missing components of the Shadow Bringer now, we just need to reach the Al’cari base and get the last one. Will the fleet be able to handle something like this?”

“We’ve patched up the damage and we’re all at one hundred percent,” said Juarez, “don’t you worry, we’ll get you to the base safely enough and we’ll make sure that the Al’cari are kept busy while you do what you need to do. We all know what we’re signing on for, just make sure that any sacrifice we make is worth it.”

We’ll do our best,” James assured him, “but this wont be an easy job. Once we have the weapon assembled, we’ll need to extract it from the base and then make a quick retreat.”

“Wait… you want to extract the weapon from the base?” Raviano asked, his idea of their potential course of action likely very different from James’s, “would it not make more sense to simply blow this thing up and take the Al’cari down with it?”

“James, we know that if we try to take the weapon and run, the Al’cari will simply follow us and hunt us all down in an effort to get it back,” Juarez added, “if we destroy it and we take their base and their ships down with it, this war will be over before it has had the chance to truly start.”

“There is more to this that we originally thought, general,” said James, “the Al’cari are slaves and so are their Lataka allies. We don’t know who their masters are but we do know that they are not acting out of their own free will. If we take the weapon away from the Al’cari base and detonate it elsewhere, their people will cease their quest to find the weapon and return home. They do not all have to die.”

“Captain Tavarez, I respect your ideals but I’m afraid that this course of action is simply not feasible,” said Raviano, “I understand that this must feel like an act of genocide but we are not destroying an entire race, we are simply crippling their base of operations and their military forces. If we detonate this thing at the centre of their base, would the outcome be any different to simply defeating them in battle conventionally?”

“Except that we cannot defeat them in battle conventionally without taking very serious casualties,” said James, “this feels like cheating, its fighting dirty. Just a few days ago I probably would have supported this course of action but after having spoken to one of them and learned what’s really going on here, I don’t know…”

“I understand that you may sympathise with them, especially after so many of us were in similar positions serving the will of the Vulians during the occupation,” said Juarez, “but we must do everything that we can to ensure the safety of the alliance. If you can find another way to save the Al’cari from this fate then by all means do so but as long as they are a threat to the alliance, we must do everything possible to eliminate them, even if it might seem distasteful.”

“They’re right, James,” said Kalmar, “we all knew how this was likely to end when we first started collecting the missing pieces of the weapon. I know you might think they can be saved somehow but take it from someone who has been fighting them for over ten years… they will not give up this quest, we have to put a stop to it.”

“Then I guess there is only one thing for it…” James knew it himself that there was only one likely outcome but he still wanted to believe that there was a better way. Raviano was right, the outcome of detonating the Shadow Bringer would be no different to that of defeating the Al’cari and Lataka forces outright, assembling the weapon and then detonating it to be rid of it. As soon as they arrived at the Al’cari base, they would have to assemble it with all possible haste, arm it and then get off the surface is quickly as possible.

“Captain Tavarez, before we make our move is there anything else you can tell us about these Al’cari that we might need to know?” Raviano asked him, “weaknesses? Tactics? Possible size of the enemy force?”

“We know that the Al’cari are not alone, they have a subservient race called the Lataka who make up most of their ground forces,” said James, “they’re slower and weaker than Al’cari warriors but they are merciless thugs and brawlers who enjoy violence and we should not underestimate them. I can’t give you any accurate guess at their fleet numbers but on the ground I would certainly expect their soldiers to number in the thousands. I’ve seen our ground forces in action before so I’m pretty sure we can hold them in a fight, I’m just concerned about how our fleet will cope in a straight battle with theirs when their jamming technology pretty much rendered the entire fleet blind in the last battle.”

“We were very aware of this before, James, and we have developed a counter-measure,” said Juarez, “we analysed the jamming signal that they were using and we developed a counter-program which we have installed on all of our ships which will hopefully block the jamming signal at least partially and allow us fight on equal terms.”

“We are not saying this will be an easy fight,” Raviano added, “but we will at least be able to make it a much more even contest now that we have seen what they can do. We will avoid them where they are strong and hit them where they are weak. They know that our fleet has the firepower to take one of their ships down and they will be aware of this when we next fight against them.”

“Understood, admiral,” said James, “how long until we’re ready to move out?”

“The fleet is fully prepped and combat ready, we simply await your order, captain Tavarez,” said Juarez, “when you give the word, we will follow you, provided you know where it is that you’re going.”

“We do, general,” said James, “their base is right at the heart of the Blue Ring nebula. Captain Kalmar has managed to narrow down it’s potential location to a radius of about twenty million kilometres. We know where we’re going. As soon as we’re ready, we’ll give the word to move out.”

“We’ll be ready and waiting, captain,” said Juarez, “we await your word…”

Juarez and Raviano both closed their respective channels, leaving the crew of the Evening Star to themselves. In just a short while, the assembled alliance fleets would once more head out into the unknown depths of the Blue Ring sector. The journey would take almost forty hours from Tolis but they would have plenty of opportunity to make last minute preparations and plan their strategy en route. Before leaving, however, there was one person that they needed to return to the council ship.