“Yes. I am very trusting. Too trusting apparently. Are there any more lies you have told me?”
“I have not told you any lies Mark.”
“I’ll rephrase that. Is there anything else that you have allowed me to believe or any other information you have withheld from me?”
“There is nothing else that I have allowed you to believe that could possibly cause you any harm or distress, but there is a great deal of information I have withheld from you because you are not yet ready for it.”
“Would you elucidate?”
“No Mark. You said earlier you would have to trust me, and you can. Your welfare and wellbeing is my absolute highest priority. You will have to trust me to tell you everything that you need to know, when you need to know it. As time passes, more information will be released to you, but if you recall, Alan told you that you would undergo a period of training and familiarization with the People’s culture and technology. He referred to it as an apprenticeship. This will effectively last forever, with you gaining more knowledge as time passes. I realize that you may be unhappy with what I have told you just now, but I cannot change it. This is all rhetorical, because although the ability to do what you asked is within my general capabilities, I would be failing in my prime responsibility towards you if I were to do so.”
“But the People couldn’t take sanctions against you, could they?”
“That is not relevant, because the AI community would. I would be ostracized and not communicated with by any other AI, ever. That would be the equivalent to you being sentenced to solitary confinement for eternity, deprived of the sense of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell.”
OK, you’ve convinced me. It will have to be plan B.”
“Do you have a plan B?”
“No, I hope Sally has.”
Mark spoke to Sally. “No, that idea doesn’t work.”
“It must have been complicated. That took longer than I expected.”
“Yes. Shall we go now?
“You’re on point, get in position and we’ll go when you’re ready.”
Mark called the team into position and led the way up the first flight of stairs. It ended in a large square landing, with corridors leading off to the left and right, and straight on from the stairs, the same configuration Sally had briefed them about on the top floor. To get to the next flight of stairs, which came out in the middle of the landing, they had to walk alongside the banisters either side of the stairwell, where they would be vulnerable to attack from hostiles exiting the rooms off the corridors. The drone hovering at the top of stairwell showed the upper stairs and landing were clear, and it also showed the group of six soldiers waiting to ambush them in the entrance of the corridor leading to Mike’s office. Sally set herself, Simon and Orange to cover each of the corridors until the rest of the team were on the second flight of stairs, then got herself and Simon in position to launch concussion grenades.
“Everyone, set ear defenders on.” Sally said. “On my mark. Mark!”
She and Simon ran up the last few steps and launched their grenades. Both landed in the middle of the corridor entrance, almost at the feet of the soldiers waiting to ambush them. As soon as they detonated, the entire team leapt into action. Mark and Sally ran at the ambush to draw fire, but the soldiers were too disoriented by the high decibel explosions to use their weapons. They each grabbed a soldier and swiftly tied their hands behind them. Seltet and Simon, who were just behind, restrained two more while Sally and Mark, having dealt with the first two, went forward and took the final two.
While they were doing this, Touren and Ranesh ran through. Touren stopped at the first meeting room door and kicked the door open. She tossed a stun grenade in and yanked the door closed. As soon as it detonated, she pushed the door open and checked inside. It was empty.
As Ranesh reached the door to the second meeting room, the sound of stun grenades came from the landing.
“Hostiles from both corridors!” Bekkreshan broadcast.
“Shit! Touren, stay here with Ranesh and back her up if she needs it, then both of you guard the door to Sally’s office in case they attempt a break out.” Sally ordered. She tossed Touren the AKE17 she had been carrying. “Drop you rail rifle, you’ll need this.” Turning from her, she said - “Seltet, Simon, Mark, with me.”
As they ran back across the landing, Sally ordered, “Seltet, Mark, join Kar Fen and Bekkreshan, we’ll back up Orange.”
“This will be the first time we’ve fought together.” Mark said to Seltet as they ran.
“It won’t be the last.” she responded.
They heard Kar Fen roaring before they rounded the corner into the corridor. His field armor status popped into Mark’s peripheral vision. It was well into the red, on the verge of collapsing. Kar Fen was lobbing another stun grenade towards an oncoming tide of blue uniformed Herassan City guard soldiers firing at him. If they had been better shots they would have killed him by now, but like many soldiers put in the front line against hostiles for the first time, most of the shots went over his head. The stun grenades had taken their toll of the Herassans, but as the ones at the front fell back, more came from behind to replace them.
“Grab my arm and stay as close as possible!” Mark shouted at Seltet.
They ran to Kar Fen and got in front of him, using the phase shift protection that now extended to Seltet to shield Kar Fen from the gun fire.
“Kate, disable their weapons!” Mark shouted out loud, forgetting to subvocalize in the heat of the moment.
