COMMANDER

“We’re inside an old mining area, sir. The AV is parked inside a large shaft, about 150 meters down from the entrance and around a bend. The others are all out on sentry duty or setting up booby-traps. You should use the head in here, sir.”

I sat up on the accel couch. I was naked again but no tubes connected me to the trauma bot. I got up and walked to the head not really caring much whether Tamaria was offended or not. As for Stitch, well, officially I was not in command, and officially Spear had been charged with my safety. They had done their job exactly the way I would have expected had the injured one been Ronin or some other team member. I couldn’t be angry with either of them, nor Ronin. But I still felt like a very grumpy, rumpled bear coming out of hibernation and looking for something to chew into splinters.

My back still hurt even when I breathed but not nearly as much as before. I flexed my legs and shoulders, moved my joints and hips in full range of motion. I’d bet my paycheck all my little buddies inside were still working their butts off and cussing their host. I walked back out and faced Stitch.

“Can I eat?”

“Yes, sir. Be careful chewing on the right . . . um . . . yeah . . . shutting up, now, sir.”

I had begun padding away toward the storage locker at the rear while he was still speaking. Rude, I know, but I was still peevish. I would try to make it up later. As I opened the storage locker I could hear Tam whispering.

“He looks really angry.”

“He’s just hungry and upset about not being in the action, and being in charge. He’ll settle down soon,” Stitch whispered back. “I understand how he feels. I mean, I can’t imagine just going back to being a regular trooper again, not after doing this job for a while. It’s not easy giving up a responsibility when you know in your heart you are the best at doing it. And that’s not egotistic! It’s more like . . . like not trusting anyone else would take the responsibility as seriously as I do.”

Crap! I really wanted to be pissed off and surly, but how could I be after hearing those words? Everything he said was a bull’s-eye, a laser-centered kill shot.

“You guys want anything while I’m back here?” I called out.

They said no, and I walked back to the accel couch with a couple of nutribars in hand.

“Any coffee on?” I asked as I sat down.

“No, sir,” Stitch responded.

“Well, make some up, will ya? And quit grinning at me, medic-boy, before I have to cuff ya.”

“Yes, sir,” he responded, still grinning.

Ronin and most of the team came back into the AV near 0600. I was dressed and sitting at the foldout terminal when she entered.

“How you feeling?” she asked me through the speakers.

“Fine,” I answered. “Ready to assume command, again.”

Her helmeted head flicked slightly toward Stitch. “I’ll be the judge of that,” she said.

“Don’t look at him, look at me,” I retorted.

“Fuck that, Commander! I’ll look anywhere I damn well please so long as I am in command.” Her voice was hard as flint. “You really think you’re ready? Fine! Hit the deck and give me a fifty rotation.”

I was looking back at her just as flinty.

“Now, mister!” she barked.

I hit the deck and began pumping out pushups. She was dismounting her suit as I finished them and began the crunches. She stood there naked and glorious, feet spread and fists on her hips watching me like a hawk. What an Amazon! I thought as I went into the squat rotation. What a hard-nosed bitch! Gods Above, how she delighted me!

The pain was intense as my PT stretched healing tissues and organs, intense but not debilitating. It didn’t rob me of my senses or ability to think, nor did it rob me of my agility. I finished the rotation and stood before her, not out of breath and ready for more. Ronin was grinning at me.

“AI,” she called out, “Record! Sergeant Donner returns full command of Team Zulu to Commander Rawlings at 0614, sir!”

She snapped to attention, saluted me, and called, “Attention on deck!”

Everybody in the AV snapped to Attention.

“Commander Rawlings assumes command!” I called in proper response and returned her salute. “As you were! And will you and the others please get dressed! You’re giving Stitch and Boomer hard-ons.”

A round of laughter rang out, and Boomer yelled, “I sure hope somebody knows what to do with mine!”

Dog yelled back at her, “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours!”

I was turning back to Ronin. “Come see me when you get ready and bring me up to speed.”

“You don’t need a report immediately?”

“Naw. If you’re relaxed enough to unsuit, then I figure we must be safe for the moment.”

“We are in an old mining site,” Ronin started her briefing. “Part of it was open pit and part was shaft mining for veins of ore. There are actually two circular pits which intersect, kind of leaving an outline like a figure eight, with the two pits lined up almost directly east and west. We’re inside a shaft in the eastern section. Most of the mining here was for iron and there are still large deposits all around us. The iron will help to hide the AV even if we use the grav a little. I had Wheels plot a course and drive us over here from the river camp after we cracked the technical documents of the Torbor.

