God's Dogs Book 2

In the child, consciousness rises out of the depths of unconscious psychic life, at first like separate islands, which gradually unite to form a ‘continent,’ a continuous landmass of consciousness. Progressive mental development means, in effect, extension of consciousness.

Carl Jung

Consul Singh missed the grounding presence of Quinn and his team. After they left, Singh relocated to the regional government’s complex, a confusing array of office buildings for different bureaucracies.

Because of the complexity of the problem of the renegade platoon, the unexpected solution to the problem, and then the new problems generated by the joint mission to Masul – let alone the pre-existing problem about the status of the League within the Congress – Singh and his aides were busy keeping track of it all. So much so, there was limited time to plan on how to deal with it.

This morning, though, the local ASI, Tau-14, contacted him as he entered the small office he was assigned.

“Consul Singh,” Tau-14 said as he appeared in holographic form over the desk. The ASI fashioned himself as a generic human male in a tan ship suit.

“Yes, sir,” Singh responded and stood at attention.

“Please, rest easy. I am here to update you on pertinent developments.”

“Yes, sir,” Singh replied as he sat in his chair.

“The Coyote team and our errant platoon have worked together as we hoped. Indeed, the platoon commander sent a commendation for valor to Penglai for Coyote River’s heroic performance in battle that saved many platoon members.”

“That’s promising,” Singh said with some satisfaction.

“We plan to reinstate the platoon after the conclusion of their mission, which as you know has become more complicated. At this time, the Coyote team has returned to Penglai with the royal daughter and son, as well as one squad from the platoon. They will undergo your form of shaman training.”

Singh’s eyebrows rose. “The full course, then, not just training in healing practices?”

“The full training, but at an accelerated pace. The fear is the Nebula Guild for Psychic Research will react poorly to her training, because that would break their monopoly.”

“Oh,” Singh exclaimed as he got what the ASI was implying. “They need to learn how to defend themselves.”

“Precisely. We concur with this course of action. In the meantime, however, the constitutional crisis on Masul persists. The king and queen and the rest of the SpecOps platoon are in Masul space attempting to resolve that issue.”

“How might that affect us?” Singh wondered.

“Not at all. At least, not until the royal daughter assumes her role as the prophesied Camtok – which loosely translated means the restorer or savior of past glories.”

“I see. When she does that, and because she would be Penglai-trained, Penglai would step into the line-of-fire.”

“A fitting analogy as we do expect some level of conflict to ensue.”

Singh thought for a moment before saying, “When that conflict begins, it would behoove us – the League and Congress – to have formalized our relationship.”

“We agree,” Tau-14 said. “Pursuant to that, we have sent the draft of an agreement to Penglai, and your copy is now being delivered to your office. Please review it, talk to your superiors on Penglai, and provide us with your counter-offer as soon as possible. We would like an agreement in place before we have to contend with the coming unpleasantness.”

“Yes, sir,” Singh said and stood. “We will get right on it.”

“Thank you,” Tau-14 said and disappeared.

An aide knocked twice on Singh’s door and entered. “This just arrived,” the aide said holding up a data cube. “The courier said it was important.”

Taking the cube, Singh said, “It is. Gather the team in the conference room. We’ve got work to do.”

It wasn’t entirely true that Coyotes refused all commendations or citations. Individuals could not receive those awards, but there was a wall in the large and imposing atrium of the Penglai Foreign Service’s main administration building. It was on that wall the awards were displayed. The title above the wall read: Special Operations. To Penglai residents it was known as Coyote Wall.

All those Coyotes and Coyote candidates in residence, as well as other dignitaries at hand, gathered at the wall when the commendation for River’s gallantry-under-fire was posted on the wall. Included in the crowd were off-world ambassadors, League representatives, and others.

Master Chin, head of Special Operations, which included the Coyote Program, read the commendation to the crowd assembled for the ceremony. After finishing with the formal rhetoric of the citation, he concluded with, “The team remains anonymous. The individual who is recognized by this award remains anonymous. As do all of those 2,422 awards already posted on this wall.

“What we recognize is the standard of excellence these men and women lived up to. They exceeded their training, but they were products of their training. These awards remind us of what we are all capable of. Thank you for your attendance here today. And thank you for your service.”

Rand was in the crowd. Standing next to him was C-Sharp. As the crowd began milling toward the buffet line, Rand said, “River must have saved someone’s ass.”

“How do you know it was River?” C-Sharp asked.

He turned a jaundiced eye on her.

“Right,” she smirked. “Sounds like they’re having fun with the Congress.”

Master Chin appeared before them and ushered them off to a quiet corner.

“We have a bit of a problem, Rand,” Chin said softly. “We need to integrate some off-worlders into the fourth-year class, but at random intervals.”

Rand’s brow furrowed with concern. His team was assigned to the fourth-years to help with their training. At first blush, Chin’s request seemed absurd. But he knew this was important and countered, “I’m sure you thought this through, so I suppose you have a plan on how we’ll accomplish it without disrupting the candidates’ training.”

“About that,” Chin said with a mischievous grin. “Get with Quinn’s team and see what you can work out.”

“They’re here?” C-Sharp blurted out.

Rand nodded knowingly as he put it together. “In the new restricted section.”

