by Tim C Taylor
He understood the principle of a lie detector well enough, knew that a person’s unconscious responses were studied in meticulous detail: pulse, breathing rate, perspiration, blood pressure, eye movement, the slightest fidget of arm or leg, but the analysis of those responses and the conclusions drawn were a mystery, and he was happy for them to remain so.
Given the haste with which the interview rooms had been fitted out, he had to admit the technicians had done a surprisingly good job. There were no intrusive wires or head pads here, the apparently innocuous chairs each interviewee sat in were loaded with a variety of sensors. Along with the recordings from strategically hidden cameras, these provided all the readings Furn and Finfth required.
Early signs were encouraging. Arun had feared that they would have to run through virtually all the sleepers to recruit a full complement for the two ships whose construction had already resumed, but with nearly two thirds of the sleepers passing the test and willing to declare allegiance it soon became apparent they would have enough recruits for these first two and further ships as well. It seemed that loyalty to the White Knights might be a lot less ingrained than he had imagined.
Of course, they hadn’t started on the Jotuns yet. The first group was due to be processed later that evening. The Reserve Captain, who would be present, insisted that the same set of questions would be adequate with only minimal modification, other than the swearing of a binding oath for which she insisted the recording equipment must be turned off. Arun had no idea what to expect in terms of results, but the Reserve Captain expressed confidence.
He was catching up on the latest estimates for when construction of the first new ship would be completed – less than two standard weeks – when Furn and Finfth burst into the room.
“General, you have to see this, now!” Finfth said.
The fact that they had come in person rather than utilizing any other form of communication spoke volumes; the fact that Furn had come at all said even more.
“All right, Finfth, slow down,” Arun said. “Furn, what are you doing here? This should be your sleep period ahead of your next shift.”
“Sleep can go to hell. This is important. Finfth woke me to go over something. I have, and now we’re here, bringing it to you.”
“All right then, spill.”
It was Finfth who spoke. “I was analyzing one of today’s interviews, a fella named Orzil, interview 5178, when something caught my attention. Not any ambiguity over his loyalty; he has no great love for the White Knights and has bought into the concept of the Legion up to a point, certainly well within acceptance parameters. It was something else that intrigued me, so I did a follow up interview straight away, in person, and that intrigued me even more, enough to send me data-mining through our earlier findings.”
They were still sifting through everything they had discovered at the Khallini-4 research facilities on the surface and in orbit. Already they’d uncovered enough concepts and ideas to excite even the freaks, all at varying degrees of development. They were taking their time so as not to miss anything and ensure that the potential of each new idea was fully appreciated. That meant progress was slow, and many innovations were as yet unexplored, but it was better to be methodical, as Furn had emphasized more than once. The maxim bore repeating, especially to the Littoranes, who increasingly seemed to view the Legion’s undertaking as a holy war. They were all for stripping Khallini of what could be readily acquired and heading off to smite the enemy – though presumably not the 3rd Fleet, since that would be suicide. Again Del-Marie’s skills at diplomacy had come to the fore. He had been able to persuade the Littorane commanders that the many treasures hidden within Khallini’s database were ‘gifts from the goddess’ which would eventually secure their victory, and not to be spurned. As a result, the Littoranes had agreed to be patient, for now.
“You see, Orzil is a crack pilot, but not of starships,” Finfth continued. “He’s no experience at all with anything the size of the Beowulf; instead his expertise is with one-man fliers, and he mentioned a specific research project he’d been sent here for. That set my neurons firing and I looked back at an earlier interview, one conducted on a junior scientist who was part of the research base personnel rather than one of the sleepers: Svenson, interview 339. She’d denied the existence of any such area of research. The two accounts didn’t tally, so I pulled Svenson in immediately for a second interrogation. She kept to her story without triggering the lie detector, but everywhere I pressed, I uncovered tiny inconsistencies.”
“Which is when he woke me up to combine forces,” said Furn. “We gave Svenson the full treatment, gloves off and hands on. It was the only way to break down her defenses. Turns out she’s augmented like us. She has hormonal control implants, though they are greatly our inferior.”
“And there was nothing junior about her role, either. There’s an entire research team who’ve been using their implants to defeat our interrogations and hide in plain view.”
The Legion’s augments were clearly enjoying themselves, but Arun really wished they’d get to the point. “And what exactly was this project?” he prompted.
“I’m getting to that,” Finfth said.
“Reactionless drives,” Furn cut in.
“Hey, this is my story,” Finfth said.
“Well you’re taking your sweet time about it.”
“Please!” Arun said quickly, his heart pounding. Reactionless drives! Did that really mean what he thought? “One of you.”
Furn rolled his eyes and gestured for his partner to continue.
“As I was about to say,” Finfth continued, “following Svenson’s complete and unwilling cooperation, we uncovered hidden research into developing a reactionless drive.” He paused, watching Arun as if anticipating a response.
Arun didn’t offer one. He daren’t. The freaks were hinting at an innovation that could have huge implications. Better to play dumb until their explanation was complete. “And this is exciting because…?” he said.