“According to the documentation, their space travel technology is largely gravity-based, so we feel their sensors will be tuned to grav wells of any size. Travel for us should be wheeled. They do have T-jump capability and use it regularly, and they understand chemical rockets, fusion, fission, and quantum energies, although these are rarely used because of the cost of refining and replacing fuels. What they use to power their generators is something we are not familiar with and our AI could not come up with a translation. According to Dotes, they must have a huge surplus of energy because they leak it from dozens of places in their ship. He says it lights up our sensors like a beacon.

“Their ship is in orbit now and they have held numerous radio conversations with the Hanosians. Some smaller craft have been seen to leave the main ship and travel to the surface and back. The main ship appears to have missile launch capability, and numerous pods or focals for ray or beam weapons.

“By contrast, their EM shields appear to be weak, as if they rely on their grav for much of their shield needs. Dotes says the science squids don’t understand this, because the magnetism of EM would be much stronger than the gravitics—unless they can manipulate black-hole-level energies, that is. But with the massive amounts of power at their disposal they could make a nearly impenetrable EM shield! We have seen no evidence of nuclear or atomic power or weapons, and we find no mention of it in the documents other than the fission and fusion discussions. Likewise, there is no mention of photonics at all.”

“Hmmm. Let’s replay the evidence from the peace conference to see if the Shaquaree used photonics. I remember nukes and plasmas but not much else.”

Ronin nodded and continued, “Dotes says they don’t see any evidence of fighter bays or launching bays. There seems to be just one big hangar bay all of the smaller ships have been using. The small boats don’t appear to have much in the way of weapons either. Comparatively, our AVs are cannon compared to their bows and arrows. Dotes and the captain conjecture they have supreme confidence in the fighting capability of the main ship, and do not feel they need fighters. If they need to perform planetary action, they either call in the Shaquaree or stand back and pound the planet from orbit.

“There is no readily apparent discussion of military advancement anywhere in the documents. It’s as if the ‘advancement’ part of Torbor society is completely dormant or stagnant. There is a lot there about quantum physics but Dotes says it will take us years to examine it all and understand it.”

“Is there anything about the Shaquaree, or the other races of the LCP?”

“Plenty enough to give us a good idea of what is happening . . . and there is mention of humans, Earth, and the Fleet,” Ronin responded. “Basically, the LCP is a conglomerate of six races controlling two whole galaxies and most of a third . . . this one. The reason we never heard of them is they reside primarily in the other two. The Shaquaree came to this galaxy about two hundred years after we began colonizing outside our solar system and began taking whole colonies, planet by planet, as slaves for the LCP. The slaves are taken to work the most dangerous of mines of every kind, like frozen gas planets, hard mineral mining of entire planets, even gaseous nebulae. All of this is run by overlords at the command of the LCP.

“The Torbor are a bird-like race, and, besides the Shaquaree, there is a reptilian race, a water-based race like dolphins, an insectoid race, and a humanoid race. The humanoid race seems to be the prime race, and they seem to completely dominate the other races in a definite hierarchy. There is nothing about the technology of the other races other than a few sparse examples. For instance, there is mention of the humanoid race teleporting vast distances without the aid of any mechanical devices at all. The insectoids have a serious set of chemical weapons which terrify the Torbor. About the only good news is only the Torbor and the Shaquaree are mentioned in the records of travel to this galaxy.”

“What about Earth, and the Fleet?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

“More of the bad news kind.”

She drew a long breath with her head hung down before she raised it to look into my eyes and continue, “Earth is no more. After the peace conference, the Shaquaree systematically hunted down Earth colonies and questioned inhabitants, searching for the locations of other colonies and of our home world. They believed the Rontar would go directly there with news of what happened at the conference. After questioning each colony, they would enslave them and destroy the planet. Without the leadership lost at the conference attack, the Fleet was weakened and scattered. Central government ordered the Fleet to defend all the colonies rather than pulling back to form a fortified barrier, which would have sacrificed some of the colonies. It didn’t make a difference. The colonies were taken anyway, and the Fleet presence defending them were wiped out. Within a short time, the Shaquaree did find Earth.

“The whole Sol System was destroyed. Every planet was bombarded and irradiated, making the whole system uninhabitable for thousands of years. It was a total slash and burn of our home, Wolf! The Fleet was broken, bit by bit, as the Shaquaree jumped closer and closer to Sol. The Fleet is gone, too. We are all that is left.”

There was a long pause as I absorbed this new information, attempting to process it.

“What happened then?” I asked, when I could speak again.

