Spirit of Empire 4: Sky Knights (52 page)

Atiana looked thoughtfully at him. “Lady Krys accused me of being an expert manipulator. She even caught me trying to manipulate her. Are you doing the same to me right now?”

The grin on Josh’s face made him look less severe. “Us Knights spend most of our time manipulating others so I probably am, but in your case I’m just trying to share some hard-learned lessons. I have to confess, though, that the more I’m around you the less certain I am that my advice is needed.”

He gave her a moment, then added, “I hope you’ll take my manipulations as a complement, Your Majesty. You’re no longer on the front line of a squad of soldiers or a caravan, or even your own knights. You’re leading a world, and a lot of people are counting on you to be good at it. Someday a few of them might even appreciate your efforts, though more of them will probably hate you. It’s just the nature of things.”

“In spite of that, you like it?”

He winced, then looked through the net at the formation of ships screeching through the upper atmosphere toward the ground. Because of the magic of the net, she knew the direction of his thoughts.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been with them,” he said nostalgically. “How many times I’ve stood in the open door of an aircraft and jumped into danger, how many times I’ve assaulted a position. I miss it.” He turned to face her. “I willingly give it up for what I’m doing now. Our jobs are bigger than ourselves. Few ever get the opportunities we’ve been blessed with.”

“What if you err? Mistakes could cost a lot of lives.”

“I have erred. I will err again. So will you. We’re not asking you to be perfect, we’re asking you to do the best you can.” He paused, then added, “Some of us have joined in a pact, and I include the Queen in this pact. We give all that we are. We do it for our children and for our children’s children.”

“The Queen told us. I would make such a pledge.”

He shook his head. “Not to me. Not yet. The day might come when the Queen calls on you for more, but at the moment your pledge is to the people of Tranxte. They need and deserve all that you are. I imagine you already made such a pledge to the people of your kingdom, but if you haven’t already, it’s time to include everyone on the planet.”

* * * * *

Thousands of mulogs had formed up around the edges of the spaceport and were clearly visible on life force sensors, though they were less easy to see with the visual sensors since they tended to blend in when stationary. Because of the size of the port, any attack by them would have to cover a lot of ground before reaching the meeting place in the center of the port. The frigate and ten shuttles could easily thwart such an effort. Havlock was concerned that the peick speaker was not in plain sight, but he was willing to wait once he landed. If things deteriorated after he showed himself, he would just turn around and leave.

When his forces were in position, he gave the command. Three shuttles settled to the ground near the center of the port, and marines raced out to set up a perimeter. The shuttles lifted off but remained close by. Havlock’s shuttle raced straight in toward the center of the perimeter. Just before landing, the front ramp opened to allow quick egress for his squad.

The moment the ramp opened, heavy guns popped up around the edges of the port and opened up on his shuttle. Even heavier weapons popped up around the nearby production facility, all of them focused initially on his shuttle. The pilot tried to abort the landing, but the shields on his ship overloaded and failed. The attackers got through to the ship’s power plant and the ship fell the last few feet, crashing then tumbling out of control toward the edge of the port.

The frigate struck back with multiple weapons, silencing one heavy gun after another, but others continued hammering away at the crashed shuttle for a little longer before going silent, tearing jagged holes in the twisted wreckage. The three nearby shuttles interposed themselves around the crashed shuttle to take the brunt of the attack and two of them went down, but they hit the ground under control.

The crashed shuttle came to rest half way between its intended landing spot and the edge of the port, leaving the marines already on the ground out of position. They set out for the crash sight at a full run. Orderly ranks of mulogs rose up from the tall grasses surrounding the port, running upright on their two hind legs in a full scale attack. Peick snipers, previously hidden, rose up with long barreled blasters to fire down preplanned, clear lanes between their attacking forces. Marines fell, though because of their body armor, some got back up.

Fifty peicks lifted off from the city on armed scooters and headed the short distance to the port.

With Havlock out of the picture on the crashed shuttle, command reverted to Lebac. Six of his shuttles remained unscathed, and one was damaged but operational. He ordered marines on scooters to intercept the airborne peicks, then he sent the last three shuttles in to protect Havlock’s crashed shuttle.

