First of the First

by Andrew Maclure

  “I don’t think we’ll be doing that Captain.” the Major said as Mike and Sally approached.

  “Really? And why would you think that Major? You are not armed and as you can see, my soldiers are. The warrant for your arrest states that you are to be taken alive if possible. If it isn’t possible, then so be it.”

  The Major grasped Mark’s arm, and said to the Captain, “That may be more difficult than you think.”

  Mark was about to speak when Mike contacted him and Sally. “I have a problem. Drad has just returned so I ordered her to get loyal troops here to get the situation under control. She told me that she gives the orders, not me, warned me not to interfere, and that the aristocrats had outlived their usefulness. When I asked what was going on, she said that martial law had been declared throughout the Empire and the army were now in control.”

  “For fucks sake” Mark said. “Enough! I’m going to end this.”

  “Are you going to get Bob, Alan and Sean here?” Sally asked.

  “No, I don’t need them, but I’ll message them to tell them what I’m doing. Major, keep hold of me.” He became still then, only vaguely aware that Sally was talking to the Captain.

  “Kate, I’ve got a lot for you to do.” he said to his AI.

  “About time. Fire away.”

  Mark spent four minutes giving instructions to his AI, a long time as he communicated at the speed of thought. When he’d finished he said to the Major, “You can let go, you’re safe now.”

  “I am?” the Major said. “They’re still pointing their weapons at me. Are you going to use that weapon again?”

  “I can’t use it here; the team would get as badly damaged as the Captain and his soldiers. Don’t worry, I have got the situation under control.”

  Mark stepped forward towards the Captain. “Do you know who we are?”

  “Yes, I’ve been briefed. You are called Mark, that’s a stupid name, and the other one, a female I believe? Her name is Sally, another stupid name, but it’s probably all you mammals can come up with.” He smirked, “Inferior names for inferior species. Now get over there with your companions. I’ve got orders to take you to an internment camp, what you called the Freedom Movement headquarters.”

  “Your information is incorrect.” Mark said “What we call the Freedom Movement headquarters is Sally’s sovereign territory under the control and protection of her army. In their absence, three of the People are protecting it.”

  “No, your information is incorrect,” the Captain sneered. “It was taken back by the Herassan Combined Armed Forces about an hour ago, now get moving!”

  Mark looked down and shook his head. “I’m starting to get cross Captain. Tell your men to stand down. I have disabled their weapons. I have also permanently disabled their field armor. Get them into ranks. As long as you, and they, do as you are told, none of you will get hurt.”

  The Captain stepped forward and swung the butt of his KE weapon at Mark’s face, saying “Don’t you dare talk to me like that, mammal!”

  Mark didn’t flinch and the weapon bounced harmlessly back from his phase shift armor.

  “You really don’t want to make him angry Captain.” Sally said, with a big grin on her face.

  The Captain responded by lifting his weapon up and firing a single shot at Sally’s chest. At least he would have done, but his weapon didn’t fire. He shook it and tried again, but it still didn’t fire. He threw it to the ground in disgust and pulled a hand-held pulse weapon from a holster at his waist. Mark folded his arms while the Captain checked the safety, aimed at Sally and sent a fire command from his AI. When it didn’t fire he threw it to the ground and attempted to grab the front of Mark’s jumpsuit.

  “Now you’ve really pissed me off.” Mark said in a low voice.

  The sky started to darken as a great cloud formed over the Palace. Bolts of lightning shot out of it, blasting into the buildings and hitting the ground, creating ear-splitting crashes of thunder. The bright sunshine faded, then disappeared as the cloud grew in size. The day turned to dusk, which quickly turned to complete darkness. In a few moments it was pitch dark as the black cloud covered the whole city. Bolts of lightning continued to crash around them and the air turned cold. The only light came from the Palace windows, the security lighting around the courtyard and the streetlamps outside of the Palace that came on automatically in response to the darkness. Then, suddenly, all the lights went out, the City and Palace only lit by the flashes of lightning. An intense beam of white light suddenly shot down from the sky, illuminating the soldiers, Sally’s team and the lander. The lightning stopped equally as suddenly.

  Mark spoke, “Simon, Kar Fen, Ranesh, Orange, get the soldiers into ranks. Use whatever force is necessary if they don’t comply. Seltet, Bekkreshan, Touren, retrieve all your weapons and take up position by the lander.” He turned to the Captain. “I am Mark, Friend of the People, Slayer of Tk'ng Dach Rm. She,” he said, pointing at Sally, “Is General Sally of the Aarnth, Commander in Chief of the largest army in the galaxy. He,” he said, pointing at the Major, “is a friend. They,” he pointed at the team, “are my comrades. And you are very lucky. The last soldiers that tried to arrest us when we left the Palace are all in hospital right now, probably dying.” He grabbed the Captain by the front of his uniform and pulled him forwards, so their faces were almost touching. “You will do as I tell you now, or I will do something to you I might regret later. Get your soldiers on the lander and tell them to sit on the floor.” he paused a moment then shouted, “Now!” He shoved the Captain back and he stumbled and almost fell. The Captain picked his weapon up, thought for a moment, then dropped it and marched quickly to his soldiers. They were in neat ranks, being overlooked by Simon, Kar Fen, Ranesh and Orange, who all towered over the Herassans, dwarfing them.

