Peacekeeper 2

by Doug Farren

  Dozens of tables filled with food and drink were scattered among the short, broad trees of the courtyard. Looking up, Tom could see the web-like supports of the transparent roof above. He had to put any further examination of the courtyard on hold as people began to demand his attention. He turned his head trying to find Lashpa but she had vanished into the crowd.

  For the next hour, Tom was congratulated, thumped on the back, and tasted by hundreds of strangers. There were a few who looked at him then turned away, refusing to acknowledge the fact that he was gragrakch.

  The smell of seafood mixed with the strong scent of densely packed Rouldians caused Tom to consider activating his nasal filters. Wanting to experience as much of the celebration as he could, he resisted the temptation.

  At one point, he could see there was a steady stream of people leaving the celebration as well as coming in from the outside. After paying careful attention to the movement of the crowd, he detected a pattern. People would come inside, locate the newly declared gragrakch, congratulate them, then move off towards the food. After a few bites and perhaps a word or two with a few of the guests, that person would leave, making room for another to join the celebration.

  The jostling and congratulations continued uninterrupted for over an hour before the crowd began thinning out. Soon, only Lashpa’s family remained. Tom breathed a sigh of relief as he finally had some time to himself. Walking over to the table filled with pastries, he selected one then stood looking out into the room.

  A group had gathered around two of the younger members of the family. They were standing next to each other, side-by-side, facing the same direction, their tails flailing behind them. This was Rouldian tail wrestling, something Tom had witnessed on several occasions while at the academy. The rules were simple.

  Neither contestant was allowed to look behind them to see what was going on. The goal was to be the first to pin the other’s tail to the ground. Many non-Rouldians were unaware of the fact that Rouldian tails were incredibly flexible and capable of precise control.

  Tom watched as the tails battled each other like two large snakes. The crowd provided encouraging words to their chosen champion sometimes trying to give them an idea of what sort of move to try. Eventually, one of them managed to get the upper hand and the real struggle began. One tail pushed down while the other resisted. But on a high gravity world, once one gained the advantage, that person was almost guaranteed to be the victor. A few seconds later, it was over. A cheer went up from one side while moans of disappointment came from the other.

  Tom turned and looked into the tank sitting on an adjacent table and spotted several varieties of fish and crustaceans swimming and crawling around in the shallow water. An arm reached past him, followed one of the smaller fish for a moment, then quickly snapped it up. Turning to his right, he recognized Heshgerv. She opened her mouth and deposited the still-squirming fish inside. A moment after closing her jaw around it Tom heard a small pop as her teeth crushed the snack.

  “I’ve heard your species prefers to eat dead food,” she said, the strong smell of fish mixed with something else he could not identify following in the breath of her words. “That’s one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever heard.”

  Deep, rhythmic, bassy music provided a background that seemed to compliment the raspy sounds of Rouldians talking among themselves.

  “Each species is different,” Tom replied, shrugging his shoulders. “My sister would probably be in the restroom throwing up right now. But your eating habits don’t bother me at all.”

  Heshgerv looked Tom over as if she was scanning him for parasites. “What did you do to my cousin to make her think you and her were gragrakch? How could she have been such a fool?”

  “I may not be Rouldian,” Tom replied, “but I do understand your concern. I knew nothing of gragrakch when Lashpa first suggested it to me.”

  “And you pretend to understand it now? You’re not- - -”

  “Is Heshgerv bothering you?” Lashpa interrupted from behind.

  “Not at all,” Tom said, continuing to use his vocoder so Heshgerv could understand his reply. “Fact is, I’ve been wanting to talk to her all evening.”

  Lashpa looked at Heshgerv, then at Tom, then back to Heshgerv. “Remember cousin, Tom is a guest of the family. Treat him as such.”