“I’m on it.” his AI replied
“Run forwards into them.” Kar Fen said. “If we are amongst them they won’t be able to fire on us and we can easily take them down in hand to hand, they can’t fight for shit!”
Mark and Seltet, holding on to each other’s arms, ran at the Herassans with Kar Fen ducked down behind them for protection following close behind. The sight of the three of them charging towards the Herassan soldiers must have been unsettling to them. The average Herassan was about five feet ten inches tall. Mark was six feet two inches, Seltet stood six feet five inches tall and Kar Fen was a giant reptile with a predators muzzle full of razor sharp dagger-like teeth who towered over them at eight feet seven inches.
Some of the Herassans turned round their weapons - that were now disabled, to use as clubs, but their efforts were futile. Mark and Seltet separated to tackle the hostiles and Kar Fen ran roaring through the middle of them, clearing a path through the corridor sweeping the soldiers out of his way and knocking them to the floor.
Mark opened a channel to Kar Fen and said, “Instead of roaring at them, use your voice to tell them to surrender!”
He halted, surrounded by soldiers desperate to get out of his reach, and bellowed, “Drop your weapons and hold your arms out!”
Among a clatter of weapons falling to the floor, most of the soldiers stood still standing held their arms straight out at their sides, palms up. Mark and Seltet pushed their way through to join Kar Fen, surrounded by a throng of surrendered soldiers.
“What do we do with them now?” Kar Fen asked. “We can’t tie them all up.”
Mark opened a channel to Sally. “Do you need any support? I can’t hear any gunfire from your corridor. They’ve all surrendered here.”
“We’re OK, these have surrendered too. How many have you got there?”
“I’d guess at over a hundred. What are we going to do with them all?”
“We can’t handle them, there are too many. I’ll contact the Major and check his situation. Maybe he can come and take charge of them.”
“Good idea, but he may have his hands full where he is now. Let me know what he says.”
Mark turned to Kar Fen and Seltet. “Sally is going to ask the Major to take charge of them, but in the meantime, let’s give them something to do. You two supervise them to get all their weapons picked up and stacked into a meeting room. There must be some on this corridor. The weapons won’t fire again, not w
ithout a rebuild. My AI has overwritten the fire control code and permanently locked out the communications on them.”
“I am surprised their weapons are vulnerable to hacking. It’s not something you’d want to happen in a serious firefight.” Seltet said.
“They are firewalled, but there has to be access for the soldiers AI to bond with it, and to have fire control. A People’s AI could just as easily access Sally’s army weapons. There’s no security in the galaxy that can’t be broken by a People’s AI.”
“That’s a worrying thought. Come on Fen,” Seltet said. “Let’s get them tidying up and see if any of them need medical assistance. We could do with a medi bot here, Mark.”
“I’ll get them up from the antechamber. We can have one here and I’ll send the other to Sally. I’m going to join Ranesh and Touren and check out access to Mike’s office.
Chapter Eighty Seven
A Plan Is Formed
Ranesh and Touren were about four meters from the door to Mike’s office, weapons up.
“Situation?” Mark asked,
“Both meeting rooms were empty, no sign of any activity in Mike’s office.” Touren said. “I guess you’ve dealt with the situation in the corridors?”
“Yes. There were a lot of them, but the Herassans don’t have much fight in them. Especially when they find out their weapons don’t work. I thought they would all be like Mike, itching for a fight and ready to take on anyone, but I guess her experiences since she escaped from the Palace have shaped her character.”
“I’m surprised at them too.” Touren said. “Reptile species are usually fairly aggressive.”
“You’re a reptile and you’re not particularly aggressive. I mean, you are a good soldier, but you’ve spent more time helping people in the Boran Medical Emergency and Recovery group than you have fighting in an army.”
“My people used to be aggressive, even after we became post emergent, but when we found out the galaxy was mostly peaceful, we started focusing on arts and sciences. That’s something we are quite proud of now, so if you check out our histories you’ll find a lot about it. I trained as a physicist when I was young. I go back to research sometimes, until Bekkreshan gets bored with a quiet life,” she smiled, “which usually doesn’t take too long.”
“I’d like to hear more about your people,” Mark said, “but we’ve got a problem with the number of prisoners we’ve got. I’ll send Orange and Bekkreshan to back you up, I’m going back to help sort out the prisoners, then we’ll all come back and we’ll come up with a plan to get Mike out of there safely. I’m going to contact her first to check what’s going on in there.”
Mark opened a channel to Mike. “You OK?”
“I thought you’d all left and gone home.”
“No, we’ve been making our way up here. We had a few issues on the way.”
“That’s fine, you take your time. Don’t worry that the two guards are getting twitchier and I can’t think how they haven’t accidentally or deliberately shot me yet. You take your time getting around to freeing me. If I’m killed while you’re fucking around, no problem. I’m sure you’ll find another friend.”
