Test of Magnitude (The Torian Reclamation) (29 page)

Murmurs swept across the room.

“On the other hand,” Olut6 said, “if we are wrong, and they take the hostages back with them to Azaar when they depart, we will have missed our chance at an easy rescue attempt, only needing to deal with two warships.”

“Let’s get them now!” A voice from the floor boomed. Brandon turned and looked. It was Perry who shouted that. Brandon was embarrassed, but only for a second.

“Yes Commander, let’s do it while we can,” one of the fighter pilots now yelled. Other voices began echoing in agreement. No opposing opinions were heard.

Olut6 held up his hand and the room quieted again.

“Yes, I have come to the same conclusion,” he said. “It’s really a simple risk versus reward analysis. If we miss this chance, the prisoners could become part of a long, drawn out diplomatic negotiation. And right now, I don’t think much of our politician’s negotiating skills. I also don’t think much of ground force command, but that is no reflection on those of you called here from ground forces. So, the task has fallen on us. You who are here right now, in this very room. This will be your job. And it needs to be done right.”

Heads were nodding and voices mumbling everywhere.

“You have all been specially chosen for this operation. You are considered the best of the best, the ones who have the skillset necessary for giving us the highest chance of success. You are the pilots and crews who will bring the prisoners back home.”

Many heads in the room now turned towards Brandon and the other humans. Some of them made no effort to disguise their obvious disdain.

“Yes, this includes the aliens among us,” Olut6 said in a louder voice. “For those of you who are unfamiliar, they are Earthlings, a race of people abducted from their home planet and then put to sleep and kept in cryonic preservation tanks for decades, against their will, all in the name of Torian science. They may not look like much, but their brains are wired for fast reflexes and making important decisions under pressure. I’m sure there is no need to remind some of you of this…”

A video of the Cardinal-4 space battle came on the screen behind Olut6, as seen from an upper deck on the station. A barrage of eight missiles was approaching it from the warship in the distance. Suddenly, a fighter swept in from the side and began picking them off. It was Brandon, of course. The film clip showed him getting seven of those missiles himself, and then clearing out while narrowly missing friendly fire. Sounds of exclamations and approval could now be heard from various spots in the room.

“And this…” Olut6 said.

The video then showed the clip of Brandon making his run at the warship, dodging a relentless rain of enemy laser fire, taking out the missile battery, and dancing away clear. Several Torians stood up and began clapping, and then several more, until all the natives in the room were giving Brandon a standing ovation.

The video screen turned off and Olut6 waited for everyone to settle again before continuing.

“That doesn’t mean we are giving an alien race the keys to our kingdom, however, and those of you who object to their involvement will have your chance to vote them off the project. For the next three days, we will engage in simulated training exercises for the rescue operation. We will form crews, randomly in the beginning, and rotate until we have found an optimal arrangement. Anyone who beats one of the Earthling’s scores in any of the exercises will then be given the opportunity to cast a vote to exclude that Earthling from the operation if they so choose. So, if you don’t want them with us, do something about it. Prove you can outfly and outshoot them.”

Brandon noticed that Joseph especially perked up at Olut6’s last words. The other humans all seemed to have acquired looks of determination as well. This military commander was one smart lizard-man.

“Now I suppose you would like to know the plan,” Olut6 said.

Chapter Fourteen

“It’s like Asteroids, really, and I have that game down,” Joseph explained.

“That’s a classic arcade game, a little before my time,” Brandon said. “But I’ve played it. I don’t remember doing anything except shooting big rocks into little rocks.”

“The hyperspace button,” Joseph said. “Those simulator games were like the hyperspace button on Asteroids, except even easier, because you can control where you pop back up. In Asteroids, it pops you back up on the screen randomly, right in front of more rocks sometimes, and you have to shoot or scramble quick.”

Brandon rubbed his chin. “Oh yeah, I think I remember that now. But how does a farm kid in Holland get good at Asteroids in the year 1988?”

Joseph laughed. “That’s the only game we have at the store in town, eight miles down the road. I know it’s old, but it’s all we got. I ride my horse there and play every chance I get, or sometimes my motorcycle, when it’s running. Not much else to do around there.”

Brandon noticed Joseph still spoke of home in the present tense. That was a little sad to Brandon. Last time Joseph “rode to town” was more than forty years ago. No point in bringing that up, though. Everyone was going to have to adjust to their new existence at their own pace. For some, it was going to be difficult.

When it came to flying and shooting, however, this kid had the stuff—at least on the simulators. He was top of the class in the space battle sequences. Top of the entire class. Better than Brandon, and way better than all the native pilots. Everyone expected him to get one of the six ITF1 pilot1 positions.

The last three days had been hectic. Up early, physical training in the gym, simulation games, meal, more simulation games, lecture, meal, more simulation games, back to sleep. No downtime whatsoever other than for sleep and meals.

They had constantly rotated partners for the simulation games. By now, everyone had played with everyone else at least once. Some of the attack sequences were disrupted by random surprises, such as an entire enemy fleet showing up. Brandon did well in the space battles, but he placed fourth in the class overall. Some of the native pilots were surprisingly good, attributable to experience no doubt. The other humans all ranked somewhere in the middle of the pack, except for Perry—who ended up dead last. He just shrugged it off and admitted he never had much interest in video games. Ironically, of the six Earthlings, Perry was the only one with actual military experience, having served one stint as a U.S. Marine right after high school.

