The Remnant

by Paul B Spence

  Well, he thought, it's not my problem anymore. The Descubierta and Lafayette were due to break orbit later that day. They were leaving GL 661 and its problems behind, possibly – hopefully – forever.

  Now he was back aboard again, this time to meet with all of the captains and discuss the tactical situation. The situation here sucks, he thought. But I can't say that. If the Nurgg decide they want this system, they'll have it. The Federation isn't going to risk turning this into a major conflict over one planet of archaeological interest. There aren't even any decent resources here.

  Marines in full battle dress stood at attention outside the conference room. He thought that seemed a bit silly. There was no reason to have the marines wearing their uncomfortable armored spacesuits instead of their uniforms. Unless he's worried about mutiny, Hutchinson thought wryly. With his personality, that may be a legitimate concern.

  Commodore Ffoulkes called the meeting to order.

  Arrayed around the conference room table, deep in the core of the Agamemnon, sat the eleven captains of the taskforce he commanded at the moment, although two of them were leaving soon. He had a feeling of great power in knowing that so many people were looking to him to lead the way. It was at once both frightening and comforting: the fear of knowing that any mistake he made would be paid for in the blood of those under his command, the comfort of an old familiar role.

  Command was indeed a familiar role for him. He'd had the honor of commanding no fewer than four different ships in his seventeen years of service. He had fought in many battles during that time. It embarrassed him somewhat to be considered a hero, but he had received the coveted Medal of Honor for his defense of Neo Gaulia during that first horrific advance of the Nurgg through Federation space. He still had nightmares about that battle.

  He cleared his throat. "I would like to thank you all for seeing me on such short notice. I know that you each have much to do today, so I'll be brief. The war with the Nurgg is at a critical stage. Ships are being diverted from all across Federation space. The official policy, as I understand it, is that the planets in the Protectorate are going to be abandoned."

  There was a stirring at that, but no one said anything.

  He continued. "The truth of the matter is that we simply don't have enough ships to continue with our patrols out here with no local support. I understand that there has even been talk of falling back from the Frontier as well."

  That brought an expected round of protests and condemnations. He let them get it out of their systems, and then went on.

  "Commanders, please!" He made 'settle down' gestures with his hands. "I don't agree with either policy, myself, but it isn't our place to decide which orders to follow. I personally don't think that it will come to that. Half of our Fleet military bases are in the Frontier, as is a quarter of the population that we are sworn to protect. No, I think that the rumors are false there. Just the same, we are falling back from the Protectorate. Not, however, from this system at this time." He paused to allow that to sink in. "It is the defense of this system that we are here to discuss. Fleet considers the research mission of the Loridell to be of critical importance. Perhaps Commander Thomas could tell us a little bit about that mission?"

  Mackenzie Thomas grimaced at the use of his rank. He was used to being addressed as Captain, but there was only one captain on a ship, and this wasn't his ship.

  He stood and began slowly. "Very well, Commodore, Commanders. The Loridell, as some of you are aware, carries a complement of civilian scientists when she goes out. At the moment, we are hosting an expedition from the University of New Atlanta. The original scope of the expedition was to discover the factors that determine how a society falls into barbarism after losing the ability to maintain its technology."

  He paused for a drink of water, and then datalinked an image to the air screens in front of each person. "What you are looking at here is the alpha dig site. This location seemed to be the most likely for the original colonization of the planet, as gleaned from the old records. There have been a number of interesting archeological discoveries here, but nothing spectacular."

  He datalinked a recording of the village to them next. "Here you see a village, named Renivee in the local tongue. It was actually a discovery here that was so important. Dr. Amber Mason, head of the anthropology team, heard rumors in the village of ancient ruins. It was intriguing enough to compel her to investigate."

  He loaded another picture. This one caused several of the people around the table to gasp. "What you are looking at is the beta dig site. From your reactions, I see that some of you, at least, notice the same thing the science team did: this city is too old to have been built by the colonists."

  "How old is it, Commander?" asked one of the newer captains.

  "The best estimate of the science team is that the ruins are at least twelve to fifteen thousand years old." He loaded another picture. "Here is a selection of artifacts from the beta site. These are not Nurgg artifacts. Note that whomever the artifacts belonged to was most likely similarly configured, physically, to humans."

  "How can you be sure?" someone asked.

  "Form follows function, Commanders. The civilian team and their military attaché are convinced that some of these might have been weapons. The level of technology was at least equal to ours, maybe higher in some areas."

  With that, he sat back down.

  Ffoulkes took a deep breath. "So there you go. I trust none of you feel that this discovery is not worth defending?" He paused, but no one said anything. Several of them looked a little stunned. It had been a rhetorical question anyway; their orders were clear. "Are there any questions before we get to the particulars of deployment and defense?"

  "Are we talking about possibly having found evidence of the Achenar?"

