“That doesn’t sound ominous at all.”
“The attack on Kyros Prime was a clear warning sign,” Commander Do says. She’s not smiling anymore, not even a little. “The Black End is escalating its campaign against the Alliance and we need to respond. That means the burden on the Vanguard will increase — on people like you in particular.”
“People like me?”
“The Council of Generals has reviewed all the records of the attack, from our outposts on Kyros Remote One and Two, from Vanguardian headsets...”
I almost ask how they managed to review such a staggering amount of information in two days, and then I remember: the Alliance has the benefit of hyper-compressed data stream learning. Is it wrong of me to hope that it makes General Gretch as violently ill as it makes me?
(No. The answer is no.)
“They are aware of how you conducted yourself during the assault on Plaza North,” the commander continues. “They were impressed with your courage, how you kept your head during the crisis and took charge of your fellow Vanguardians. Despite some lingering personal reservations among the generals, they cannot dispute your value to the Vanguard. You’ve been elevated to the rank of sergeant, effective immediately.”
“I’ve — you’re — what?” I stammer. “Sergeant?”
“Tomorrow you and your comrades Erisia Pwamee and Daaf Gaartiin will begin an intensive training regimen under Commander Dorr. You’ll spend your mornings with him, and in the afternoons you will in turn train individual units that will be under your command.”
Commander Do looks to me for a response, but all I do — all I can do — is blink at her stupidly.
“I understand this is overwhelming —” she says.
“You think?”
“— but it is necessary. The threat against us has escalated greatly. More than I can say, in fact.”
Better be careful, commander, your subtext is showing. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Commander Do turns to leave. “You have your assignment, sergeant.”
“Commander.” She pauses in the doorway. I stand so I can better look her in the eye. “My team back on Earth has a cardinal rule: no secrets, no lies. We learned the hard way that hiding our problems doesn’t make them go away.”
“That’s a noble sentiment, but it doesn’t always apply well to real-world situations.”
“Is that really how you feel, commander? Or is that what the Council of Generals is telling you to feel?”
Commander Do glowers at me. This is going to be the shortest-lived promotion ever.
“There was more to this attack than an attempt to cripple us,” she says. “The Black End had a very specific objective. The Council of Generals is taking your concerns seriously. I can say no more, so do not press the matter further, sergeant.”
She strides off before I have half a chance to press (or push, or pry, or prod).
I sit back down at my workstation and pull up the public records on the attack, though at first I’m not sure what I’m looking for. The Black End had a very specific purpose, she said, and it wasn’t to take out the Vanguard. What was it, then? What would be the point of launching a planet-wide assault if it wasn’t to take us off the board?
Well, the Black End is basically a terrorist organization, so a successful strike against Kyros Prime would send a major shockwave through the rest of the Alliance. Member worlds might start questioning whether they’re on the winning team. They might withdraw from the Alliance to protect themselves, maybe even jump sides. Or they might get so righteously pissed off that the Black End would dare to strike at the heart of the Alliance that everyone goes into full-on revenge mode. That’s what happened after Pearl Harbor and 9/11, after all. Those attacks didn’t break America, they lit a fire under its collective ass. Either way, I can’t see how any of this has anything to do with any concerns I raised with —
Oh. Oh.
“Let me see Kyros Prime,” I say. My workstation generates a little holographic globe of the planet. I then highlight the Black End’s targets during the assault. The hot zones light up in neon orange. Plaza North, Nantack Island, Training Commons Four and Six, a backup power facility located on Kyros Prime’s version of the North Pole, Kyros City, and an island in the middle of the Lohrgrand Ocean — an island that has one specific purpose: to house Alliance prisoners.
The individual assaults weren’t part of a terrorist attack or a strategic strike against the Vanguard. They were distractions for a jailbreak.
The Black End came to rescue Galt.
PART TWO: Into the Void
FIFTEEN
“Keep it snug, people,” I say. “I want to be able to smell your armpits.”
“Why?” Ylena Johr asks.
“Figure of speech, Johr.”
“Your figures of speech baffle me.”
“Duly noted.”
Our flying hammer formation stays tight as we bank hard and swoop down toward a battery of ground cannons. We drop and zero in on the main gun. Ylena follows me so closely she could bite my feet. Pulse blasts skim off her shield like rain off a dreddarard’s back, as they say (they being the Iskailians, for the record). She’s no Grafton Grun, but she’s darn close.
“Keep us covered, Johr,” I say. “Firsties, shift belly-side and call your targets.”
First Ranks Tosser, In May Mar, and Knye break the tight ring around the central core that is me and Johr and slide down until they’re all flying underneath us, a trio of living air-to-surface gunners.
“Right cannon,” In May Mar says.
“Left cannon,” Tosser says.
“Center,” Knye says.
I give the order. “Kill ‘em.”
As we streak past, the first ranks open fire with precision (low-power) blasts. The barrels droop lifelessly. Off to my right, Grun’s unit disables a second battery.
“Nicely done, wing sergeant,” I say.
“It’s not the same without an explosion,” Grun mopes.
“It’s a training exercise, you whiner. Would it make you happy if next time I yell ‘Boom!’ really loudly?”