Now they were all in the main observation room in the tower on top of Cardinal-4. An interstellar transport ship was coming from Amulen to take them to a small space station orbiting another planet in the Tora system. Everyone was watching as it approached. Mip7 was standing with Brandon and Joseph at the window.

The rest of the humans were sitting nearby. A couple of them had their eyes closed. Not Jack, the other youth. He was sitting and sketching. Jack was something of an artist, and had requested drawing materials. They offered him a lightpad with a special attachment, but Jack didn’t take to it. He wanted traditional pencil and paper, or something close to it. The governor himself finally brought him a pad of thick-stock paper and a metallic charcoal-marking tool he had gotten from some construction workers on the station, which worked fine. So, Brandon ended up getting Jack’s lightpad. He was looking forward to learning how to use it.

Perry came over and stood next to Brandon at the window as the transport ship moored.

“Look at that crazy thing,” Perry said. “How does it even fly? I mean, it’s nothing but a big football with a donut around the outside. Reminds me of my mom’s old mini-van.”

“That’s what transport ships look like,” Mip7 said. “In this section of the galaxy, anyway. The new interstellar fighter craft are similar in design as well, only trimmer.”

“They’re much, much trimmer,” Perry said, “at least judging by the images used in the computer games. Glad we finally get to see them in person. Almost wish I was going to be in one of them with you guys on the mission.”

“Don’t count yourself out just yet,” Brandon said. “The commander likes us, and the natives respect us now as well. I doubt any of them asked to have you removed. We’re all in this together, and need all the help we can get.”

Perry shook his head. “I already talked to the commander. I won’t be a crew member.”

“Damn,” Brandon said. “I can’t believe any of these pilots voted you off. Are you going to stay here on the station, then? Or are they taking you to the safe house on Amulen to reside with the other humans?”

“Oh, I’m going on the mission, just not in the fighters. And I won’t be flying anything. I’m part of the ground forces.”

“Oh,” Brandon said. “Great. Great! Glad to have a Marine along with us, especially doing important work in the ground operation. Sounds like your specialty, anyway.”

“You’re damn right,” Perry said. He pounded a fist into his hand. “We’ve got to stop these terrorists, here and everywhere. They must be made to pay for what they’ve done.”

Perry was a little too eager for Brandon’s taste. His allegiance to a race of beings who had abducted him away from his own life and planet was too quick in coming. Perry was a volunteer, yes—but in all reality, this wasn’t his affair. He didn’t know Derek, and his emotions seemed to be more directed at repaying an act of vandalism than rescuing a fellow American. Was he just a guy with a chip on his shoulder, looking for any excuse to fight? Was he projecting his anger over his own abduction upon the Azaarians? Or had his military training instilled a sense of duty in him to right wrongs wherever they occur, even halfway across the galaxy?

Then it dawned on Brandon. Perry was a New Yorker, taken in the year 2003, less than two years after 9-11. Being from Virginia, Brandon could remember what it was like among east-coasters during those first few years after that horrible event. The sense of American patriotism was evident in every nook and cranny of society. There were no longer democrats and republicans, just Americans. People were nice to each other, united under a common cause. Everyone wanted justice executed upon the godless perpetrators. No one was ever going to forget. But, thinking about society ten years later, people did forget. They had accepted it, dealt with it, and moved on. They stopped being nice to each other and went back to their natural bickering, fueled by partisan politics and whatever else Americans could find to fight amongst themselves over.

“Perry,” Brandon said, “would you like me to tell you about what happened after 9-11? The repercussions, the wars, the hunt for the terrorists, and how it all played out? At least, up until my time, eleven years later?”

Perry thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think so, Brandon. Not now, anyway. Some other time, maybe. Besides, I still plan on going back and finding out for myself firsthand.”

Sheesh, hadn’t any of these guys been properly briefed? Brandon decided to drop the issue, and just nodded in response. Maybe it was for the best. If they still thought they could all go home, back to each of their own times no less, perhaps it would make them better soldiers for the battle at hand.

The transport ship stopped moving.

“How does it just stop there, and not drift?” Joseph asked Mip7. Brandon was actually curious about that himself.

“Ships are moored by attaching themselves to the gravity field of Cardinal-4,” Mip7 said. “We use the term moor, but they actually latch on to us with a technology similar to an invisible tractor beam. In essence, a moored ship becomes an extension of the space station gravity-wise, and shares our orbit. Same basic principle as what keeps Cardinal-4 in the same position near Amulen, but on a much smaller scale.”

One end of the transport ship’s sphere opened.

“They’re ready for us,” a voice on the overhead speaker spoke. “Please make your way to the spaceport and board the landing crafts.”

Two landing craft were waiting in the upper spaceport, which took the rescue mission operatives over to the transport ship. The inside of the sphere that received the landing craft was simply a hangar. They had to wait for it to close back up, and then for the deck to re-pressurize, before de-boarding the landing craft—but it didn’t take long. The landing craft doors opened and walkways were extended. There was room for four or five saucers on the hangar deck, but only the two they arrived in were now on board.