“Seriously? Do I have to spell out the implications for you?”
“We’ve all had a long day, so if you wouldn’t mind, yes.”
With a single shake of his head Finfth conveyed all the exasperation of a beleaguered teacher confronted by a pupil who refused to comprehend the obvious. “Look, think of it this way. If you fire your SA-71 in semi-automatic mode, why don’t you fall over?”
“The recoil limiter soaks up the recoil force.”
“How?”
“Beats me. I’ve always assumed that the gun converts the recoil energy into heat and then dumps that to the heat sink, in the same way that a warship’s shield does, sending the energy into a higher dimension.”
“And yet the dart leaves the muzzle with huge momentum.”
“Yeah. So?”
“With the scale of energy convertor we’ve uncovered, you could do the same with small void craft. Not starships… not yet… but something the size of a Stork. Connect this new energy convertor to a boat-sized heat dump and you could convert the vessel’s momentum into energy and dump it elsewhere.”
Finfth stared at him expectantly once more, and this time Arun couldn’t hold back. “So what you’re saying is: small warboats that can swoop in, halt in an instant and accelerate away again using the full potential of a zero-point engine.”
“Exactly!”
“Won’t the crew be crushed?”
“No, that’s the beauty of it. The force that slams you against your acceleration couch and tries to pull the skin off your bones… it doesn’t apply here, because it’s all channeled into the heat sink. The pilot could even be in freefall all the way. This discovery will revolutionize inter-ship conflict, and the side that deploys it first…”
Arun could picture it clearly. Warboats this nimble would make every other vessel in space look lumbering and cumbersome in comparison.
“Why has no one thought of this before?”
“The Reserve Captain told me that t
he reason Earth was invaded in the first place had nothing to do with mining or slave labor. It was because the White Knights desperately needed human imagination. The rest of the universe is so ossified in its thinking it has forgotten originality. Species like ours are prized because our thinking is unconventional, tackling problems that have stymied other races from a completely new direction. That’s the reason such an advanced, such an important, R&D base was established here at Khallini.
Arun was stunned. He’d heard the rumors about why aliens had fought over Earth, but after a lifetime of being told humans were a worthless race overdue extermination, the importance placed on the human contribution to Khallini-4 hadn’t even entered his thinking.
“Some of the people we’ve interviewed – the scientists who were working at the base, not the sleepers – they’re among the most brilliant minds humanity has ever produced, almost on a par with Furn and myself. And they’re only the ones that haven’t successfully hidden from us. The work they’re conducting is… inspired. The Old Empire was determined to take maximum advantage of their efforts, to reap all they could before abandoning the facility ahead of the 3rd Fleet’s arrival… And we must do the same.”
“In that, Finfth is entirely correct,” Furn said.
Interesting. It was hardly a surprise that Furn and Finfth would want to hang around at Khallini with all its technological wonders for as long as possible, but this was the first time Arun had heard them speak up on the subject with such authority.
“Even before these revelations, our precise timetable with regard to Khallini had yet to be determined,” Arun temporized.
“We appreciate that, General, which is why we’re presenting this to you now. In our considered view it would be madness to abandon the base too soon…”
“We have to stay here,” Finfth cut in, “not only to the last minute but past that… The R&D facility is worth keeping hold of, even if that means beating off the 3rd Fleet to do so.”
“What?” Arun might have thought he was joking had this been anyone else. “Thank you for your input, Leading Spacer Furnace-Shield. I understand perfectly well the huge military significance of a way to convert momentum to energy. But this is only a research project. Not even the Old Empire intended to stand and fight against the 3rd Fleet, not in any serious fashion.”
“Maybe not, but their agenda isn’t ours,” Furn said, unfazed by Arun’s attempt at formality. “Hear us out. Since Finfth woke me we’ve been working this through between us, and what we’ve discovered is a game changer, something that could swing the outcome of the whole war. There’s a new type of fighter in development here at Khallini designed to operate with the momentum-to-energy converter rather than simply being modified to house it. It’s still in the early proof of concept stage, but the results are promising… Essentially, from all that we’ve seen we’re confident the idea works, but there’s a lot more work needed before we have a functioning battle winner.”
“That’s what those test rigs are for,” Finfth jumped in.
Arun knew what he meant. They had discovered elaborate facilities already in place, wondering at their purpose and assuming they would discover it in time as they continued to peel away the facility’s secrets.
“Commit to staying here so that we can do that work, commit now, and by the time the 3rd Fleet arrives we’ll be in a position to do more than just tweak their noses,” Finfth said.
“This is our chance to prove that the Human Legion is a force to be reckoned with,” Furn added.
Arun could understand what had gotten the freaks so excited. The White Knights of the Old Empire considered the 3rd Fleet to be such a threat that they had established a new base to combat them, devised new tactics and weapons to fight them. But the Legion had taken that base. If they then went on to defeat the 3rd Fleet, both sides would have to sit up and take notice. It would change the whole dynamics of the civil war and immediately mark the Human Legion as a major player. But the risk was enormous.