“Apparently, nothing,” Ronin replied. “Once they had destroyed Earth and the Fleet, they just stopped with the systematic destruction. The captain thinks somewhere along the timeline of their move toward Earth, they must have stumbled across the information of where the Rontar had been assigned to jump in emergency. They have been monitoring this planet every year for over four hundred years. For the first hundred years, the Hanosians probably didn’t even know about it. The Shaquaree probably took what they found and all recorded information from the conference attack and somehow deduced the temporal distortion effect . . . either them, or one of the other LCP races.”

“What I cannot figure out is why,” I said. “Why is it so important for them to get to the Rontar? They’ve already nearly wiped out the human race. What possible advantage could they gain? What threat could we possibly pose?”

“That is the million credit question. The lieutenants will get us time on the Combat AI to review the conference recordings asap.”

“What? They’ll get us time ‘as soon as possible?’ What the fuck does that mean?” I finished with a roar.

“They say nearly all of the AI resources are being used by the Navy team on the technical reviews from the Torbor files and the remodeling of the star charts.”

The glare in my eyes must have told her something as I said softly, “Sergeant, translate this to the lieutenants immediately, word for word. Commander Rawlings directs the immediate liberation of Combat AI functions and resources from Navy use until further notice. Further, upon resumption of lending Combat AI functions and resources to Naval usage, no more than fifty percent of available functionality shall be provided at any time, and any functionality being used by Navy shall be released instantly back to Marines upon demand. Acknowledge.”

There was a slight pause before Ronin replied, “Orders acknowledged, sir. Combat AI will be available to you within thirty seconds, sir.”

“Very good, Sergeant. Do you know what I want? What I am looking for?” I continued barely above a whisper.

She nodded. “I’m on it, sir.”

I rose and walked softly into the main hold of the AV. Without the HUD of my suit to identify the team in suits, I had to address them generally because they all looked the same.

“Stitch! Report to me here, on the double,” I growled.

Within seconds a suit stood upright near the back of the AV and took several quick steps to come to Attention in front of me.

“Stitch reporting as ordered, sir.”

“Tell me again, is there any way to fix my neural port for the suit, or any way to replace my subspace transceiver.”

“Sir, there is no way to repair or replace with the resources available. The trauma bot simply cannot produce the pieces necessary.”

I didn’t want to deprive anyone on the team but I could no longer be crippled by lack of communications, either. Shut the fuck up and do your job, trooper.

“Dog!” I shouted. “On the double!”

A few seconds later, heavy suited footfalls sounded, running toward us through the tunnel, and then Dog was clanging across the deck to stand in front of me.

“Dog, dismount and report to Stitch and the trauma bot. I need a transceiver and a neural port and I am taking yours. After the transfer, you will take AV weapons duty until we can get back to the ship.”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“Stitch, inform Ronin of this so there is no confusion then fire up the bot and let’s get this done.”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“Ronin?”

“Wolf!”

“Good, I’m back online. Have you gotten any search results worth reviewing?”

“Fuckin’ A, sir! Wait till you see this!”

“I’m getting suited now. As soon as I’m in and connected you can pipe it directly to the HUD.”

“You got it, sir. About the thing with Dog . . . pretty mondo, sir. Guess I never thought about cannibalizing living troopers for parts <chuckle>.”

“There is always something new to learn, isn’t there?”

“Aye, sir, there sure is.”

“I’ll let you know when to pipe it. Wolf out.”

“Captain?”

“Here, Commander. Very glad to hear you are back online. Mr. Dotes and the science team are quite put out with you at the moment, though.”

“And you’re not?”

“Maybe a little at first, but then I thought about my own AI and how I’d feel if you were usurping it. No, Commander. You need what you need. We are just grateful for any sharing we can arrange.”

“I appreciate it, Andreas. As soon as I have ability to share I certainly will. Have you told your people about Earth and the Fleet?”

“Reluctantly, yes, and now I have them working double shifts to keep them busy and their minds occupied.”

“Same here. How are my lieutenants doing?”

“I am satisfied with their cooperation and performance, and reports from our instructors indicate positively about the troopers.”

“Thanks. Good. I have a little research to do but I may have an idea which could help us. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can verify. Is there anything recent you can tell me?”

“No, I . . . wait, did you hear about the circuitry?”

“No.”

“The science team have some thought the Torbor may have atomic circuitry capability.”

“Really? Very interesting. Thanks, Captain. I’ll be in touch soon. Out.”

“Ronin, pipe it.”

“You should have it now, Wolf.”