The first two squads to land, all of them hardened experts after fighting gleasons on Tranxte, set up a new perimeter. They opened up with pinpoint accuracy against the mass of mostly unarmed mulogs running toward them. With help from weapons on the airborne shuttles, they established a temporary barrier to the mulogs. Still, several marines fell to well-aimed blaster shots from snipers, and marine sharpshooters started focusing on those peick sharpshooters.

Peicks on scooters tried to head straight for the crashed shuttle, but marines on scooters intercepted them. The sky quickly filled with a vicious dogfight of over 100 scooters. Scooters zoomed every which way, marines and peicks vying for positions from which to fire while doing their best to avoid getting shot down. Slowly, the marines forced the general melee away from the spaceport, but then peicks on the ground added their blaster fire to that coming from the peicks on scooters. The marines were forced to pull back closer to the spaceport, and the aerial battle slowly moved toward the crashed shuttle.

The frigate moved into position above the crashed shuttle and unleashed its massive anti-ship weapons on the mulogs and on the the few heavy weapons still visible in the city, though they appeared to be abandoned now. The frigate’s upper weapons carefully picked off enemy scooters, and before long the peicks on scooters were so outnumbered that they had to withdraw. The marines took that option away from them, following them and taking out every single enemy scooter before returning to engage ground forces.

Marines from the last shuttle to land entered the crashed shuttle to search for survivors. Bodies of the dead and wounded transferred out and departed for the cruiser, and marines on the ground began a controlled retreat to the remaining shuttles which then lifted for the cruiser as well. Scooters returned to their shuttles, a somewhat tricky maneuver when airborne, and those shuttles eventually returned to the cruiser as well.

The frigate remained on station, its purpose no longer to take out attacking mulogs but to obliterate the remains of the downed shuttles and scooters. There was no way they would allow the peicks to get their hands on technology that could let them travel into space.

Galborae, with an arm around Atiana, met the returning shuttles in the hangar bay, but the medical staff ignored them, their only focus saving any marines that could be saved. Floaters exited the two shuttles one by one, at first carrying wounded, then the dead. Atiana did not recognize anyone on the floaters under all the medical paraphernalia, so she and Galborae followed them to sick bay and waited.

Akurea found them there. She put an arm around Atiana’s shoulders and tried to steer her out of sickbay. “Come on. There’s nothing you can do here. Let’s go back to the command center. We’re not done with this world yet.”

Atiana lifted dry eyes to Akurea. “I have to know if he’s alive.”

Akurea lifted a hand to her mouth in horror. “You don’t know?”

“Everyone’s been too busy saving lives to talk to us.”

Akurea frowned and bit her lip. “I’m sorry. I should have come for you sooner. He’s alive but in bad shape. That’s all I know. ”

Atiana closed her eyes and swayed, leaning heavily into Galborae. The spell passed and she straightened, saying, “Had it not been for Lady Krys’ vision, we might be in there with him.”

Akurea nodded grimly. “There were only four survivors of the crash. I guess what you’re doing is really important to someone.”

“The Queen, I’m told.”

Akurea shook her head. “Not just her. I think it’s important to the Leaf People as well.”

“I’ve heard of them but have not met them. After what happened today, I’m forced to give their visions more credence.”

Akurea’s lips tightened into a thin smile. “A meeting with them probably lies in your future.”

When they reached the command center, Atiana’s gaze went to Josh and stayed there for a time, her mind on the advice he’d given her. She reached a decision and stepped to the center of the room with most eyes on her. She lifted her chin and said, “We’ve suffered a great loss today, a surprising loss. In hindsight, we misinterpreted the peicks’ positioning. They were not set up to defend themselves. This was, all along, an ambush.” She kept her gaze moving around the room, adding, “They behaved exactly the way you built them to behave.”

She looked to Josh. “The question we have to answer is this: are these appropriate adversaries for the gleasons? From what I have seen, I believe they are.”

“Don’t we have another question to answer, as well?” he asked. “Don’t we have to decide if the gleasons are needed here?”

Atiana shook her head. “No, that’s not our decision. The peicks’ have to answer that question themselves.”

Josh’s eyebrows rose, about all the reaction he ever showed. “Surely you don’t intend to send another committee to talk with them.” He thought for a moment, then added, “The peicks fight with strategies, just as we do. The gleasons fight mostly singly, though from what I’ve heard, they’ve demonstrated some crude strategies. It could be an interesting competition. I say bring the gleasons.”