  Tom waited until Lashpa walked away before saying, “I admit I don’t understand gragrakch with the same depth as you. How can I? I didn’t grow up in your society. But I do understand how important it is to all Rouldians. I have- - -”

  “Do you?” Heshgerv practically hissed. “Look at yourself! Without all your peacekeeper armor you’re nothing more than a sharooth. My daughter would run away screaming if she saw one of your kind walking down the street. You and Lashpa cannot be of one soul. You- - -”

  “Why not?” Tom calmly interrupted. “Why can’t a soul be split between species? Are Rouldians unique? Are they the only ones in this entire universe who can lay claim to gra- - -”

  “That’s not what I’m saying!” Heshgerv interrupted, raising her voice. Several of the nearby guests looked in their direction. Realizing she might bring down the wrath of her family she lowered her voice before continuing. “If what you say could possibly be true, then perhaps I should start looking for my gragrakch in the fish I eat, or the animals you kill.”

  “Now I think you’re being unreasonable.”

  “Am I? Alright then…how about the Chroniech? If both halves of a soul can reside in different species from any part of the known universe, then could my gragrakch be a Chroniech? Or maybe he’s living in another galaxy millions of light years from here.”

  Tom could see he wasn’t making any headway. He decided to switch tactics. Scanning the room, he located Lashpa and noted she was engaged in a conversation with Quinth. Lowering the volume of his vocoder just a bit, he said, “Heshgerv, nobody has all the answers. Let’s assume for the moment that you’re right and Lashpa is wrong about us. How would she react if you managed to convince me of this and I suddenly announced I decided we were no longer gragrakch? How would your family react?”

  That made her stop and think. After a moment, she replied, “She would be devastated of course. The family would probably rip you apart and I would be shunned.”

  Putting his hand on his chest, Tom said, “I know I have a special connection with Lashpa. I care for her as if she were my own sister, more so in some ways. You don’t believe we are gragrakch and I not only understand your position, I respect it as well. But you must also consider Lashpa’s feelings. Identifying one’s gragrakch is a deeply personal choice and nobody should question it. If Lashpa and I are not of one soul, then we should have been. As far as I’m concerned, that makes us gragrakch.”

  Heshgerv took a step back, tilted her head to one side, and stared at Tom with an intensity he had rarely seen in a Rouldian. “That’s something I can accept,” she finally said. Raising her voice, she yelled, “Lashpa! Come here a moment.”

  Lashpa’s head jerked up and she practically knocked her father over in her rush to get to the other side of the room. Before she could say anything, Heshgerv grabbed her hand and then shocked Tom by grabbing his as well. “I see before me two bodies, one soul.”

  Chapter 19

  “Target locked,” Trink reported.

  “Monitor drones are in position,” a voice reported over the radio.

  Masthuma scanned the screens inside the hastily constructed test bunker. It was nothing more than an unpressurized hole in the ground with a handful of portable computers set up on a shelf. The test reactor, buried in the ground a few hundred meters from the shelter, was running and ready to supply power to the Kyrra weapon. A constellation of instrumented drones surrounded a large chunk of rock that had been hefted off the planet and was now being held in position 50 kilometers above the surface by a trio of precisely balanced TR beams.

  Satisfied that everything was ready, Masthuma keyed his mike and said, “Firin
g in 3…2…1…Now!”

  The target, centered in one of the computer screens, suddenly became a bright point of intense white light. His suit’s radiation detector flashed a warning across his visor. The radiation monitor on the surface of his bunker showed dangerous levels of gamma radiation. One point four seconds into the test, the target shattered, sending glowing pieces flying off in all directions. The computer monitoring the target instantly shut down the weapon.

  The two engineers turned and looked at each other. “It works!” Trink yelled.

  Masthuma nodded. “It does indeed.” He had openly expressed his doubts about the purpose of the cones they had discovered mounted on the bottom of the Kyrra planet killer. The stories passed down from generation to generation of how these ships nearly drove their ancestors into extinction, talked about a weapon that could convert matter into antimatter at a distance. But Masthuma refused to believe such a thing was even possible. He’d just been proven wrong.