  Chapter Eighty Two

  What About Mike?

  While the Captain hurriedly started getting his troops on board the lander, Major Bryd Sa Dett spoke to Mark. “How did you do that, create that storm cloud and turn day into night? I know the People have got advanced technology, but that looked like magic!”

  “Not magic Major, but you probably won’t be the only one who wants to know, so to save me explaining more than once, I’ll wait to the prisoners are all on board the lander, then I’ll take questions.” he said with a grin.

  “You went easy on them, considering you’ve probably killed most of the other soldiers.” Sally said.

  “Yes, I feel bad about that.” Mark said. “I’ve been in touch with the hospital. They are a bit friendlier than Herassan soldiers. Present company excepted.” he said to the Major. “They said they can make the soldiers comfortable, but they can’t heal them. Their entire bodies are dying. I’ve got a vehicle on its way to the hospital loaded with enough recovery pods to take them all on board the Swift. My AI assures me the People’s medical tech will repair them all as good as new.”

  “What’s a recovery pod?”

  “I’ve only seen one briefly in VR. My AI showed me one when I was organizing this little show. It’s a black elongated egg shaped thing, just over two meters long. It positions itself over the patient and somehow drops down over them, engulfing them and whatever they are laying on. It uses some kind of quantum time manipulation to slow time inside to almost stop it, then the vehicle takes them back to the Swift where they’ll be blinked into a new treatment center that should be finished by now, then they get fixed.”

  “I’ve seen one of the recovery pods before, on my very first peacekeeping mission. It got me into a lot of trouble.”

  “I’d like to hear about that later. I can’t imagine you allowing yourself to get into trouble.”

  “Maybe. I understand why you didn’t want to use your planet killer weapon here, but why didn’t you just disable their weapons last time?”

  “To be honest, I didn’t think of it. I suppose it was because of the cocky Sergeant going on about how my embedded weapon was no use against them. I just got ca
rried away. But an edited clip of that is going out on their VR news channel, so if everyone sees it, they may be more compliant next time I ask them to do something. There are other ways I could have handled both incidents. There is always more than one way to skin a cat.”

  “Considering my ancestry, that remark was in poor taste.”

  Mark looked at her and said “Really? You’re offended by an ancient English proverb which is only meant as a metaphor? When did you become so sensitive?”

  “I’m not. I just said that to annoy you. It seems to have worked. Let’s go and join the others while the prisoners board the lander. Is there room for all of them on there?”

  “I’ll explain that when we’re with the others. They’ll need to know.”

  “Hey Mark,” Simon called out as they approached. “That storm cloud was impressive. Do you do card tricks too?”

  Mark grinned, “Just a bit of simple magic.” He looked at Sally. “Is it OK if I carry on briefing the team? He asked.

  “Sure, you’re the boss.” She said with a smile. She was secretly proud of the way he had handled himself today. It was only a few weeks ago that he was whining about going back to earth and had to be told exactly how to do practically everything. She grinned when she remembered how angry he was with Alan when they had told him he had an AI implanted in his brain without his knowledge.

  “OK, first, any questions about today?”

  “Yeah,” Ranesh said. “What the fuck is going on?”

  “We’re not sure yet, but there has been some kind of military coup. It seems some of the aristocrats are involved, but it’s not clear yet. As soon as the lander leaves, we’re going to rescue Mike. She’s being held against her will in the Palace. Sally will brief you properly on the way there.”

  “OK, how did you make the storm cloud?” Simon asked.

  “Pretty easily. The Swift positioned itself in high orbit between Tefran City and the sun, and then descended to hover just above the city. The base of the Swift is just two hundred meters above the palace. It changed the optical characteristics of its hull from being matt black, to now totally absorbent to all light. It’s blacker than black. It used its stealth, cloaking abilities to make it look like a cloud spreading over the city, and generated a powerful negatively charged electrostatic field around itself which grounded itself and looked like lightning.”

  “It’s obvious now you’ve explained it.” Simon said. “What about the weapons? The soldiers tried shooting us when you told us to get them into ranks, but none of their weapons worked. How did you do that?”

  “I can answer that, I think.” Orange said. “Bob did something similar to Colonel Drad Ki Jass when we met her. He also used his AI to hack her AI and took over control of her physiological processes, so she fell over and couldn’t move when she tried to attack Bob. Why didn’t you do that to the soldiers Mark?”

  “Because I wanted them to be able to walk onto the lander, otherwise we would have had to carry them on.”

  “How are you going to get all the prisoners on the lander, and what are you going to do with them?” Touren asked.