“We’ll never get another chance like this,” Finfth said into Arun’s thoughtful silence.
Arun would never have considered either Furn or Finfth to be reckless, yet what they proposed was… bold to say the least. He had never encountered brains as keen as theirs in any other human. If they saw an opportunity here only a fool would dismiss the possibility, but at the same time they were unencumbered by the sort of responsibility he shouldered, which meant he was not about to jump wholeheartedly behind their plan. Nor would they expect him too.
He contemplated them for a moment longer, Finfth looking impatient, Furn simply waiting for his response. “You really believe in this new weapon this much?”
“Yes,” they said in unison.
“Very well then. I’ll give this serious consideration.”
Finfth would have said more, but Furn ushered him away. Arun sat for long moments, mulling over what the two freaks had said. The Legion could never do it, of course, take on the 3rd Fleet, but what a prospect. It would certainly catch the attention of both the existing factions. And the augmented ‘specials’ were anything but fools…
Could the Littoranes be persuaded to remain patient and wait for the enemy to come to them? Could Del-Marie convince them that this was the Goddess’s will, that here was an opportunity to inflict serious damage to the enemy? The real question was, did Arun really want them to? He fetched Barney, and together they mined the newly updated records of the interviews and analysis of the research and production facilities. How much he was likely to understand was uncertain, but he was determined to glean all he could before putting anything before his senior officers.
God help him, but he was actually beginning to take Furn and Finfth’s proposal seriously.
—— PART V ——
THE SLEEPING LEGION
Human Legion
— INFOPEDIA —
HISTORY OF THE LEGION
– The Sleeping Legion
If their new weapons could be readied in time, the main Legion fleet was determined to stand and fight the 3rd Fleet for control of Khallini. It would be a desperate gamble, even victory would be a close-run thing. But the Legion did not gamble everything on this one battle. Not quite. They still had their base in the Shepherd-Nurture system, the home system of the Littoranes. But if the Legion fell at Khallini, the Littoranes would be vulnerable.
Still burning with desire for revenge against the Hardits who had slaughtered every human on Tranquility, the answer to this problem was abundantly clear to the human survivors of the Fall of Detroit. A squadron of three warships, under the command of newly promoted Colonel Nhlappo, was dispatched to Tranquility to retrieve the millions of frozen Marines hidden under Detroit and make the Hardits pay for their crimes. The operation of retrieving millions of cryo pods and bringing them to orbit would take years, by which point the outcome of the Legion’s stand at Khallini would be known.
Would this sleeping legion be transported to reinforce the victorious fleet at Khallini, or be sent to bolster the defenses at Shepherd-Nurture?
Only time would tell, and the answer was not one anyone had anticipated.
— Chapter 28 —
Tawfiq Woomer-Calix, Supreme Commander of the Hardit Empire, Primogenitor of the New Order and Scourge of humanity could not have been more content.
The humans were stupid, an inferior race. She had known this all along, but their last trespass on Tranquility had ended some way short of the total humiliation she had planned for them. This time, though, it would be different.
The humans’ greatest weakness was their complacency. Amusingly, they seemed to believe that they were the superior race, imagining they could saunter back here, establish a base and take whatever they pleased, that she would not have learned from the previous conflict, would not have planned.
The clues were there, had the humans not been so blinded by arrogance. Even at the time of their first return to Tranquility her glorious reign had begun to take effect, establishi
ng new Hardit tactics and new resources. In the years that had passed since she bloodied their soft skins that time around she had consolidated her power and been far from idle. Tranquility was hers. How dare they come back here and challenge that?
They would learn their error though, oh how they would learn. The true purpose of the recent action had gone unnoticed, the raid on the precious warehouse dismissed as unimportant and the incident forgotten about as soon as the attackers were slain. Fools.
Tawfiq watched on the vast screen before her as the orbital elevator the humans had established continued to ferry icer pods into the clouds, and far beyond into space, sealing her victory in the process. That was the beauty of her plan: the humans were doing the work for her. All she had to do was watch.
Without warning the scene before her changed. It was difficult to be certain at first given the scale and the absence of any context other than the sky, but the elevator had stopped.
Was this due to a technical glitch that would soon be remedied or something more ominous? She had to know.
Again her enemy’s complacency came to her aid. They assumed their communications to be secure, never dreaming that Hardit experts had cracked their encryptions within the first days of their return.
Tawfiq eavesdropped on a conversation between two of the beasts – both females, she thought, though it was difficult to be certain; humans all sounded so much alike.
What she heard banished her good mood. Rage welled through her and she gave voice to an inchoate scream that sent the bevy of juniors waiting on her royal whim cringing with concern.
She mastered the anger swiftly. Such displays were unseemly now she had reached such an elevated status.
So what if the enemy had discovered her scheme? It was merely the first step. Already the effects would be felt, unsettling the humans, disrupting their plans. They would be confused, their morale dented and fragile, and now she would deliver the hammer blow that would shatter it entirely and send the glorious Hardit legions marching in triumph over the human dead.