“I hope I’m not the only one with this thought in my head,” Atiana said. “What will the descendants of the peicks and gleasons become? The survivors of this conflict will be hardened killers. Are we creating something we’ll regret?”

“A valid question, My Lady,” Josh answered. “Assuming, of course, that any of them survive.”

* * * * *

Atiana asked for a link to the surface and got one. “You fought well today,” she said into the communicator.

A disembodied voice filled the room. “It’s what we do. Come back. Let’s do it again.”

“No. We came to talk, not to fight.”

“Then you came to the wrong place.”

“You talk among yourselves. Why not with us?”

“You created us to fight. We learned today, but we want to learn more. It’s not very challenging fighting among ourselves.”

“We’re not a good opponent. We’re weak where you are strong and strong where you are weak. I have a better solution.”

“Explain.”

“I’m prepared to bring a worthy opponent, many of them, thousands of them. We call them gleasons. They live to fight just as you do, but they are not enhanced. They don’t need enhancements, so amazing are their fighting skills. You might not prevail against them.”

“They are the ones we were designed to fight?”

“No. You were designed to fight weaklings whose main weapon is a powerful mind weapon. With your ability to withstand the mind weapon, I think you would have found little satisfaction fighting them. I’m offering you a harder test.”

“We seek challenge, always.”

“I can bring the challenge you crave, but I must know: do you speak for all the peicks?”

“I command.”

“I need to hear you say these words: ‘I invite the gleasons.’”

“I invite the gleasons. Bring as many as you can.”

“I will. It will not be soon, but I will do my best to convince them to come.”

“Hurry. Or better yet, come to us again, now.”

“No. I do not need another lesson from you. I respect you and wish you well with the gleasons. They will come without warning. It will probably be a year.”

“Hurry.”

She nodded to Admiral Jas who had the communications officer break the connection. “We’re done here,” she said. “Will you take me home?”

Josh held up a hand. “Not quite yet. We’re still hearing a distress beacon. We have to investigate.”

“Sire,” Jas said, “it’s an automated beacon.”

Josh nodded. “I understand, but we were told that some scientists and workers were left behind when the rebels evacuated.”

“You want to go back down there?” Jas asked incredulously. “Sire, we’ve done some pretty amazing things together, but I’m not in agreement with you this time.”

“I understand. The people who were left behind are probably dead, but we need to check it out. If we can do it electronically, great. Otherwise, we have to go down. I was given the most likely location of any survivors, so we can be fairly quick.” He thought for a moment, then said, “Lex and I will get together to plan this. We’ll probably need help from the marines.”

This operation, too, was an Empire responsibility and Atiana had no issues with staying behind. Galborae, on the other hand, did.

He pulled Josh aside. “I’d like to go with you, Sire.”

Josh’s eyebrows lifted. “Why?”

“It has to do with visions,” Galborae answered.

Josh did a double-take. “I thought that’s what today was all about. You stayed behind because of a vision.”

“There are other visions, Sire.”

Josh’s eyes narrowed. “There’s more than one vision about you?” he asked with some incredulity in his voice.

“Actually, Sire, there are three.”

“Awesome,” Josh mumbled. “Would you care to share the details?”

“It’s probably not necessary. One of them definitely applied to Tranxte, one almost certainly to here, and the location of the other is, as yet, unknown. I just have a strong feeling that Tranxte and Harac are related in some way we don’t yet understand. It’s just a feeling, Sire.”

Josh stared at him while he considered. He ended up saying, “Actually . . . surprisingly . . . feelings have played a big part in what we do, particularly when the Leaf People are involved.” He nodded almost absently to himself, then looked down to Limam. “Does she always accompany you?”

“Whenever possible.”

“Okay then. You won’t know our hand signals, so stay by my side unless I assign you to someone else.”

Galborae nodded agreement. Protectors did not like to delay, but with the marines involved, this was a fairly complex operation. They were ready to go the following day, and everyone, including Limam, was dressed in battle armor. Great Cats generally shunned its use, but the savagery and skill of the peicks at the spaceport had not been missed by these ancient warriors, and they were covered from nose to tail in sleek, dark blue armor. All seven operational shuttles left the cruiser and formed up on the frigate, then headed back toward the spaceport. The cruiser followed at a distance, its job to reinforce if things went poorly.