  Thomas cleared his throat. "I don't think that there's sufficient evidence to link this site to them. Dr. Anderson did tell me that these sort of megalithic ruins have been found on at least one other planet. In fact, it is what led to the expedition out here in the first place."

  "And what planet was that, Commander?"

  "Earth."

  "Okay, let's clear the room, people," Dr. Rodriguez said. "Lt. Commander, I'm sure you know the protocols. We've achieved full stasis reversal, and your companion seems to be doing fine. I'd like to do a full work-up on both of you afterward. He is, of course, still unconscious. Opening the chamber will initiate the reversal of the neural inhibitors."

  Tebrey just stared at the container.

  "Commander? Are you okay?"

  He shook himself and took a deep breath. "I'm fine, Doctor. I'm sorry. It's just a bit of a shock. No one notified me that I was being assigned another companion. The last thing anyone said to me about it was that I wasn't psychologically fit to have another one yet." He shrugged. "I guess someone changed their mind."

  "So it would seem. I'm sorry about the surprise. I was only notified minutes before they delivered him to my med bay. Are you sure you're ready for this?"

  "I'm fine," he repeated. "Thank you for your concern. Please make sure no one comes in before I signal to you. This can be difficult sometimes if others are present."

  "Not a problem. Sergeant McGee is standing guard outside. Let me know if I can do anything." With that, Dr. Rodriguez left the room.

  The click of the door locks activating seemed unnaturally loud.

  Tebrey walked around the container, checking the diagnostic readouts for himself. He ran his hands along the smooth, cool metal. He tried to prepare his mind for what was to come, but it kept filling with memories of Ripper. The container reminded him of a coffin. He and Ripper had fought together for years. It was difficult to believe that the beautiful creature was really gone. What made it worse was that Tebrey only had the most fragmentary memories of his death. It had been horrible. He knew that. But he couldn't remember exactly what had happened, no matter how hard he tried. Part of that uncertainty was what had happened to Tebrey afterwards; part of it w
as what the psychologists had done to him to make him functional.

  He took a deep, shuddering breath and wiped the sweat from his brow. This isn't going to get any easier by waiting, he though grimly. He datalinked his personal identification code to the lock and placed his hand over the scanner. The prick of the gene sampler was, as always, a surprise.

  The lid retracted.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dr. Maria Rodriguez rushed to prepare her medical bay for the worst. There had been a whole cube of information about what to do in cases like this. She could deal with trauma, but this was an entirely new thing for her.

  There had been bad accidents before when an operative was introduced to a new companion. It was possible that the birth trauma of waking up for the first time in a strange environment would cause the companion to go into psychosis.

  A six-hundred-kilogram, bioengineered killing machine was not something that anyone wanted to turn psychotic. The commander wouldn't even have a chance, she thought. Still, her orders were to stand by and salvage what she could of the man if things went wrong.

  She had to save his brain, at least; the rest could be regrown if need be.

  Tebrey looked down upon his new companion for the first time. He tried to let his mind form comforting thoughts, and focused on connecting to the brain inside that massive fur-covered skull.

  The companion's breathing was soft and deep, as he gradually came to wakefulness for the first time. His sleek black fur was smooth and slightly silky, covering the massively muscled frame beneath. He yawned, showing the silvery gleam of artificial teeth – teeth that were designed to punch through armor.

  He sat up suddenly, becoming aware of Tebrey. He chuffed uncertainly and looked him in the eye, challenging him.

  Tebrey met that look with a challenge of his own. He forced his way past its mental barriers and touched him, mind to mind. There was a sudden dislocation; he was Hrothgar Tebrey, Special Operations, human, and he was also Hunter, neo-panther, bred and engineered to be the perfect killing machine. He was trained subconsciously in military protocol, loaded with the history of war and the natural instincts of his hunting ancestors. He knew the perfect way to kill anything that breathed. He knew the fear that his massive size and terrible teeth and claws could cause. He knew that he was unstoppable, impregnated with armor under his skin. He could kill and devour these fragile beings that had dared to cage him, and they couldn't stop him.

  Nothing could stop –

  I can. It was a thought, his but not his own.

  I'll start with this one, Hunter thought.

  No. It was a simple thought, but the power of it stopped him with his huge front paws no further than the edge of the container.

  I will do as I please, he thought. Raw animal rage suffused his mind.

  No, you will do as I please.

  He roared and flexed his beryllium steel claws, casually shredding the side of the container.

  Look at me, flashed a thought.

  He resisted, but he felt his head turn up and his eyes lock onto those of his mental tormentor, and then he felt his resistance crumbling. He felt the flood of admiration and love from the human in front of him. And then he knew what it was to truly think. He knew he was in a medical bay, on a starship. And then he saw himself from inside the other.

  He saw a massive, beautiful creature with deadly grace and intelligence. He felt deeper and found the mourning loss, the aching emptiness of the other, where another companion had been and had been torn away. He instinctively soothed that pain.

  He stepped from his container and looked upon his new companion. Then he licked the tears from Tebrey's face.