  Scanning the results of the test, he shook his head in disbelief. The Kyrra had managed to do the impossible. Although this type of weapon was relatively useless against a shielded spaceship, it would devastate any target with exposed matter.

  “Let’s determine the weapon’s range and fan-out.” Masthuma ordered.

  Trink keyed a command into his computer and watched as the display slowly shifted then stabilized. “Ready.”

  “Firing in 3…2…1…Now!”

  Trink hit a key. Seventy-five kilometers away, a drone gave another rock a push then let it go so its momentum would carry it into the path of the beam. After several minutes the two engineers looked at each other in disbelief.

  “Are you sure the target crossed the beam’s path?” Masthuma asked.

  “Checking,” Trink said, turning to his computer. A few seconds later, he said, “Confirmed. The target intersected the beam at a distance of 75.3 kilometers. The drone’s sensors detected an unidentifiable energy surge reflecting off the rock but no increase in radiation levels. The target appears to be unaffected.”

  Masthuma sat back in his chair and attempted to stroke his chin in thought. But instead of doing so, his gloved hand banged into his helmet. He seriously doubted the Kyrra would build a weapon with such a limited range. But why didn’t it work?

  “Have the drone position the target in the center of the beam and give it a push toward the planet.”

  Trink tapped out the commands then hit the execute button. The drone retrieved the rock and positioned it in the calculated center of the beam. After giving it a small push toward the planet, the drone disengaged then rapidly took off at a tangent. At a distance of 68.7 kilometers, the radiation levels shot up and the rock exploded.

  Masthuma rapidly scanned the instruments then said, “Based on the radiation levels, it looks like the conversion rate has dropped. Get another rock and push it the other way.”

  “What do you think is going on?” Trink asked as he complied with the request.

  Masthuma chose not to reply; there were likely many people listening in on their radio traffic and he had no intention of making any predictions until he had more information. The drone pulled another rock from a small pile that had been prepositioned for the experiment and returned to its previous location. This time, it pushed the rock away from the planet. It exploded at a distance of 79.1 kilometers.

  “How did you know?” Trink asked.

  “The beam must have multiple internal components that don’t do anything unless they’re in perfect phase relationship with each other. Conversion only takes place in specific locations along the beam. Get another rock, I want to measure the beam’s divergence. Send it through at a distance of 80 kilometers.”

  Masthuma monitored his instruments until he detected the characteristic splash of hard gamma radiation indicating matter was being converted to antimatter. “Mark!” he barked into the mike.

  Trink tapped the key his finger had been hovering over. “Beam divergence appears to be about 1.5 degrees,” he announced.

  “Let’s try 100 kilometers.”

  The test was repeated again and again until a rock passed through the beam without being affected. “The converter has a maximum range of roughly 750 kilometers,” Masthuma announced. “Conversion efficiency drops off at a rate of approximately the square of the distance. Standby while I conduct the load test.”

  Masthuma nervously activated a special test routine. He was well aware the unauthorized test he was about to perform could easily end up destroying the weapon. Bolted to the outside of the converter was a device of his own design. It sprayed a tiny amount of iron directly into the converter beam about a meter from the end of the emitter. After passing through the beam, a powerful magnetic field directed the expected anti-iron stream into a magnetic conduit and onto a target. If the conversion efficiency was not close to 100%, the anti-iron would react with the iron creating a small antimatter explosion.

  Several indicators jumped as a tiny fraction of a gram of anti-iron reacted with the target. Radiation detectors positioned around the point of conversion indicated that some antimatter was reacting with matter but the levels remained low and well within controllable limits. Masthuma wanted to shout out in joy but maintained his silence. There was a distinct possibility that Commander Choback was listening and Captain Varku had made it perfectly clear the Commander was not to know about this test.

  “Load test complete,” he said. “All results satisfactory. Shutting down the weapon.”