“...Maybe.”
“Third battery is disabled!” Wing Sergeant Zqurrl reports cheerily.
“Cool. All right, people, regroup!” On my command, Grun and Zqurrl’s units converge on mine, and with a level of precision that’d make the Blue Angels sick with envy, we merge and form a perfect triangle formation. We are slick.
“Incoming, Fargirl,” Erisia says over my headset.
“How you feeling, sergeant?”
“Bold. You?”
“Daring.”
“Excellent. Let’s do this.”
“Double helix, coming up!” I announce, and for once, neither my company nor Erisia’s groans or complains. Good. About time we locked that crap down.
Whipping a unit of fourteen Vanguardians into shape is no small feat, let me tell you. I had to learn everything there was to learn about each Vanguardian (strengths, weaknesses, personality, temperament, et cetera); and then assemble the individual pieces into a functioning machine; and then teach the machine how to respond efficiently and effectively to a staggering variety of scenarios and circumstances. It hasn’t been easy. It’s taken weeks to get to this point, and we might not be so far along if it hadn’t been for my handpicked support staff. I chose Grun and Zqurrl as my seconds-in-command — my wing sergeants — quite deliberately; Zqurrl’s my good cop, Grun’s my bad cop. Next to them, I’m the right balance of firm and fair, and that helped me quickly earn my team’s respect and loyalty.
Which isn’t to say that they don’t harbor a bit of resentment toward me for the double helix, a move Erisia, Gaartiin, and I devised for the express purpose of testing our respective teams’ precision, attentiveness, and willingness to follow orders that, on their face, are totally batcrap crazy. The way we figured it, these people would be following us into insane situations, so they might as well get used to it now.
“In
line,” I order. The wedge neatly deconstructs itself and queues up behind me. Erisia echoes my order for hyer team, which at this distance appears as a twinkling point of light that’s barely visible against the electric blue sky. The twinkle intensifies, becoming a glow, then a glare. We’re on a collision course.
“Here we go!” Erisia says with barely restrained giddiness.
“Aaaaaaaand — hit it!”
In perfect — and I mean perfect — unison, Erisia and I hit Mach one, generating twin sonic booms, and corkscrew clockwise, our respective teams following our flight path precisely. We orbit around each other so closely I could reach out and high-five Erisia and everyone in hyer unit. Once we’re clear we straighten out and fall back into our wedge formation.
Erisia lets out a triumphant howl. “Utter. Per. Fection!” hye whoops.
“Very nice indeed, sergeants,” Commander Do says.
“Commander!” I say. “What brings you by?”
“Official business. If you and Sergeant Pwamee would join me? I’m down on the field at Training Commons Two.”
“Be right there, commander. Grun, Zqurrl, keep the troops busy until I get back.”
“Sergeant,” Grun says.
Erisia and I break off and rendezvous with Commander Do, who is not alone. General Ezenti greets us with stony silence.
“General,” I say. “Commander.”
“Sergeants,” Commander Do says, a pleasantry devoid of any pleasantness. Oh, I’ve got a bad feeling about this. “Commander Dorr said your training has been proceeding beyond his expectations.”
He has? Wow, if Commander Dorr is praising us...
“Credit where it’s due, commander. We have an excellent teacher and extremely dedicated students.”
“Unfortunately, the time for learning is at an end,” General Ezenti says. “Effective immediately, your units are now attached to Commander Do and will be deploying in three hours for Olkos Secondus.”
“May I ask what is on Olkos Secondus, general?” Erisia says.
“It’s what isn’t on Olkos Secondus that is our concern. Four days ago, Sergeant Vex Bar and his unit were dispatched to Olkos Secondus to investigate a reported Black End presence. They’ve failed to report in for two days.”
Yep, called it. “Is this a rescue mission, general?” I ask.
“Your mission parameters are to find Sergeant Vex Bar and his unit. Beyond that is at Commander Do’s discretion.”
With that, General Ezenti nods to Commander Do and flies off.
“You have two hours to prepare. Standard short-term deployment kits. Return here for final check-in and mission briefing,” Commander Do says before taking off.
“That was a little tense,” Erisia observes.
“Yes it was,” I say.
“We’re getting thrown into something ugly, aren’t we?”
“Oh, yeah. Come on. Let’s go pick up the kids and tell them we’re going on a road trip.”
***
Two hours later, our units report back to the training field with our deployment kits, an assortment of minor necessities for a day or two in the field that includes rations, first-aid kits tailored to the individual’s particular needs, our “pharmacies” (a portable injector capable of administering pretty much any antidote or antibiotic you need), spare headsets and translator globs and, I kid you not, time-released condensed water in the form of ampoules no larger than an aspirin. One ampoule is enough to keep a person hydrated for an entire day.
Commander Do touches down and calls us to attention. “Before I begin, I want to make it clear that the details of this mission are strictly confidential,” she says. “What I am about to tell you, and whatever transpires during this mission, is to remain within this squadron until such time that I explicitly clear you to discuss them openly. Is that understood?”
I answer on behalf of Erisia and our units. “Understood, commander.”