There was no attempt to hide what they were doing. The frigate settled over the entrance to an underground facility next to the spaceport and pounded away with its multiple weapons, scouring the adjacent area of anything that lived, though it avoided the area directly above the underground facility in fear of collapsing it. When the frigate backed off, three squads of marines landed and set up a perimeter around the facility entrance. Josh’s team of fourteen consisting of six Great Cats, six Terrans, Josh, and Galborae dropped down swiftly in a shuttle and deployed into two teams, one for each side of the ramp. Lex commanded this operation. The moment they were clear, the shuttle left.

Each Protector carried a backpack stuffed with explosives. They moved down each side of the ramp to the massive, armored door at the bottom. Walls towered over them by the time they reached the door. The area showed signs of attempted forced entry—the remains of old blaster shots almost obscured the artistic designs built into the door during its fabrication—though the door itself, constructed of material too hard for blasters to penetrate, appeared to be undamaged.

So far, they had seen no mulogs or peicks. The locking controls for the door had been demolished by blasters, most likely in the hands of the peicks, but possibly by the survivors fleeing into the underground facilities—they might have locked themselves in on purpose. Two Great Cats went to work on the remains of the door control, hooking up an Imperial override controller that would, hopefully, restore control.

Amazingly, ten minutes later the door irised partially open. Sirens briefly blared from inside the facility, then they went silent.

Lex, not expecting an answer and knowing that if he got one it might be from the business end of a peick’s weapon, edged along the door until nearing the opening. Another Great Cat did the same from the opposite side.

He called out, “Imperial Protectors. Come out.”

A female voice responded. “Show yourself. Use care. I have multiple, heavy weapons pointed your way.”

Lex let out a short breath of relief. The voice sounded human, not peick. “Do I look like a fool?” he called. “I am not an android. I’ve come to rescue you. Keep your weapons, but come out.”

The Protectors lined up on the door on both sides of the opening. Before long, an eye peeked around the edge of the door to check the area on the far side of the opening. She saw Lex, and he stepped away from the door with his weapon pointed down.

A brown-haired, young woman with wide-spaced, hazel eyes, a wide mouth, and a firm chin brought the rest of her face into view to study him, though she kept her weapon behind herself and out of sight. Lex nodded approvingly and stepped farther into the open. “Are you alone?”

The young woman, dressed in a t-shirt and baggy pants, stepped fully into the opening, her eyes wide as they took in the Great Cat in his blue body armor, then the rest of his men. She ignored his question and countered with one of her own. “I’ve heard tales of Protectors,” she said. “Are you one of them?”

“Does it matter? Do you want to be rescued or not? What’s your name?”

“I’m Claire Nbara.” She glanced up to the sky. “I haven’t been outside in years.” Her gaze moved back to Lex and she stepped all the way outside. “I’d given up hope.”

At that moment, marines on the ground above the entrance started shooting, and snipers from each side of the ramp opened up.

Claire’s weapon snapped up toward the roof, her eyes looking for peicks. “Get inside,” she ordered. “They travel in packs.” She turned back to the interior and called out an all clear to her people as the Protectors moved in.

Lex had expected a dark, cave-like interior in which survivors eked out a day-to-day existence. Instead, a quick glance turned into a brief study when he found himself in a brightly lit loading area. The floor ran flat for forty feet, then stopped at an elevated loading dock colored with bright chevrons. Twenty feet beyond the loading dock, three wide isles stretched into the distance between tall shelves and storage units.

A glassed-in control room was immediately to his right. Several vehicles were parked beside the control room, and up on the loading dock, orderly rows of warehouse handling equipment stood in well marked parking areas. The whole place was immaculate.

He growled a command and two Great Cats went back outside to remove the controller they had used to open the door. When all fourteen of his men were back inside, Claire called out again and the door closed. A young man, little more than a boy actually, stepped out from a control room with his hands in the air. Claire called out again, and two more youngsters came out from behind storage shelves, though they had not dropped their weapons, only lowered them.

“Looks to me like you’re short a few of those multiple, heavy weapons, eh?” Lex asked.

“Are we really saved?” Claire asked in wonder.

“Where’s everyone else?” he demanded.

“Coming.”

“Why didn’t you respond to our calls?”

“The peicks destroyed our exterior antennas. We only have short range communicators working inside the facility. We heard fighting yesterday, but we thought it was the peicks fighting among themselves. Our exterior sensors on this door are dead.”

“Your distress call is still going out.”

