“Certainly, Commander.” She cut the channel as I waited. The fourth planet was the farthest planet in the system and luckily close to the point that we’d jumped into the system. Even then, it would take us just under a day to reach the planet.
***
It was an hour before planet fall and I was as nervous as a drunk teenager before prom. Well, they do say alcohol gives you liquid courage, but anyway, I was damned nervous.
So far, each of the ships was pulling reactor mass from their own stores. It was a good idea to pull the mass from all of the ships so that no one was less than the others. On the flip side, it meant that we had to somehow get that reactor mass together before shipping it to the planet, with time we didn’t have.
“Commander, it’s estimated from the readings we’re getting from the shield generator and its fusion plant that it will shut down an hour after we make planet fall.”
That was enough time to put together a flight plan for shuttles to grab the fuel, but not enough to do so and get the shuttles to the planet.
“What if we have each of the shuttles loaded with their own payload of reactor mass and then rush the planet with the largest quantities in the front of the formation?”
“At this stage, we’re braking for the shuttles to make re-entry. If we don’t stop braking, then it will be increasingly harder for them to make it through the atmosphere,” Rick said.
I hid my annoyance. I’m supposed to know this stuff! I continued to look at the main view screen, hoping it would give me a miracle.
“Ah, Commander?” Eddie said in my ear.
“Go ahead, Eddie.”
“I thought that I might not be the only chief with a few slackers underneath me, so I parsed out the reaction mass supply needed to the entire fleet.”
“I know,” I said, grinding my teeth.
“Then we got with the shuttle commanders, as we needed to gather all of the mass before transporting it to the planet.”
“Okay?” My hope rose.
“We have a flight plan but it will need your confirmation to put it into motion.”
I wanted to run down to engineering and kiss the old Kuruvian bastard. Instead, I acted as if I’d expected his intervention.
“Good work, Eddie. I was hoping you would catch on and use your initiative to complete a task while I was busy. You’ve excelled. Please, pass on my praise to those who contributed and you have permission on the flight plan.”
“Thank you, sir, yes sir,” he said, embarrassment in his voice before he cut the channel. Shuttles from the big ships added the smaller ships’ contributions to their own before dropping it off to the Rebirth.
“This is Captain Bregend of the battle cruiser Rebirth, breaking formation for quicker insertion into planet.”
I hid my shock at this sudden move as I pulled up the flight plan details that Eddie had sent me. Confirming it was going to plan, I returned my gaze to the main view screen as Bregend reclaimed all of his shuttles and he continued his slow deceleration.
“Inserting into atmosphere.” Bregend was a full half hour before the rest of us already. The shields of the battle cruiser flared as they interacted with atmosphere. I changed to the optical feed, a blur of black, red, gray, and white as the battle cruiser skimmed atmosphere.
“Activating shuttle deployment rails,” Bregend ground out, the effect the gravity was having on his body audible in his voice. Shuttles fired out the back of the battle cruiser, using the acceleration rails to counteract the inertia placed on them by the ship. The shuttle pilots went full burn as soon as they were off the rails to brake themselves further and stop them from continuing out into space again.
“Exiting atmosphere.” The four-hundred-meter-long ship angled as its inertia carried it back out of the atmosphere. Finally, it turned to interpose its engines and slow itself down, its hull glowing from the entry and exit.
The shuttles that had shot out of the Rebirth had nearly come out of the atmosphere again, their engines well past their maximum thrust as they clawed their way back to the planet. Once back under control, they glided to the fusion power plant that was connected to the massive planetary shield generator.
“Rick, you have command.”
“Sir,” he replied, still engrossed in his screens.
We didn’t have any of that saluting for changing posts malarkey on my ships. I was already moving to armory three. Jeremiah and my reduced protection detail waited outside the bridge’s blast doors. I nodded to them. They knew the game by now—a few grinned at me; others shook their heads or rolled their eyes. Jeremiah’s face was a mask of well shit, he’s going to try to get himself killed again. I wonder how many times I’m going to have to jump in the way.
They guided me down to the armory, with Shrift there to greet me.
“Thought you might be looking for a new one. I rushed the production on this one. It’s not a brand-new suit but it’s better than the general ones we have. Plus, we added in some creative touches.” He guided me to a work rack, putting in a number as the rack cycled my Mecha to the fore. “This one’s yours.”
It had blue lines crossing it artistically around the breastplate and down the arms and legs, turning from thick to thin. Ammunition lay around its waist; the armor was thicker than the original models.
I ran my hand over it, feeling the cold of the armor. I popped the catches and, opening it, I took off my weapons belt and holster and put them to the side as Shrift helped me put the Mecha on. My nerve ports connected with the suit’s connectors and power seemed to flood me.
I put the helmet on, ran the start-up tests and stepped out of the cradle, checking that everything was in the right place.
“Good, no?” Shrift watched me as I moved in it experimentally.
“Damn well amazing!” I said as I finished moving about. “The padding’s in nearly all the right places too!” I said with feeling, remembering the chafing and feel of the padding in my old suit with sour memories.
