by Kal Spriggs
I gave a dry chuckle at that. But I gave Jonna a significant look, “Whether you want to accept it or not, we’re both in this now. Will telling us your secrets put us any more in danger than what we just went through?” I waved back down the tunnel.
“When you put it that way,” Jonna sighed, “you make a surprising amount of sense sometimes.”
She looked at Osmund, though and then at me. “If I tell both of you this, there’s no going back. Part of why they want to kill me is that they only suspect I know. Are you sure you want to know?”
Osmund looked a bit like he wanted to throw up, but he gave a nod. So did I.
Jonna moved over to a side chamber and settled into a squat. “The different Houses go way back, to the founding of the Empire. Back when the Emperor made a deal with a band of pirates and mercenaries, they could base themselves out of Drakkus Prime, but our people were safe from targeting and they gave some of their ships and weapons towards the military, what later became the Drakkus Imperial Space Korps.”
“Right,” I nodded, “I got the history lesson before.”
“Yeah, well, you only got part of it. Not all those pirates and mercenaries were human.”
“Wait, what?” Osmund asked. “Wouldn’t someone notice that kind of thing?”
“Yeah, if they looked close enough, but not all aliens are so strongly alien that you notice at first glance,” Jonna said, her voice bitter. “And people see what they want to see.”
“Erandi,” I realized, “you’re saying some of the Pirate Houses have some Erandi?” The Erandi were an alien race that operated in the galactic east, out past the Guard’s Rose Military Sector. They looked remarkably similar to humans, to the point that their infiltrators could pass for human with a little bit of effort.
“Not some, virtually all the leadership at the higher levels are Erandi. Their enforcers, the Hunters, they’re all Erandi pirates and slavers,” Jonna told us. “And they’re the leverage behind the Empire’s expansion and widespread use of piracy. Because with more human pirates operating out of the area, they can carry out more of their own raids and they buy human slaves at the markets here and ship them back to their nations.”
Osmund shook his head, “You’re just messing with me. No way, I mean, that doesn’t even make any sense! If the Guard found out—”
“They’d turn the planet into a pattern of overlapping radioactive craters,” Jonna finished for him. “Yeah, which is why the Emperor and the senior leaders of the Empire keep it quiet. But they get weapons tech, alien trade goods, all kinds of goodies out of their deal. They’re not about to end it over a violation of Guard Law.”
“It’s not just Guard Law,” I rubbed my face. “God, it’s the fundamental pillar of the UN Star Guard: the Aliens and Traitors act. I mean, they’ve massacred billions just for surrendering, much less for active collaboration!”
“You see why it’s dangerous?” Jonna gave me a grim smile. “But they’re aliens, with advanced tech, that’s how they were able to move so quietly and to see in the dark down here. That’s how Hunters move so insanely fast and how they’re so dangerous. It’s not just cybernetic upgrades, they’re alien.”
“Okay, sorry, but I’m going to need a bit more than your word to go on for something like this,” Osmund protested.
Lokka spoke up, “Hunters aren’t human. They smell different. My people know this. Where you think they take their prisoners they drag away, huh?” He pointed at me. “Not to normal slave factories. They take them off-world, humans, civets, all of them,” He went back to cleaning himself, as if this weren’t anything special.
Of course he knew, the civets seem to know every secret. Maybe sometime I’d have to sit down and find out what else he knew that the rest of humanity hadn’t noticed.
“What are they doing down here, then?” Osmund demanded.
“It might be some kind of exchange, moving new tech to their allies in the government,” Jonna began, but I shook my head. “No, they could do something like that on the surface, especially if they’re as close with the Empire’s senior people as you’ve made it out.”
“Smuggling stuff in and out,” I mused. “Boxes, crates.” I looked over at Lokka. “Could you get a look at what’s inside those boxes?”
Lokka yawned, “Not going near them. Too many Hunters.”