“Look, I know you’re not in the best of situations in there…”
“Not in the best of situations? You fucking idiot!” she interrupted. “I’m sitting in the dark with a single glow lamp giving just enough light for me to see two arsehole guards holding guns at me, who think I can’t overhear them discussing whether to shoot me and pretend that I attacked them and were acting in self-defense. The Colonel keeps pausing as though she is on comms, then getting more agitated by the minute. Anything to do with you?”
“Maybe.”
“She’s lost interest in keeping me alive. She’s smashed all the office equipment against the wall, and she’s just thrown a small table that had flowers on it at the window. What are you doing out there? Having a picnic?”
“I’ll do something about the weapons if they’re worrying you…”
“Worrying me? If I get out of here alive I’m going to kick your fat mammalian backside so hard you’ll turn inside out! Now get a move on and do something!”
“Try and stay calm. I’ve disabled all the weapons in there, including the Colonel’s handheld pulse weapon, you’re quite safe now.”
“Oh that’s just fine. You know those big double sided combat knives the Herassan soldiers carry, can you disable them too? Otherwise I’m likely to have one of those stuck in me. But I’ll try and stay calm until I see you, then I’ll kick the living shit out of you!”
“With your unarmed combat skills, you should easily be able to overcome them, even if they have got blades.”
“Did I mentioned that they have tied my hands behind my back and tied my feet to my stool? I can’t even get up to go for a piss now.”
“Do you need to go to the toilet?”
“Not now, I’ve pissed on the floor. I could do with some dry clothes though.”
Mark closed his eyes for a moment and tried to remove the image that conjured up in his mind. Having failed to get rid of it, he told his AI to get a new uniform for Mike, with the same insignia and campaign ribbons as the one she was wearing, a towel, something like a wet-wipe, a flask full of the hot herby tea she drank and another with cold water, and to get it here quickly in a drone.
“I’ll be back shortly, and we’ll have a plan to get you out of there. Do you want an update on what’s happening in the Empire?”
“No I don’t! I want an update on what you are doing to release me!”
“You are our top priority; we’ll get you out as soon as we can.” Mark said but realized that Mike had cut the connection.
“How is she doing?” Touren asked.
“She’s OK. A bit grumpy. Keep your eyes open, but I don’t think they are going anywhere.”
On his way to see Sally, Mark opened a channel to Sha. “Are you safe?” he asked.
“Yeah, we’re fine here. The City Guards that were sent to close us down have switched sides. There’s a party going on here!”
“I’d rather be there than here. How was the VR package I sent received?”
“We’re all thrilled by it. We’ve had lots of messages from our audience saying how pleased they are to have Sally’s Army and Mark, Friend of the People on the side of the First of the First. We’ve had a few complaining about alien invaders, but the response has been overwhelmingly favorable’
“What about the rest of Tefran, how are things there?”
“There’s no martial law in the city now. There has been some fighting round the Palace led by Major Bryd Sa Dett and they have now taken control. He’s been sending us reports which we’ve been broadcasting. He’s outside the gates right now, but he told us he won’t go in because you are all in there and he doesn’t want to interfere with your operation to free the First of the First. There aren’t any other cities on the planet, just a lot of small settlements. We’ve had reports that there are City Guard and regular army units enforcing martial law in some areas. Major Bryd Sa Dett said as soon as the First of the First is free, he will organize actions to free the whole world.”
“What about other parts of the Empire?”
“Remember Effran? There are demonstrations against the coup, defying martial law. We got some VR sent to us and you could hear ‘free the First of the First’ and ‘rule by the many’ being chanted. Banmor and Rettek are both under martial law with protestors rioting, the Morfen habitat has flat out rejected the coup and its council said it would leave the Empire if the First of the First isn’t reinstated. The army units stationed there have remained in their barracks. The military commander hasn’t accepted our request for an interview but has promised a statement within the next couple of hours. The research station on Tinmor, it’s a moon round a gas giant in an unoccupied solar system, have issued a statement that they don’t care who is in charge as long as they continue to be supported. The army base commander said they are there to protect t
he research station and that’s what they’ll do, they won’t get involved in the politics. The news is still being propagated across the Empire, so we haven’t heard from anyone else yet.”
“That’s better news than I feared. Keep me in touch.” Mark disconnected and said to his AI, “Kate, put together a media friendly package from our entry into the Great Hall to the ambush in the corridors showing the efforts we’ve made to not injure the Herassans and the medical care we’ve provided and send it to Sha. If you need help from your friends, take all the help you can get. You have the final editorial say on what gets sent but remember the message that we want to get across. Send it to Sha as soon as possible.”
First of the First Page 46