“Correct. He is expecting you and your team. Say, after you leave here?”

Rand chuckled. “Aye, aye, Master Chin.”

Then he turned to C-Sharp. “Gather the crew. We’ve got some heroes to visit.”

The reunion of the two teams was in the mess hall of the restricted section. Their students and the six instructors were currently at a satellite monastery deep in the forest about twenty miles away.

When the nine of them finished catching up with one another – four from Quinn’s team, and four plus the designated new team lead for Rand’s team – they got down to the problem.

Quinn started off, “Six retired instructors are laying the foundation for these students. They are a squad of SpecOps troops that look like five-foot tall elves. They’re called Silvertonae. Then there are Timi, the fifteen-year-old princess from the Masul royal family and Ronto, her thirteen-year-old brother. Their race is slim, long-limbed with a bluish cast to their skin.”

“Why are we training them?” Rand asked the obvious question.

Quinn related the convoluted details. Rand’s crew, C-Sharp, Micki, and Saul, along with Gautama, the new team lead, asked questions as the story unfolded. When it was all laid out, they sat back to ponder what could be done.

C-Sharp, her bright Asian eyes flashing with humor, led off, “I can see pitting the fourth-years against your guys when we need an OpFor in the trainings. We could also review some earlier exercises to get your guys up to speed.”

“That would work,” Micki said. She was a solidly built, thoughtful but feisty Latina. “We’re already four months into their shaman training, which your guys will need to catch up on, but our guys have another eight months to go. If you’re pushing your guys, we won’t be much help when you pass where our guys are.”

Saul, his black face wrinkled in thought, suggested, “We would have to tap the fifth-years for that.”

“Or the new graduates that haven't been assigned a team,” Gautama put in. “They are reviewing everything anyway.”

Rand looked at Quinn. “You already thought of this.”

“Yes,” Quinn shrugged, “but not how to make it work.”

River said, “I like C-Sharp’s idea. Use our guys as the opposing force in their exercises.”

Moss smiled apologetically to all and quipped, “She’s not usually this pugnacious.”

Pax waited for the banter to die down and offered, “We are expecting psychic attacks from an enemy with unknown capabilities. I think we should be attacking them during these exercises.”

“As well as the fourth-years?” Micki asked.

“Yes.”

“Yeah,” Moss jumped in, “and the instructors could coach them under fire, so to speak, on how to deal with our advanced attacks.”

“Under fire?” Saul queried.

Rand said, “I see where you’re going with this. You’re thinking about both a fire-fight – lasers, grenades, and whatnot – along with psychic attacks.”

Moss nodded. “The two kids need to be battle hardened. We see the Silvertonae as their bodyguards, and they’ll do the fighting, but the kids will be in the middle of it.”

Saul shook his head. “You’ve got an evil streak, Moss.”

“Thank you,” Moss replied brightly.

The baseline training for the royal teens and the Silvertonae, who had christened themselves the ‘royal cadre,’ remained single-pointing the mind. They, along with Timi and Ronto, counted their breaths for a half-hour in the morning and the evening.

The specific training was first an overview of the different landscapes in the spirit world: nature, archetypal, and the void. The instructors spent a week going over what each of the steps River introduced them to actually meant. They each led, off the staircase, to different powers that were available at that frequency of an alpha state. Then they led them to the bottom of the staircase, through an archway to the archetypal plain of spirit, which was accessible only in a theta state.

There, they transitioned into another gift from the Creator – their own safe place, also known in shamanism as their ‘medicine area,’ and within that was a ‘sacred area’ where the energies of spirit were intensified. They spent a week exploring this space, placed anchors they could use to escape dangers by shifting to those anchors. They continued by discovering where other concentrations of power were located within this place.

Next, they ventured out to the archetypal realm, which was home to a variety of entities – deities, demons, ascended masters, power animals, and so on. At the end of the week, the instructors took them to the Wall – the towering barrier that enclosed the compound of evil. Fortunately, they all opted for the light rather than the dark when pressed to make a choice.

After that, the training began in earnest. As a shaman must walk in two worlds, the students needed to access discrete spiritual or psychic powers while solving problems in the physical world, thereby integrating the two.

This was what the fourth-year Coyote candidates were beginning to master four months into their training. Quinn wondered if the royal cadre could catch up.

The first test was a mere five weeks into the cadre’s training. They would defend a mountaintop position from the attacking fourth-years, of which there were some thirty individuals, about double the number of defenders.

The exercise was for the attackers to use psychic skills to conceal themselves, plant suggestions into the defenders minds, or create emotional storms to panic them. This would enable them to get close enough to dispatch the defenders.

To make things interesting, the attackers were restricted to edged weapons only, while the defenders were armed with training rifles.

The exercise should give a good read on how much the royal cadre retained of their crash course so far.

“How do you think they’ll do?” Quinn asked one of the instructors, Master Franco, a tall, stately elder of Spanish descent.

“Better than you might think,” Franco said. “The Silvertonae took to our curriculum like the proverbial duck to water. Timi and Ronto got pulled along in their wake. They should do well. I’ll wager, if I was a betting man, we’ll tag about half the fourth-years.”

“That many?”

“Maybe more,” Franco said with a twinkle in his eyes.