“We need to know what’s going on. They’ve got an informant at the Institute and—”
Lokka flicked his tail, “Be smart, cut your losses, go back upstairs and leave the sick ones down here to their fate. Better yet, fos, slip to spaceport and go home.”
“Home?” Osmund asked.
“Not important,” I grunted. I looked at Jonna, “Whatever they’re doing down here, they’re trying to keep it secret. House Mantis is an enemy of Prince Abrasax, right?”
She gave a slight nod, “Some of the Pirate Houses don’t like the current arrangements, they’d rather just take over from within. House Mantis is the main driver behind that.”
“Well,” I gestured at her and then Osmund, “then it follows that whatever they’re doing, someone has to put a stop to it.”
“That’s assuming it’s against the Empire and it’s not part of one of their many, many arrangements,” Jonna sighed. “Look, relations between the Houses are complicated at the best of times. The senior leaders of the different Houses are constantly vying with one another. And we know they’re working with someone at the Institute… this is way beyond us.”
I shook my head, “If we go back, if we pretend we didn’t see anything, how long, do you think, before those sick entrants back there get found? It was bad enough thinking what would happen to them before I realized that House Mantis’s Hunters weren’t human. God only knows what would happen to them, even assuming they don’t just kill them.”
“Not your blood, not your clan,” Lokka protested.
“No, but they don’t deserve that,” I snapped. “The strong have a duty to protect those who need it.”
Jonna shook her head, “No, we have a duty to build a better world, to fix things so that they’re not like this in the future. We don’t owe them anything.”
“Like you didn’t owe me anything when you found me on the streets?” I asked. “When Francis was going to shank me in the middle of the street?”
Osmund was looking back and forth between us, clearly confused. Jonna shot me a warning look, but I went on anyway, “Who knows how many people are going to be hurt by whatever it is they’re doing down here. For that matter do you think they’re going to let us walk away? If their informant and his ‘patron’ had enough pull to give them our patrol routes, don’t you think they can get us assigned down here again and again until they’re successful in ambushing us?”
Jonna sighed, “Okay, maybe if you’d led with that argument in the first place…”
Osmund settled back against the wall, shaking his head, “You guys are really serious. I mean, I could have figured you were both telling a story, just trying to string me along, but the way you’re fighting about this…” He put his head in his hands. “Oh man, I don’t want any part of this.”
“I warned you,” Jonna growled. She wasn’t looking at him, either, she was looking at me.
“Sorry,” I grudgingly agreed. Osmund didn’t need any part in this. Now we both had to worry about whether he’d keep his mouth shut or if he’d run screaming to Imperial Intelligence as soon as we got back. Or our instructors, or Richardson, or Princess Kiyu, or just about anyone. I blinked as I considered that. “You said the Emperor is the one managing things, does his whole family know?”
Jonna shrugged, “It’s a fair assumption, isn’t it?” The implication was the Princess Kiyu was in the know, and therefore complicit. Well, your other girlfriend is in this up to the tips of her pretty red spikey hair, huh? Shadow asked. I ignored her.
“We’re running low on time,” I noted. There was no way we could slip past the Hunters, especially not with them operating in
the dark. I looked at Lokka, “Can you try to get a look at the crates?”
The civet yawned, showing pointy incisors. “Too dangerous.”
“I thought you were bored, just getting in a couple boxes should be easy and maybe a little exciting, right?” I asked. Lokka turned and went back to cleaning himself, ignoring me.
“We need to regroup, think about this, and get back to the lift before we’re out of time,” I went on. I’ll warn the others that the way is blocked.” I shook my head, “I’m not even sure what to tell them.”
“The truth,” Osmund sighed, “there’s a bunch of House Mantis Hunters running some kind of operation in the tunnels, it’s too dangerous to go towards the spaceport right now. I’m more worried about what we’re going to tell Daewa Tong when we get back to the Institute.”
“One thing at a time,” I told him. One thing at a time.