  A neo-panther was a complex organism. It wasn't just an enhanced panther. It would be more accurate to say that it was a clone of the human companion, modified to look like a giant panther.

  A hundred fifty years before, when the Earth Federation began its first tentative expansion back into space, the first neo-panthers had been engineered. They were nothing more than panthers given extra muscle mass and human-level intelligence. The result was less than favorable. Great cats weren't noted for their docility or social behavior.

  A new approach was discovered a few decades later. The scientists took the DNA of a psionic person and blended it with that of the engineered panther. The result was a clone of the psion who had all the instincts of a panther, but had the intellect of a human. It was found that the newly-formed companions had to be kept from the thoughts of other people while their brains were developing. This allowed the neo-panther to develop a personality that was built upon the template of the person he or she would be bonded with. And bonded was what they truly were. The teams worked together far better than anyone had thought possible. They didn't need to talk to each other mentally, although they could; they each knew what the other was going to do and were able to react as a single organism in battle.

  Needless to say, that had its advantages.

  The neo-panthers were heavily cybernetically augmented before they joined with their humans. They had the standard immunity implant and datalink that all Fleet personnel received. They also received a sub-dermal layer of self-healing bio-plastic with antiballistic properties. Their teeth and jaws were replaced with a beryllium steel alloy similar to that used in powered armor. The same alloy was used to replace the bones of the feet and the claws and cover the skull and major organs.

  Special Operations personnel were drawn from the ranks of the Marine Corps. They choose only the best and brightest candidates who had the requisite psionic potential as well as the ability to be a commando. Not all Special Operations personnel had companions, but everyone who had a companion was in Special Operations.

  The candidates were trained to use their special abilities to the fullest, and then they were introduced to their companions. One in five of the bio-engineered companions went psychotic and killed their human companion during the initial bonding. Because of this, and combined with the rarity of the requisite psionic traits, such teams weren't common. At any given time, there were less than twenty teams serving in the Earth Federation Fleet.

  Tebrey pulled himself back together and sat on the floor of the isolation room with his new friend. He knew that part of why they were able to bond so quickly was simply because they were so similar. A cynical part of him even knew that it was unfair to the companion because the human mind imprinted into the raw template to form a sort of mirror, but he didn't care. Hunter was now a part of him forever.

  I'll never let anything happen to you, he thought to Hunter. We will live!

  The cat, wisely, said nothing.

  Captain Hutchinson was a very tired man.

  It was late into the night before the Descubierta and the Lafayette got under way. There had been an endless series of last-minute checks on the drive and hull, but it was finally over, and they were leaving the system.

  I wish I could say I was sorry to go, Hutchinson thought.

  The ships of Commodore Ffoulkes' taskforce made an impressive sight. He was frankly envious of the commodore's flagship. As much as he loved the Descubierta, she wasn't a ship of the line. He wanted to command a battle cruiser, but then, what captain didn't?

  He and Captain Andrukhovych had had one last drink with Captain Mitchell on the Jianghu before they left. This had been Hutchinson's first command of a taskforce, and the heavens only knew if he had done well or not. He had followed his orders, though, and gotten his ships through it. He would always mourn the crew he lost, but he knew that he had done the right thing.

  He had an odd feeling that he would be back to this system someday, under very different circumstances.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It took a couple of days for Tebrey and Hunter to integrate their minds fully, but that was normal. They were beginning to operate as a team, and people were starting to get used to seeing them striding through the corridors of the Loridell together. Many of the crew were curious about Hunter. They had never se
en a neo-panther. There had been considerable amusement at his antics in the gymnasium, although some of the equipment would never be the same.

  There was a downside: Tebrey had to have Engineering install a special toilet in his bathroom. Environmental had been furious at the consumption and waste report he had filed with them. At least neo-panthers had been engineered to be omnivores, so there was no need for the galley to produce special food for him.

  What Hunter and he really needed was to get out and run. Exercise in the gymnasium was inadequate, and the developing brain of his partner needed more stimulus than he could receive aboard ship. Dr. Bauval provided them with the perfect excuse one day over lunch.

  "I'm concerned about the possibility of another attack by the local predators," Bauval began as he walked up. "I asked the captain about marine sweeps around each of the dig sites, and he told me to talk to you."

  "Hmm," Tebrey said around a bite of bland, processed food. "What you really want is another specimen to dissect, right, Doctor?" Hunter's primal desire for real food was taking its toll on Tebrey. He was beginning to think that even packaged rations might be better than the food aboard ship.

  Bauval grinned, unabashed. "I won't deny that I would like another sample, but I wouldn't put people at risk to get it. I actually am worried about attacks. It's starting to get cold down there, and the big predators may migrate north for the winter."

  Both dig sites were situated in temperate latitudes in the southern hemisphere. It took Tebrey mental effort to remember that the equator of the planet was to the north. Tebrey had grown up in a domed city where the environment was constant. He had no ingrained planetary geographical sense to rely on.