  “The seats have all been absorbed into the floor, which they are now all sitting on. Straps extrude from the floor when they’ve settled to tie them down, like the safety harnesses come out from the seats and secure you when the lander takes off. It’s a bit crowded in there, but there are three seats at the front facing the prisoners. I want you, Bekkreshan and Seltet to guard the prisoners on the way up to the Swift, transfer them to join all the other prisoners in Dock Two along with some of the Herassan space fleet and their crew which Alan Bob and Sean took prisoner. When you’ve finished that, collect the two medi bots which are waiting for you at Dock One, then come back with the lander and park it just outside the entrance to the Great Hall and guard it, but stay inside the lander doorway. That way you’ll be protected by its phase shift protection. If you think you’ll need any heavier weapons, tell the Swift’s AI. It will authorize release of them to you and have them ready for collection at Dock One with the medibots. We don’t know what we’re going to meet in the Palace, so be ready to reinforce us if we need it. Any questions?”

  “There are already prisoners there? Where did they come from? And if there are some there already, how are we going to get these into Dock Two without the prisoners already there from getting into the lander – particularly if they’ve got armed space fleet ships in there!” Bekkreshan asked.

  “Right, I forgot to tell you. Bob, Alan and Sean have been ferrying the captured ground troops who attacked the Freedom Movement HQ up to the Swift in landers. Bob set up a process so that when a lander gets there, the Swift creates an energy field tube big enough to hold a consignment of prisoners, to connect the lander and the dock. The energy field tube is sealed at the dock end while the prisoners get off the lander, and when they are all in the tube it seals at the lander end and opens at the dock end. It then uses the seal at the back of the tube to push the prisoners onto the Swift. The biggest problem you will have is persuading some of them to step into what looks like empty space, but Bob said he found the best way to encourage them is to pick them up and throw them in. You may find a more humane way to do it, but if you have to fall back on Bob’s method, rest assured it won’t hurt them. Physically anyway, they may end up emotionally scarred by the experience.”

  Touren sighed. “With your permission Sally, I’m going to put a call in to the Boran Medical Emergency and Recovery Group. We may have a use for some of their counselors.”

  “Of course Touren. You do whatever you think is right.” She smiled at her. “You are one of my personal team now, so I rely on you to advise me on what needs to be done, and if I’m not available to consult, do it. You’ll never get a bollocking from me for doing what you think is right, even if it turns out badly.”

  Simon listened to that and thought back to the many times Sally had bawled him out for doing things he thought were right but turned out badly.

  “Sha,” Mark continued, “Do you have any kind of mass media in the Empire?”

  “Like a VR news channel?”

  “Just like that. Is it popular?”

  “There are thousands of them, but Tefran Central Update is viewed by nearly everyone in the Empire. It’s a bit gossipy, but it contains lots of hard news as well, and it’s quite subversive. It’s supportive of the First of the First but a bit cynical about the aristocrats. Why do you ask?”

  “I’ve got some stuff I want put out on it. Do you know anyone who works on it?”

  “Yes, I do. I’m a volunteer there. I work two full four hour days a cycle. I work in the production team. It’s great fun and we get to meet lots of celebrities.” she boasted.

  Mark wasn’t over impressed by her boast. He wouldn’t have recognized a celebrity back on Earth if one had bitten him in the arse. He would have been annoyed at being bitten though.

  “Great. If I send some VR clips and some commentary over to you, could you get them on air?”

  “Sure, if it’s hot news they’ll love it!”

  “Here’s the deal Kate,” Mark said to his AI, I want some scenes of what has happened today, edited if necessary, that will show us in a good light, including the Major, and give an idea of what happens when you mess with me in my defense of the First of the First and her aims and objectives, along with a script that shows that we are trying to protect the Empire and its citizens from the evil military coup. Can you do that?”

  “You mean propaganda?”

  “That’s an ugly word, but yes.”

  “I can only do that in an acceptable time frame if I share this with the AI community. It is a heavy workload to craft that for an unfamiliar culture. Can you agree to me sharing it?”

  “If I can’t trust you now I’m completely fucked, so yes, you do whatever is necessary, and needless to say, its urgent.”

  “Of course it’s urgent Mark. When isn’t it?”

  “I’ll send it when it’s ready Sh
a.”

  “We haven’t got any armor. We’ll be vulnerable in a firefight.” Ranesh said.

  “Shit! I knew I’d forgotten something.”

  “Sha is going to need somewhere to work, and she may need transport to a studio” Sally said. “Have you got anything for that?”

  “Uh, no. I didn’t think of that.”

  “It’s just as well you’ve got me as backup.” Sally said. “There’s a lander on its way with body armor, a helmet and field armor power pack for everyone. It can stay here for Sha to work in or take her to a studio if she needs it. In fact, if you look up, you should be able to see it.”

  “I can’t see anything that’s not on the ground with that bloody great light dazzling me.” Mark said, but his comment was made redundant by the sound of the lander coming in, setting down a few moments later within the lit area. “Right, we’re all set. Take the prisoners up and get rid of them, get tooled up and we’ll see you back down here.” Mark said.