***
Chapter 12: I Notice Something Interesting And I’m Sure It Won’t Be An Issue Later
The lift doors opened and we shuffled out. Telling Nikki and the others the bad news hadn’t been easy. Hurrying back through the tunnels while keeping an eye out of Hunters had been more stressful, and even then, we’d almost run into another of the patrols in a section of tunnels we weren’t supposed to be in, so by the time we’d gotten back, the three of us were tired, wet, and ready to be done.
Seeing Jerral looking moderately rested and talking quietly with the two other Iron Flight entrants had been grating. I had almost wished the idiot had been taken by the Hunters looking for me. Or just that he’d had a nice scare, the null-brain.
Daewa Tong seemed to take his time with each of the patrols and we ended up being the next to last group to be debriefed. I listened with half an ear as the other patrols reported. None of them seemed to have encountered anything out of the ordinary. Jerral’s group went the quickest, with Jerral rattling of his made-up patrol notes and his two lackeys backing him up.
Our turn finally came and Jonna stepped forward, snapping off a salute to Tong. “Sir,” she began, “Entrant Hayden, Jade Flight—”
Daewa Tong interrupted her, “You completed your patrol route?”
“Yes, sir,” she lied quickly. “We—”
Tong looked at the three of us, almost as if he didn’t believe what he was seeing. “You must not have followed the route I gave you.”
I felt a wave of unease as he said that. How did he know? Had he monitored us? But he seemed surprised by our presence, almost as if…
He set us up, he’s the one who slipped House Mantis our patrol schedule. I opened my mouth before I could stop myself, “Sir, we patrolled the area you uploaded us, with no encounters, would you like us to go back down and walk it with you?”
Jonna shot me a shocked look and I could see Osmund sway a bit at the disrespectful tone I took. But Tong’s face went pale rather than flushing with anger. The last thing he wanted to do was be down in the tunnels right now, especially anywhere near us.
Shadow, hack his message to us and alter our route, so that when he checks, it’ll show he sent us somewhere else.
Shadow giggled, I like it. Done.
“We did the route you sent us on, sir,” I told him. I forwarded him the route Shadow gave me, even as she let me know she’d changed his original one to match.
I could see Tong’s expression fall as he checked his message log. I could also see sweat bead his forehead. “Fine,” he growled at us, “dismissed.” He waved a hand at us and Jonna led the way off. Can you message them what I did in such a way that it can’t be intercepted?
I think so, just a plain text message. Their patrol routes will have been changed as well, Shadow told me.
I could see when the pair of them got the message. Jonna’s back went straight and Osmund looked around, as if afraid someone was watching.
It was a relief to get back to our barracks bay. I hurried through a shower and then climbed into my bunk, almost too tired to think, but thankfully I passed out quickly enough.
Sleep, though, wasn’t the right word for the experience. With everything that had happened and without quick heal to knock me out, I kept waking, started out of my doze by nightmares of endless corridors where Hunters pursued me and faceless figures in uniform watched, unable or unwilling to help. It went on and on and no sooner would I wake up and rub my eyes clear of the last nightmare than I would doze off and dive into the next one.
The lights coming on in the morning was a relief. My head felt muddled and my eyelids felt like they’d been coated sand, but at least this was real. It wasn’t the nightmares.
Richardson put us in our armor, but this time instead of going out for training, he activated a training simulation, so our helmets went to a loading display. “We’re approaching the last phases of Second Screening. At this point you’ve learned to shoot and maneuver, now you need to learn how to do that as a flight. Second Screening is pass or fail. Every one of you will pass together, or every one of you will fail.”
Now that I knew more about it, my stomach fell at his words.
“Jade Flight has not failed a Second Screening during my tenure as the sponsor,” Richardson went on. “You will not be the first to do so, despite any special… challenges.” I knew he was talking about me. “Therefore, I will train you all as hard or harder than any flight before. “We’ll adopt a rotation of flight leader and sub-leaders as we shake down relative proficiencies. Your position at this point will have nothing to do with your ranking at the Institute, it’s merely a selection based off of group dynamics and relative tactical proficiencies. Like many elements in the Drakkus Imperial Space Korps, we adopt ad-hoc organizations of leadership based upon the strategic, operational, and tactical requirements.”
