COMMANDER

“Kill them all,” grunted one of the Navy officers. “They reduced our colony planets to radioactive ash and utterly wiped out our home system! Millions of humans taken as slaves to Gods Above know where or why! They are attempting genocide on humankind, and I say we return the favor!”

“True,” said XO Dotes. “They and the Shaquaree have attempted genocide on us, and were damn near successful!”

“There is more here than meets the eye! We cannot simply react to what is in front of us or we are no better than animals fighting over carrion!” snapped Lewellyn. “What of this LCP and the other races involved? We know nothing of them or their motives.”

“We surmise, from what few details we have been able to glean, and data from the files we captured,” put in Harlan, “the Torbor and Shaquaree are completely controlled by the other races of the LCP. Perhaps the reference to ‘death to their race’ was accurate. It could be the other races of the LCP are totally in control from a technological standpoint and have the capability to wipe out those two races.”

“Perhaps,” Donner interjected, “but we really do not know if the Torbor and Shaquaree are acting out of fear of genocide of their race or simply because they like what they are doing. Those vids we captured suggest they are willing partners, not forced partners.”

“Yet,” argued a Navy officer named Richardson, “we know there are many centuries of this ‘cooperative’ effort. Perhaps over that amount of time these two races became so inured to the activities they now simply support them without thinking there may be an alternative. I mean, maybe it all started with the threat of genocide against their races but now they have accepted their position and are just taking advantage of circumstances.”

“Regardless of how it started or how it is for them now, we still do not know why,” I said. “My next step is put the several officers we isolated into interrogation using hypno-trainers adapted to the purpose. Under non-damaging drug therapies and hypnosis we might be able to gain more information.”

“Why should we care about them?” demanded the first Navy officer. “They have no problem torturing humans! We should return that favor and just . . .”

“Belay that!” barked Andreas. “We are not in the business of torturing any being!”

“Captain!” interrupted a frantic voice on the intercom. “Engines just fired on the prisoner ship! It is on a collision course with the Rontar! They are going to ram us!”

“Time?” snapped the captain.

“Maybe fifteen seconds, sir.”

“Best defenses, Mr. Davis,” answered Captain Lewellyn calmly. “Disable if possible, or take them out.”

“How the hell could they fire engines or maneuver?” demanded Richardson to no one in particular.

“I do not know,” Dotes answered, “but we do know they are quite intelligent and advanced well beyond us technologically. Somehow . . .”

“Threat neutralized, Captain,” stated Mr. Davis over the intercom. “They were inside our shield event surface and anything less than a missile strike would have allowed momentum to carry the ship to collision with the Rontar. Remaining debris should pose no problems for us now.”

“Why didn’t we just move out of the way or tractor beam them?” asked Donner.

Richardson snorted in derision, and the captain held up his hand in a stop gesture at his officer.

“A reasonable question, Lt. Donner, for someone not intimately acquainted with ship’s operations. The Rontar has taken damage in the battle, and we are currently at stand-by power levels. With only fifteen seconds to react, the Rontar would not have enough time to spool engines to full power and gain enough velocity to out-maneuver the prisoner ship, which was already at full power and moving, gaining velocity. Likewise, our tractor beams are strong, but slow when reacting on a moving mass with plenty of inertia. Our T-jump generators have sustained enough damage to make that option a dangerous one, not to mention we are currently far too close to the planet for any safety margin. We simply had no other options.”

“Smart buggers!” Dotes muttered. “I didn’t think there was any way for them to be able to override the controls we put on the engines and nav-coms!”

“Lessons learned, Mr. Dotes,” said the captain gently. “It would appear we have no choice, Commander Rawlings, than to follow your plans to interrogate the few prisoners we have remaining.”

A line of recruits spread around long tables, each at their own station, were working on the cleaning and maintenance procedures for the Marine 10mm rifle under the heat of the Hylean sun. The tables were set in a clearing, just outside a recently constructed training building armory. One of the recruits fumbled what she was doing and a rifle fell apart in several pieces which clattered across the tabletop.