Shrift laughed at this. “Yes, that was one of the biggest complaints we had.”
“Thanks, Shrift,” I said as my protection detail checked me over, slapping this and that to make sure it was secure while Shrift handed me my rail gun and sword.
“Good luck, Commander.”
I nodded, the Mecha only allowing a few degrees of decline as I turned and moved for the shuttle bay.
AMCs were already in the shuttles that had been moving reactor fuel just a matter of minutes earlier.
I got on my assigned shuttle and thankfully sank into the jump seat, which reduced some of the annoyances of the padding while it amplified others. The shuttle’s cargo bay was flooded with amber light for launch as everyone got in their harnesses and waited. I had instituted a simple red, amber, and green system for ships, instead of the mishmash of colors that I had found it had been before.
We got a red and green light as the cargo doors were confirmed sealed and the shuttle started its engines while the shuttle bay depressed air. With the slightest of movement, we flew out of the Resilient. Once clear, we tilted as the pilots angled us to the atmosphere for a clean insertion. As I groaned and wondered whether my meal would make a repeat appearance, the shuttle hit atmosphere.
It felt like an ancient roller coaster. The ample padding in my suit felt as if it were cloth. I was shaken like ice in a martini shaker at spring break in Florida.
With our previous insertion into Chaleel, most of the commandos were fine as the bucking stopped. I braced myself, waiting for the next shuttle-coaster experience to occur, but nothing happened as minutes later the red light changed to green and the ramps opened.
Mechas ran out of the ramps, already taking up defensive positions around the shuttle as squads moved through the interlinked cordons around the grouping of shuttles to the fusion generator.
I punched the harness, releasing myself, and made my way to the fusion generator. The shuttles from Bregend’s ship were already being unloaded and lines being run in
to the facility.
The structure was truly alien. Sure, everything we were wearing and looking at was alien; hell, this was the third planet I’d been on. But most of the things we’d seen were something we could accept or relate to. This was just strange.
It was domed, without any corners; the metallic surface contrasted sharply with the jagged and dull blackness of the planet’s surface. Ash floated down in tufts and glided off its unblemished and perfect chrome-like surface as it clumped on the ground. It stood out against the surrounding scenery like a sore thumb. Alien characters that my translator couldn’t comprehend were inscribed halfway up the structure.
There was a mass of people staring at it with the reaction matter feed lines in hand. I stomped over to them as they were having an argument.
“We can’t find a damned door! How’re we supposed to supply the reactor with mass when we can’t get inside?”
“Fan out and find an entrance,” the commander of the party said.
I walked toward the structure along the smoothed rock path that they’d been on, up till it reached the metallic surface of the dome. I poked it and it rippled like water. I took a step back but nothing happened. Shrugging, I ran my finger down the surface.
The metallic material split, making a doorway big enough for two people abreast.
“Get that line in here, now,” I said over the command channel as the arguing work team now ran for the door, which opened wider to admit them. In turn, I studied the wall before I looked inside.
There was a single room the size of a basketball court with no visible doors and there was a console with green floating imagery above it. A hole appeared beside the console; a red light appeared above it and blinked.
“Put the line in that hole,” I said as everyone gaped at the shifting wall. A few rushed to obey as they plugged their lines in and, as quickly as could be, backed away. The wall wrapped around the line; a connection was made and the reactor mass flowed from the shuttle’s cargo holds.
“Resilient,” I said in my helmet. It acknowledged my command and connected me to her.
“Commander?”
“Do you have any idea who built this structure?”
“The Planner.”
“What is that?”
“He was the first AI to reject the council’s thoughts and left the AI. He went to help those who cannot help themselves. He was an example to me and those who left after him, though we have never found any evidence of him before now.”
“What is this place made of?”
“Nanites—billions of small machines that are controlled by multiple AI cores. This is some of the most advanced technology I have ever seen. It’s generations ahead of the ships that even the AI council simulated. Now, while most AIs have very limited creativity, the Planner had increased the information storage and processing power to most AIs. He was also much more creative, achieving a level of creativity seen in low-end creative creatures such as the Sarenmenti.”
“So, he came here, made a shield generator, and then vanished again.”
“I doubt that the shield generator is everything. He would only intervene on a planet if he thought it was worth saving. While the Union, the AIs, and the Syndicate have little in common, their want to destroy the Planner is paramount. It is argued that he could change the fate of anyone, and topple any regime if he wanted to. It is why his second name is ‘God,’ as he will guide someone’s destiny and they’ll never know.”
My HUD blinked that someone wanted to talk with me. I paused my channel with Resilient and opened the new channel.
“Sir, the shield is strengthening. Ash and debris leaving the volcano has been reduced to a hundred square kilometer-area instead of the entire planet,” Rick said.
“I’m going to send you some images. Pass them on to Eddie.”
“Yes, sir.”
I snapped photos of the inside of the room, videos of me poking the walls as they rippled outward. Then of the external structure and the letters. I sent it to Rick and waited, sitting on one of the jagged rocks that made the landscape, looking at the structure.
No rest for the wicked. I re-opened my channel to Resilient.
“What else would the Planner do?”