I wasn’t sure I followed that last part. It almost sounded like they chose who was in charge based upon the situation. How exactly that should work on a space vessel, I have no idea.
Shadow gave a snort of derision, Yeah, I’m sure the Emperor steps right down and lets someone else take their turn if they’re more of an expert.
“For these first iterations, you’ll run through small tactical scenarios at the sub-flight and flight scale of combat, following the scenario guidelines and tactics. Remember, this is all aimed at developing your skills so that you can survive Second Screening. You may begin.”
My visor blanked and then went live with data, far more information than it had shown before. I filtered it down with my implant, taking in the situation. I had about a squad, or what they called a sub-flight, ten simulated people. I could direct them on my helmet or verbally and the first training scenario was rudimentary and simple, oriented on how to send and receive orders and commands. I worked through it and three or four more in quick succession. Compared to some of the combat sims I’d borrowed from my sister, this was all pretty easy stuff.
It got more interesting as it loaded the first free-fire combat scenario. I got a quick briefing on the threat: twenty to thirty irregulars armed with a mix of light and heavy weapons in a defensive position. I was supposed to scout the enemy positions, avoid giving away my presence, and then engage and destroy the enemy in a way to avoid giving them a chance to respond.
The previous scenarios had walked me through how to scout and utilize the Kavacha Mark V’s sensors to identify enemy positions. I started with that, but then my other elements picked up a roving patrol that put my scouts in danger. The smart thing to do would have been to pull them back, but I wasn’t sure I had the time.
Instead, I signaled my digital troops to attack the patrol. In part, I wanted to see how the scenario was designed, how much flexibility I had, and what they wanted us to get out of it.
My sub-flight took down the enemy patrol. In the process, enemy positions opened up, a heavy machine gun and a couple of missile launchers, along with two dozen or so small-arms. A scenario warning flashed up, telling me that retreat in the face of that firepower was advised.
Instead, since my scouts
were close enough to identify the main heavy weapons, I gave them orders to engage and suppress them. As they opened up from close range, I ordered the rest of my digital troops to assault. I bounded forward with the rest of them, firing as I advanced in long, low bounds that covered ground quickly.
Dropping down in among the enemy, I opened up left and right, my digital minions dutifully doing the same, even as enemy fire drove into them from close range. I saw several fall, but the defending force went down quickly. As the last of the enemy fell, the screen blanked.
It switched over to the after-action display, with an “efficiency” ranking and overall kills versus losses as well as a list of objectives given from the briefing and an overall score.
I’d lost three personnel and destroyed the entirety of the enemy force. It gave me an overall efficiency rating of fifty percent. Ouch. I’d accomplished all of my objectives, though. But my overall score was only thirty percent.
That was frustrating. I hadn’t followed the scenario’s recommendations, but I’d gotten the mission done, hadn’t I?
The same scenario loaded, with a note that a seventy percent or higher had to be achieved to move one to the next scenario. After a quick look, I realized that everything had spawned in in the same places. This time, I didn’t bother to push the scouts out, I moved them to the side to set up an ambush on the patrol and advanced my entire force up to the edge of the enemy defenses. As the patrol came up, I triggered the ambush and then launched the assault on the defenses, with four of my sub-flight suppressing the enemy while I led the others on a direct assault.
When the scenario cleared, my after action report showed I’d lost one, destroyed the entirety of the enemy and achieved all objectives. It gave me a score of forty percent efficiency and twenty percent overall. What is up with this? I thought. It didn’t make any sense. I’d beaten the scenario, I didn’t see why it scored me so abysmal.
Shadow, got any ideas?
She didn’t answer for a moment. It looks like it’s designed so that there’s only the one right answer. Avoid the scouts, identify enemy positions, attack from a flanking position.
