Warrior Chronicles 2: Warrior's Blood (30 page)

“Rescind that order now, Cort.”

“No. My standing orders are to destroy the crystal, wherever I find it. We know how to that, and the crystal is now in our home system. Move it or lose it.”

“Cort you don’t call the shots anymore. It’s under civilian control. We keep the crystal.”

“If the crystal is still in this system tomorrow morning, I will destroy it.”

“You said you were going to start following orders. I’m ordering you to stand those fractionals down, General Addison.”

“You need to talk to Doctor Verne. When you do, ask him about President Truman. Tomorrow morning at 0600, Chief.” Cort disconnected and commed Kim. “I want to know about any ship movements for the next eighteen hours.
Any
ship movements. Are we clear?”

“What’s going on?” Kim said as she brought up her monitors.

“They want to keep a piece of the crystal on Deimos. I told them they have eighteen hours to move it. If they don’t I will blow Deimos out of the sky.”

“Is it up for discussion?”

“No. I’ll see you at home.”

“Okay,” Kim sighed, “love you.”

--

Cort stood on the command deck of the Ares Federation Ship
Remington
. It was the first transdimensional ship built by the Ares Federation, as well as its first warship. The AFS
Remington
was for all intents and purposes a double-barrel Gauss cannon attached to a propulsion system, and the barrels were massive. Each one was two kilometers long and just over forty meters in diameter. The tungsten slugs fired by the barrels were cylinders forty meters in diameter and eighty meters long. The sabot rounds that contained the resonance torpedoes were just as large but weighed considerably less than the one hundred and ninety four thousand metric tons of their tungsten counterparts.

“We are in position, sir,” Captain Jade “JJ” Jones said to her boss. Until her grandfather moved the family from a small non-allied island in the Pacific to Atlantica, JJ’s family had never been injected with synthetics. Consequently she still visibly retained much of her Polynesian heritage, but her diminutive size and build did nothing to attenuate her command of the ship. “My capacitors are charged, and the coils are online. We just need you to pick a target.”

Cort studied the screen in front of him. “Okay, JJ,” he said as indicated a large asteroid passing in front of him. “This rock, single barrel, and use a test slug.”

“Weapons. Test slug. Port barrel,” Jones commanded. “By the numbers, people.”

The weapons officer said, “We have a lock, sir.”

“Talk to your captain, not me.” Cort was irritated that the weapons officer bypassed the chain of command.

“I was, General,” the man said cautiously.

“General,” Jones said, “we adopted that from Speral’s people. Their command structure uses ‘sir’ for all superiors, regardless of gender. I don’t want my people differentiating between male and female officers.”

“I see. I’m sorry, Lieutenant.” To Captain Jones, Cort whispered “That’s a great idea, JJ. I’m sorry for interfering.” The bridge crew smiled. Clearly the general didn’t realize how much his voice carried.

“Thank you, General,” Jones said. Then to the bridge she said, “Resume the test.”

“Lock is confirmed. Coils are charged. Port barrel is ready. Switches armed. Transfer speed is seven. Waiting for your command, sir.”

“Fire,” Captain Jones ordered.

The transfer speed determined the amount of time each switch had to feed energy into the aluminum test slug. The lower the number from one to ten, the more time each of the five hundred coils had to energize the slug. By the time this slug left the barrel, its supercharged plasma carried enough energy to obliterate the five kilometer wide asteroid Cort had selected. The impact was spectacular, turning the viewscreen pure white for several seconds.

“Okay people, secure the weapons. Cycle the capacitors back to propulsion mode,” JJ ordered. After hearing acknowledgement from her bridge crew she turned to General Addison. “Orders, sir?”

Cort was impressed with Jones. She was no nonsense and understood the urgency of the situation. She wanted to get the weapon and engine trials over just as quickly as he did. “Let’s go test the resonator injection procedure, Captain. Take us to Mercury.”
After that, I’m turning you loose with your coach gun, Captain.

The End

About the Author

Shawn Jones was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He now writes in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, where he lives with his wife Lorelle and son Alex. An avid outdoorsman, he enjoys fishing, camping, hiking, and sailing.

Dedicated to my son Alex. If I can be half as good a writer as you are a basketball player, I will be a success.

Special thanks to Jonah Miller, the smart guy, to Fiber, the nitpicker.

Thanks to my beta readers Dawn, Goose, Shawn, and Mel.

Cover art:

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Warrior’s Blood, Copyright 2014 by Shawn Jones. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced without the written permission of the author except for brief quotations embodied in reviews.