“Soon after the attack on Kyros Prime, our intelligence network undertook the task of tracking down the sources of the anti-Vanguardian ordnance used against us. One of our operatives on Olkos Secondus reported —”
“Operative? You mean spy,” I say.
After a brief moment of telling silence, she continues. “One of our operatives on Olkos Secondus reported that she’d located a secret stockpile of amber rounds, and that this stockpile recently went missing.”
“Missing?” Erisia says, echoing my own skepticism. The Olkos System has two inhabited worlds, but only one of them, Olkos Trius, is part of the Alliance. The Olkos Secondus global enclave has made it clear on several occasions, in the most belligerent terms possible, that it has no desire to join the Kyros Club. The Alliance has kept its distance, but it’s also kept a wary (and, apparently, surreptitious) eye on what it regards as a potential rogue nation.
“Of course the global enclave has denied ever possessing such weaponry,” Commander Do says, “but it nevertheless consented to an inspection by a single Alliance unit. Four days ago, Sergeant Vex Bar and his unit were dispatched to Olkos Secondus to meet with the global enclave and begin inspections of its known armories and depositories. They reported in immediately upon arrival and filed their end-of-day reports on schedule. Two days ago, we lost contact with them.”
“Do the generals suspect the global enclave has anything to do with it?” I ask.
“We have no compelling evidence to support that theory.”
The answer feels like a gentle evasion, so I rephrase the question. “Do you suspect the global enclave has anything to do with it?”
In a hush, Commander Do says, “I think it would be ill-advised to rule out collusion or, at the very least, deliberate indifference on the global enclave’s part.” She reasserts her all-business demeanor and says to us all, “However, our mission is not to investigate the global enclave; it is to locate our fellow Vanguardians. We will proceed beyond those parameters only when and if absolutely necessary. Is that understood?”
“Yes, commander,” we say in unison.
“If there are no further questions?”
There aren’t.
Olkos Secondus, here we come.
SIXTEEN
For the most part, command-level training is a very hands-on, practical thing. Commander Dorr says, “Do this like this,” and I do this like this. He says, “Do that like that,” and I do that like that. It’s easy to grasp.
Warping, however, is (as my grandfather used to say) some seriously hippie-dippy woo-woo crap.
I kinda-sorta get how the warping part itself works: I create a localized wormhole that bends space and slip through, which is a bizarre experience. Remember how I described warping with Commander Do as feeling like someone grabbed me by the face from halfway across the galaxy and pulled me through a funnel? Warping on my own power feels like reaching through a funnel to grab my own face and pull myself through. It’s freaky as hell, but at least it doesn’t make me sick like poor Mells. Warping does not agree with his tummy.
What I don’t grasp at all is the navigation phase of warping. The astrarma carry within them detailed starmaps of known space, which Vanguardians access on a purely subconscious level. It’s not like I think about where I want to go; it’s more like I feel my way there, but even that is a pathetically inaccurate description of the process. I can’t explain it because, frankly, I barely understood Commander Dorr’s explanation. Nevertheless, it works, so I don’t question it.
What kills me is I now know where in the galaxy home is. When Yx warped to Earth, that sector of the galaxy was recorded by his astrarma, so I know, in my gut if not my brain, where it is. I could warp to Earth long enough to let everyone know I’m still alive and jump right back. I’d be gone for five minutes max. Unfortunately for me, even five seconds away from the Vanguard without official clearance is basically a court martial offense. At worst, they’d strip me of my rank and my powers and send me home, and considering my poor standing with General Gretch I’d be lucky if that really was t
he worst thing that happened to me.
But I digress.
When I warp, I home in on a specific gravity well, that of a star or planet, and reenter normal space at the very edge of that well. That part’s important because warping within a gravity well is a major no-no. While I don’t completely grasp the physics of it, I do understand that bending space means screwing with gravitational forces on a fundamental level, and the natural world is not fond of people doing that. Warp inside a gravity well and it causes something called gravitational backlash, which can be highly destructive.
So in the interest of playing nice with Olkos Secondus, our squadron observes proper protocol and warps in at the edge of its gravity well, which also happens to be the beginning of neutral space (think international waters; any given planet’s legal authority ends with its gravity well). The planet shines invitingly. A central landmass, a mosaic of white and beige and tan, floats in the middle of a pale blue-green ocean. Much smaller landmasses surround the main continent, like pieces that have broken off and floated away to form a loose, ragged ring of islands.
Commander Do calls in our arrival to the global enclave. “Olkos Secondus central hub, this is Commander Do Lidella Det of the Vanguard offering sincere greetings on behalf of the Kyros Alliance,” she says. “I humbly request clearance to land with my squadron to conduct the business agreed upon by the global enclave and the Vanguard’s Council of Generals.”
The words are cordial, her tone pleasant. The response from Olkos Secondus? Not so much.
“Commander Do, this is central hub,” a gravelly voice replies. “You and your squadron will report to Station West Four directly. This is not negotiable.”
“Understood, central hub.”
“They sound nice,” I mutter to Erisia.
“Olkosians are generally quite civil,” Erisia says, “as long as they’re not dealing with anyone from the Alliance.”
Action Figures - Issue Seven: The Black End War Page 14