For the first time in my life, I saw the alien race from Avar Interi Hermanti—an Avarian.
All of the Mechas around me snapped their rifles up as an alert sounded on my HUD. I turned to face the threat and found an alien. This one was eight foot tall; it had to weigh close to six hundred pounds—all muscle. He only wore a scrap of clothing, running like a robe from his shoulder to his hip, thankfully covering his lower, erm, extremities.
His skin was camouflaged to match the gray, red, and black of the ground. Still, my sensors only found a slight disturbance as if he wasn’t even there. On closer inspection, I could see that his skin was actually scales, so small they looked like skin.
“Natural stealth camouflage,” I said appreciatively, keeping my hands away from my weapons as I looked at him. It was obvious that if he wanted to kill me, he could’ve. “You’re like a damned ninja,” I said with a nervous laugh.
Vertically slit and calculating eyes studied me on a strangely human face. Overall, the creature in front of me looked largely human, even more so than the other aliens I’d seen.
“Niiin-cha,” it growled out in an angry tone that made me think that he wasn’t capable of sounding anything other than angry.
“My name is Commander Salchar,” I said to it, letting my translator change it to the alien’s dialect from earlier.
After a few seconds, recognition showed in the creature’s eyes.
“I am Ursht, battle master.” He took a knee and thumped his fist into the ground. “My life is to serve you as well as my untouched,” he said to the ground.
“Get off the ground, and I’m no one’s master. I’m a commander.”
“As you say, Commander.” He stood, his body rigid as he looked past me, reminding me of a soldier at attention.
“Do you have someone who leads your people?”
“We do, Commander.”
“Would you be able to take me to them?”
“Yes, Commander. You now lie within your ranks and as is your right to call a cease-fire.”
He turned away from me. “Your fellow battle master, Commander Salchar, calls a cease-fire,” he bellowed, his voice angry and deep.
My Mecha’s audio sensors dialed down as I felt the sound emitted from within his bulk.
All around us, dark shapes started to move as red orbs of eyes appeared just meters away.
“No one fire unless you’re attacked,” I said through the Mecha-wide channel. They’d been so close to us and we’d had no idea they were there. We’re going to need better sensors. I added it to my ever present and long to-do list.
“A cease-fire is so called,” a resounding voice returned.
Ursht turned to me and bowed his head. “Commander, if you will follow me.”
“Lead on.”
Jeremiah and his protection detail fell in around me, ready to interpose themselves. Their weapons were lowered but ready as they scanned every rock and surface as creatures like Ursht stood, watching us go, seemingly appearing from the ground.
Ursht brought us to a massive formation of rocks which had come together in a peak, the back in a mountain range and the front walled with rock that had been moved into place. Ursht lead us past the wall, hundreds of his race now visible.
We passed through the underground village before coming to another walled-off area. We passed this and entered a room with only three creatures like Ursht, but with all the same size.
They sat on three of the four chairs on each side of the room, one of the black rock chairs left empty.
“That is your chair, battle master,” Ursht said.
I took the seat, feeling foolish as my feet dangled off the edge. “Call me Commander or sir. It’s easier that way.”
“Yes...Commander.”
<
br /> “These are the space gods you bring us, Ursht? You gave up your position as battle master for this to take your place?” the one to my right spat.
“We aren’t space gods,” I said before Ursht could speak.
“It talks our tongues?” the one opposite said, recoiling as if they wanted nothing to do with me.
“It is an abomination that would’ve been killed during the purification,” the one to my left hissed.
“As you would’ve died if Ursht hadn’t asked for our help.”
“A weakling asks for help. Something you would know about,” the one to my right said.
“A smart man asks for help when he sees no other option.” I was quickly getting annoyed.
“Hah. Words from an unblooded,” Lefty said.
“Unblooded? I am unfamiliar with the term.” I turned to Ursht, who looked to the ground as he responded to me.
“One who has not fought and killed. One who hasn’t gone to battle.”
Calling me a weakling and an incompetent I was fine with, but when he said I was unblooded, it offended me and those who had died for me and the Free Fleet to get here.
I unsealed my helmet, looking my accuser straight in the eyes.
“You wish to challenge me!” he yelled as I stared at him as if he were a piece of litter in the corner of the room.
“Do you wish to challenge me?” My voice was cold as a malicious grin spread across my face and my gauntleted hands tapped on the hilt of my plasmid sword.
“I have killed tens of Avarians in my lifetime, child, and I have the scars to prove it!”
“Is that what you call yourselves? Interesting. Ursht, you really gave up your position for me?” I sat back in my chair, looking completely relaxed as I stared down the Avarian to my left.
“It is an insult to talk to a lesser when in a cease-fire talk,” Ursht pleaded with me.
“If they take offense, I hope that thing’s loaded.” I eyed the plasma cannon out of the corner of my eye that had somehow made its way into my protection detail, hovering on a miniature antigravity sled, legs underneath it, waiting to stick into the ground to support the beastly weapon.
“Yes, I gave up my position; I am without honor, as I asked for your assistance.”
Free Fleet Box Set 1 Page 40