“If you were a peick, would you turn off that particular call?”

Lex’s lips lifted, and the four young people took half a step back. “No, I suppose not. Enough of these games. The peicks know we’re here. It’s time to be away. How many of you are there, and how quickly can you get everyone ready to leave?”

“There were 312 of us at the last count. It will take a while. Mother’s on her way.”

“She’s in charge?”

“Yes. She was our security chief before the evacuation. Now she’s mayor.”

Lex called Colonel Lebac with instructions: “We’re bringing out some 312 people. Work out a retreat plan while we get them ready. With this many, we might want to load them directly into the cruiser. Someone else can make that call.”

Lex left two Protectors behind with Claire’s three guards. She led the rest of the Protectors across the brightly marked staging area, then entered the storage area. Shelves and containers lined both sides of the center isle, and everything was brightly lit and clean. The shelves were about half full. Protectors spread out in the normal fashion, moving from cover to cover as if they were infiltrating an enemy stronghold, until reaching a tall, double door that was closed tight.

Claire called on her communicator and one side of the door slid open, revealing a multi-story foyer opening onto offices and laboratories. The corridor they were in continued into the facility for a hundred meters, then branched out in a Y-pattern. Armed men and women had taken cover anywhere they could find it, and many blasters were pointed toward Lex when he stepped through with Claire.

“The main door is secure,” Claire called. “This one claims to be a Protector. He says he’s here to rescue us.”

Weapons drooped, and people stepped into plain view with expressions of hope and amazement.

“It’s true. Who’s in charge?” Lex asked.

A gray-haired woman with deep worry lines etched into her thin face stepped out, then continued up to Lex. “I’m Mayor Nbara.” She glanced back at her people, then said softly so no one else would hear, “You’re a sight for sore eyes. Privately, I’d given up hope.”

“Feel free to hope again,” Lex growled. “How soon can you be ready to leave?”

“A few hours.”

Lex shook his great head. “Anyone not ready in half an hour gets left behind. Anything more than that and we’ll have a major battle on our hands. Bring nothing. Tell your people to run, not walk.”

Her lips thinned as she lifted a communicator to her mouth and started issuing evacuation orders. When she was done, she said, “I’ve activated the plan. What else do you need from me?”

“We brought charges. I could use a set of plans for the facility so I can decide where best to place them.”

“Already done. We had no intention of leaving anything, including ourselves, to the peicks if they broke through.”

“Then I need someone to give me a tour so I can confirm what you say.”

She nodded grimly and looked to Claire. “Get a hauler, a big one. He’ll want to bring his men.”

Claire left at a run but did not have to go far. A number of vehicles which resembled scooters waited nearby. She hopped on one of them and tore off into the cavernous underground facility. Several others took their own scooters and followed her at a far more reasonable pace.

Mayor Nbara stayed behind with the Protectors. Her gaze moved to each one of them as she said, “Thank you so much for coming. This has been an enduring nightmare.” She looked to Lex. “Do you understand what you’re up against?”

“Not entirely. We fought one engagement with the peicks and lost, but we learned our lesson. It won’t happen again. Professor Noor briefed us on the project back on Plenski III.”

“So he made it,” she said, nodding grimly. “He left us behind.”

“He claimed he had to leave before the peicks took his ship.”

She shook her head, still angry. “He had other alternatives. He was always terrified of the creatures. The rest of us fear them, but we’ve managed that fear.”

“I can’t say you won’t be trading one prison for another,” Lex said.

She frowned. “Why?”

“Androids have been outlawed for all of recorded history,” Lex countered.

“Our project was approved by the First Knight himself. How else was he to fight the Chessori if it ever came to that? It was a trade-off.”

“The rebellion failed you know.”

“What rebellion?”

Lex sat on his haunches to consider. In the end, he said, “We can discuss this later.”

She nodded curtly. “We will. We’ve been here for fifteen years now. Claire is 22 years old. She has almost no recollection of the Empire, and there are many just like her.”

“Fifteen years! I had no idea.” Looking around, Lex had to admit that just building this place would have taken years of hard work. If Nbara was telling the truth, Struthers’ plan for the coup had been a lot more involved than he’d ever suspected.

“We might not be the only facility with people still alive,” she added.

Lex stood up on all fours and started prowling, shaking his head angrily. “We found two other areas with functioning power plants.”