“HALT!” barked Sergeant Louise Carson, aka Boomer.

Boomer stomped over to reach down and grasped the trooper by the belt and collar of her jungle fatigues. She spun the smaller girl around and began berating her, their faces only centimeters apart.

“What the fuck was that, maggot?” Boomer roared. “Did you learn nothing in the last two exercises? Get your sorry ass in gear and give me 5K at full run! NOW, recruit, now!”

I kept walking to the next clearing, a much larger one with buildings set in a quadrangle around a central courtyard. In the courtyard a group of twenty or so recruits stood in a big circle surrounding two combatants in the center. Spear was instructing. She glanced at me as I passed and the violet-eyed man facing her attacked at her distraction. Good reactions for a recruit. Spear took him down easily and called out her moves as she made them.

I walked on by and passed the two buildings on my right, where I could hear classroom instruction going on. Ronin stood on the steps of her office building, waiting for me.

“It’s been a long six months, hasn’t it?” she asked as I walked up to the steps.

“Yes, it certainly has. How are things here?”

She looked at me quizzically. “You had to come all the way down here to ask me that?”

“I wanted to see what you’ve done with the place. I like what I see. How many graduates, again?”

“Two hundred forty will graduate, and before you ask, seventy-two washed out, twenty-three percent.”

“When I went through basic training the washout rate was nearly fifty percent,” I said.

“Yeah, me, too,” Ronin responded. “But it was a different time, different circumstances. These people are motivated. They are sharp. Even the advanced tech is not nearly the leap for them we feared it would be.”

I had noticed a subtle change in our conversations, Ronin and mine, lately. They were more relaxed, and I found it nice, enjoyable. Maybe I was letting discipline relax a little more than I should but, on the other hand, Ronin always was perfectly disciplined whenever anyone else was around.

“I am told the same things by the Navy. Less than thirty percent washout with some genius level recruits taking to the new tech like fish to water. They are graduating over two hundred, as well.”

“I know, sir. We’ve been combining some classes with the Navy for tech studies. In fact, some of our washouts have been snapped up by the Navy. Not enough stomach for violence but plenty of smarts and a desire to travel to distant parts of the universe.”

She gave me another odd look and then smiled. “I know . . . you just wanted to take a water shower!”

“Yeah, that’s it. My secret is out.”

Ronin shook her head at me and pointed toward the office. “You know where it is. Just don’t use up all my soap . . . sir.”

I chuckled as I walked into the office. Ronin followed me in and sat at the desk while I continued toward the shower area. It was an open walk-in for four, accommodating the officers here in the planet-side basic training facility. I ruminated on the last six months as I undressed and began luxuriating in the hot, hot water.

The Rontar had been moved to the gas giant, close to the asteroid belt so the raw materials drones could automatically seek out and mine the necessary ores and metals, and even the needed gases from the giant like 3He and other exotics used in our reactors for power. We had plenty for our ship but we were going to need plenty more to power and move the captured Torbor vessel.

The Torbor captives had been cooperative under the hypno-interrogation programs we devised. In six months, our understanding of quantum physics had increased at a pace even the brightest of the Navy personnel had trouble keeping up with. The AIs, though, managed quite well. The best things, to me anyway, were the new technologies. The Torbor had atomic circuitry; atom-level circuits using electron transfer as switches to change ionic charges, acting like atom-level transistors. Add a negative electron for a negative transistor state, take it away again for a neutral state, then take away another for a positive transistor state.

Once we saw how they used magnetics and stable, neutral atoms as the base of the circuit path, and changed ion charges to open or close paths, it was not that difficult for us to reproduce. Dotes told me the trick was to use atoms of a plentiful substance which were inherently stable at neutral and yet would accept ion-state changes readily with no detrimental effects.