I had it, indeed. The AI had identified every possible missile track of the peace conference attack down to mass and probable warhead type. Not too difficult since the mass and size ratios would relate directly to type in nearly every case. While human perceptions had not been clear due to the high number of overlapping explosions and the short time span, the AI had had the time to do a comprehensive analysis on the recordings. I should have done it months ago, immediately after we had arrived in this system, but there had been too many other things to do which seemed far more important.

Every single missile doing any initial damage to the Shaquaree ships had been photonic, and every single missile they had arrayed against us had been everything but photonic.

They knew little or nothing about photonics!

In addition, the initial damage done to the Shaquaree ships by the photonics included a complete or near-complete failure of their shields. Whatever the interaction was between the ships and the missiles, it was clear the photonics did the greatest damage by taking out the shields, and any kind of follow-up missile did massive damage to the actual ship. No wonder the Shaquaree were dead set on finding the Rontar! They wanted to keep this knowledge secret at any cost! At least, it would have been true 800 years ago.

“Lt. Jenkins, Lt. Timmons.”

“Here, Commander.”

“Have either of you seen the analysis the AI provided to Sergeant Donner?”

“Yes, sir. We both have,” Jenkins replied. “As soon as I saw it I grabbed Gene, and he just finished reviewing it.”

“Thoughts?”

“Timmons here, sir. One, if this is still true, we have them by the curlies. We need to find out if it’s still true. Two, if it is true for one, it may be true for another. We need to match records of shields, one against the other, to see if those of the Shaquaree match those of the Torbor, or have any significant similarities.”

“Jenkins, sir. Add two other items. First, we may have examples of AC nearby and, second, if we could adapt this technology to our own power production, we could have a significant advantage.”

“Excellent points, troopers. Continue analysis stepping off of this. Take your conclusions to the captain, too. I’m certain his mind will head down the same track as ours. Gene, do an analysis on all missile capability of Marine resources. Harlan, talk to the squids about . . . belay that. Harlan, speak with our Navy brethren about the missile capabilities of the heavy and light fighters. We want to have this info in our hands and ready to go with a strategic plan when and if we can verify the shield questions.”

“Messages received loud and clear, sir.”

“Rawlings out.”

“Buzz!”

“Sir.”

“Get with Flyboy and Dog, and see if there is any way to hook Dog into our subspace grid through the AV somehow.”

“Sir!”

I was on my way up the mining shaft to get a look at our surroundings as I turned the latest news over in my mind. Eight centuries ago the Shaquaree had been vulnerable to photonic missiles. It was a ridiculous thing to hope they had not progressed, had somehow not analyzed the results of the battle at the conference and been able to modify to overcome the shortcoming in all those long years. But hope was hope.

Normally, our ships utilized EM shielding, however, when we did use gravity-based shielding on the outside of a ship balancing with the artificial grav on the inside, the normal range of power for us was on the scale of 100G for shields. Usually this was more than sufficient for any common space dust, micrometeorites, gas pockets, and even most small asteroids, depending on relative velocities, of course. For the occasional larger asteroid, we could crank it up to 200G with our generators and still be able to match internal forces to external with little difficulty and have null effect on personnel. For any larger asteroids or other bodies . . . we’d just maneuver around their path.

But we rarely used gravitic shielding—actually, negative gravitic shielding, I reminded myself. We wanted to push things away from the ship, not attract them to it! I knew that gravity creation, even simpler gravity waves, was based on the way scientists used multiple synced generators to create the conditions to mimic the conditions of a miniscule black hole. While I had no idea at all how they reversed gravity from pull to push, I knew they could do it, and I knew it was very difficult and tricky . . . and dangerous if errors were made.

EM shielding was much easier to produce and control at incredibly high values of compressed EM magnetism. Magnetic fields had protected Earth and many other planets from hard radiation from nearby stars since the formation of solar systems. We used it to protect our ships, too. Even more, when using EM shielding, there was no concern for the need to balance external gravity fields with internal IDAG gravity fields.

Long ago they had used the term “anti-gravity” to describe negative gravity. I guess it kind of made sense. I mean, think about it. Gravity always pulls, it never pushes. Since no one at that time had the knowledge to create or simulate actual gravity, there was no need to define terminology with any actual clarity.

When we did use gravitic shielding, though, even at 200 gravities light did not bend significantly, and neutrinos were completely unaffected. G-forces had to go way higher to bend light, and higher by some massive factors of ten to have any effect on neutrinos. Since the Shaquaree and Torbor seemed to utilize gravitics much more than EM, according to the Navy reports, perhaps they didn’t have a good understanding of how photonics reacted or didn’t react under the influence of gravity.

Suppose that . . .

“We got incoming!”

I began running toward the mouth of the tunnel.