  Masthuma was very glad to be where he was at the moment. Somewhere inside the base, Captain Varku was listening. The satisfactory results of the last test meant they had a good chance of being able to power the Kyrra energy cannon. Like Masthuma, Varku was tired of sitting around waiting for their scientists, trapped behind the hyper-dimensional barrier, to find a way of breaking out. He wanted to use their new-found technology to attack the Alliance. They were soldiers, not scientists, and they wanted to fight. And the only way to do that was to instigate a change in leadership.

  * * * * *

  Commander Choback opened the door to his stateroom and stopped dead in his tracks. Captain Varku and Captain Gritharg were both waiting for him, standing in the middle of the room, handguns drawn and at the ready.

  “What’s going on here?” the Commander demanded as he hunched down and prepared to fight.

  “You’re being relieved of command for cowardice in the face of the enemy,” Varku replied.

  “Cowardice! Do you have any idea what will happen to you when word of this gets back to high command? I’m the senior officer here! Put down your weapons.”

  It had taken a great deal of courage for the two captains to agree to take over command of the base. Chroniech military were intensely loyal and trained to follow the chain of command without question. Their honor-based society instilled a strong belief in following the orders of those above them. It wasn’t quite a class-based society, but it was close. Forcibly removing someone from a position of authority was possible but it was an exceedingly rare event. A very good reason was needed and cowardice was at the top of that very short list.

  “You’ve made the expansion of this base such a priority that the condition of our ships has deteriorated and they’re no longer in top fighting condition,” Gritharg said. “You’ve diverted our limited resources to building a base for the sole purpose of remaining hidden from the enemy. After- - -”

  “I’ve kept us alive!”

  “After we found the Kyrra warship,” Gritharg continued, ignoring Choback’s argument. “You ordered its technology to be used to protect this base instead of giving our ships a decided advantage so we could attack the enemy.”

  “It’s our duty to protect the information we’ve found,” Choback argued. “The technology of that ship will give us the ability to defeat the Alliance and the Kyrra.”

  “There are ways to do that without acting like a pack of scared animals,” Varku hissed. “You’ve given no thought to what our
real goal is—the destruction of the Alliance!”

  “You dare to question- - -”

  “You have few followers among the men,” Varku cut him off. “You’ve lost the confidence of the soldiers you command. You’ve refused the advice of your senior staff and have acted like a coward. This is a crime punishable by death.”

  Commander Choback opened his mouth but before he had a chance to utter a sound Varku pulled the trigger. The electromagnetic-based gun made a quiet popping sound. The detonation of the small explosive bullet was muffled by the Commander’s brain. His head popped like a balloon, spreading most of what had been inside across the ceiling and the door behind him. His body remained standing for several seconds before it convulsed and collapsed to the floor.

  Keying his wrist-com, Captain Varku put himself in touch with the operations center. “Zathkra here—what do you want?”

  “There’s been a breakthrough concerning the Kyrra warship,” Varku told him. “Commander Choback would like to see you in his quarters immediately.”

  “On my way.”

  A moment later, the Base Commander knocked on the door and opened it. Seeing Choback’s headless body on the floor, he instinctually reached for his sidearm.

  “Stop!” Varku commanded.

  Zathkra froze, his hand only centimeters from his gun. He looked at the gun in Varku’s hand pointing at his head then looked up at the two captains with hate and fear in his eyes.

  “Commander Choback has been relieved of command for cowardice,” Varku calmly said. “You’ve been a good base commander and I would prefer not to make too many changes in the chain of command. But I will not hesitate to do so if required. If you wish to remain in your current position, you must immediately swear allegiance to myself as the new commander of our forces.”

  Zathkra looked down at the bloody mess that had once been his superior officer. His oath of allegiance to him was now void. There was a visible shift in his stance as his claws retracted and his fur settled back into place. Slowly distancing his hand from his gun he said, “By the blood of my family I will obey your commands.”