They also had exotic metals which acted as superconductors at room temperatures, which meant no supercooling necessary! We no longer had to wonder why they had so much power leaking from their ship. With AC circuitry to build computers and control circuits, and superconducting materials to transmit the power at room temps, they could build truly massive reactors to generate what had once been unthinkable amounts of energy and transmit it around their ship with great control.

Imagine! Computers at hundreds or thousands of times more powerful than those we currently used, which looked like a printed circuit the size of a business card, or a thimble glued to the bulkhead! And, it would never overheat! Imagine pumping multiple terawatts per second through a cable as thick as a pencil lead! And, it would never overheat!

This also meant weapons could be much, much more powerful than our current designs. They also had new weaponry. New to us, anyway. The hand weapons they had used with the yellow bolts of energy were photonic-based, in a way. Somehow, the Torbor had harnessed the particle properties of photons and combined them with an exotic gas and AC. It was way above my understanding but Dotes said basically each bolt was a tiny AC chip and power generator which created a small, cohesive force field containing a dense gas to give it mass. Think of it as a howitzer shrunk to rifle size with auto-fire and nearly infinite magazine size, he said. Okay! That I could imagine and understand!

What the hell was Ronin doing? This was the second time she had walked by the open doorway to the showers, and both times she had glanced at me quickly, almost sneakily.

I realized I had been in there for quite a while. I’d have to finish up soon and get ready to transport back to the ship. This was another piece of mondo tech we had captured. It was how the Torbor had been able to send their squads directly into the bowels of the Rontar to attack us from the inside. We had been very, very lucky. Had Lewellyn not planned the surprise attack the way he did, the Torbor would have had more time to get more of their personnel into suits and transported.

The matter transference device, or transporter, was incredibly innovative. Basically, as best I could understand it with my limited knowledge of physics and quantum mechanics, it shrunk the Transition-jump technology used for ships. The actual mechanism of moving a person from one place to another was nearly identical, the specialists said. Instead of generating a huge quantum-flux field to open the barriers to dimension passage, a much smaller field was generated. Instead of the ship passing through the field, the field was passed over the person or object being transported. The mechanics of “being transported” were essentially the same. The person or object, like a ship in T-jump, stayed whole and complete and was passed through a dimensional barrier to a sort of transition dimension, then on to the arrival point in normal space-time.

Without AC and SC, we would not have been able to conceive of moving the field over us rather than us moving through the field.

Now, though, the device was perfected.

We had new AIs much, much bigger in capacity, faster, smarter, and with less mass than previous by many factors of ten. Think of the entire contents of an armory and vehicle hold now in a container the size of a travel bag. Mondo!

While all of this learning and progression had been going on, repairs to the Rontar had been increased, as well. By repairing the power generators on the alien vessel and transmitting the power surplus to the Rontar, new robots were designed and created using the AC and new power capabilities. Essentially, every robot created had an AI linked to the ship AI, and computing power and speed increased exponentially. She was still essentially the same old, patched together hull, but everything else about the Rontar had been improved to previously unimaginable levels.

With new power plants and superconducting transmission lines to shields and weapons, and advanced computational power to control it all, the Rontar was now the equal of several battleships in firepower. She was much faster and more maneuverable, too. The hull and interior functions were less important than producing the new components for the weapons, shields, and propulsion systems which could handle the increased power flows. We also had to strengthen the ship’s skeletal structure to withstand the higher pressures developed by the upgraded engines. It wouldn’t be funny at all if engines or thrusters ordered to maximum simply tore out of their mounts by overcoming the sheering strength of the skeletal girder mounts and flew off into space to leave the wrecked ship drifting behind. The dense metal the Torbor had was extremely helpful in this matter, though it was quite a chore to upgrade the fabs to produce it.

Once our weapons, shields, and production capacities were redesigned and refitted, we began work on repairing the alien vessel. It was going to be a much bigger job, especially if we were to refit her to house humans rather than Torbor!

We realized we were going to need a space dock and station. The new technologies were shared with Hanos from the beginning as part of the deal Captain Lewellyn had worked out with them. Under this initial and temporary agreement, each entity was to be autonomous, the Navy, the Marines, and the planetary government, or governments as time went on. The example of the Navy and the Marines, autonomous but working together as “the Fleet” for mutual support, defense, and benefit, was used as the model.

Tamaria Bonel had been offered a position in the new democratic government but she had turned it down to join the Marines. She would graduate in this first class of basic training, and very near the top of her class.

What the hell? I was hanging up my towel and turning toward the bench where my fatigues lay, and there went Ronin, again crossing past the doorway. Her eyes flicked toward me, scanning up my frame from my feet to my head in an instant. When she realized I was looking right at her, she reddened ever so slightly as she passed from view. What was . . .?

“Commander Rawlings.”

“Here,” I responded, instantly alert, instantly keyed.

While all of the happenings of the last six months had swept by, we humans had all been afraid, every single day, of the bright violet flash of the enemy T-jumping into the system. We truly had no idea of what to expect. When would the Torbor come looking for their overdue vessel? When would the Shaquaree be dispatched to check the system again? When would some other race of which we may be completely unaware pop in for whatever reason they may have, and would they be our enemy?

“Jenkins here, sir. We are ready to test the new suit. I thought you’d like to be here.”

“On my way, Lieutenant. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“We’ll wait, sir. Jenkins out.”

I dressed quickly and headed out of the office. Ronin was behind her desk, hands busy at her terminal and her attention on the holo-display in front of her.

“They’re ready to test the new suit, Ronin. Where is the closest place I can go to transport?”

While we had an agreement to share technology, and we did share, the planetary government felt it was best to “phase in” certain pieces of the new technology. We respected their wishes as a mutual partner should, and carefully monitored our use of transporter technology in any area where it might be observed by Hanosian civilians.

“Around back of this office,” she responded, her face all innocence, “take the trail at 277 degrees. You’ll find a clearing a half-klick out. We keep it isolated and secured.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant,” I said, jerking my thumb back toward the shower. “See you soon.”

“Yes, sir. Good luck, sir.”

Had she flushed again? Then I was out and running through the forest. It felt great to run again, full speed, all out, just for the joy of movement through nature; the sights, the smells, the sounds, the sun, the wind. All of my wounds had healed and I was at full strength. I didn’t get as much PT or practice these days as I would have liked but my new, improved nanos kept me in peak condition regardless of what I did or what I ate, or even how much I ate.

The nanos had AC now, too, and even a limited amount of cognizance as a system. They kept me informed about my body, and healing from wounds was greatly magnified. Doc Hazel said I would literally be able to see lesser wounds heal themselves before my eyes. I would likely live many, many years longer than normal. Well, what was normal anymore? All Navy and Marine personnel got the new nanos after they graduated basic training to replace their basic nanos, and all received the subspace transceivers. Only sergeants and up were allowed to use them outside of combat.

Transporting didn’t hurt, it only tingled slightly. It felt like a mental “blink,” almost exactly like when a ship did a T-jump. The trees and shrubs around me disappeared and suddenly there were plas-steel bulkheads and the taint of ozone and recycled air in my nose. I stepped off of the transporter platform and strode through the passageways to the suit bay where lieutenants Jenkins and Flynn waited with two troopers.

Two new armored suits stood open in the middle of the bay, and four suited troopers stood nearby with their suits glowing softly in muted gray. I nodded to the suited troopers as I walked to join the lieutenants.

“Commander,” Jenkins greeted me. “Trooper Johnston and Trooper Walker will go into the new suits. Troopers Billings, Ericson, Vale, and Wharton are in the current Gen5D suits. After a few initial tests, we will go into the control cabin and release the safety protocols on the current suits.”

Jenkins turned to Johnston and Walker and said, “Go.”