by C. M. Kane
There were seven large rooms facing each other down a long wide corridor, a quietly running electrical grid covered each door emitting an almost soothing hum. He followed Tark to the first cell and looked in at the thalien Sergeant. Two of his men seemed to be seriously wounded; they were lying prostrate with their fellow warriors doing what they could to help. Another half dozen sported zap gun grazes, something he knew from personal experience stung like all hell.
Mara appeared to have a large hole in one leg, which was still bleeding lightly.
Brohan was furious. Gazing at the injured men he got on his com-link and contacted the Olympus, he quickly informed Tannan of what had occurred.
He thought it wiser to ask Tannan if he could order Shivon to release Mara and his men into his own personal custody. He thought that if he asked Shivon personally, then some of them could needlessly die while he got into a pissing match with the Commander over who was in charge. He knew Tannan hated the thalien for some reason, and after a brief silence he acquiesced to Brohan’s request. Tannan assured him that Shivon would be left with no doubt that he was to follow Brohan’s instructions to the letter, or suffer the consequences. Brohan thanked him, frowning in thought; he had the distinct impression something else was happening onboard the Olympus. Before he could ask any more questions Tannan had signed off.
Brohan turned back to the cell and looked at Sergeant Mara who was looking from him to Tark with curiosity.
‘Why did you help defend Shivon and the command centre against your own race? I was told that after the reinforcements arrived and the battle was over you simply surrendered your weapons.’
Mara turned his pale face around and looked at his men with obvious pride. ‘We are warriors first and foremost,’ he said in a clear, firm voice. ‘Unlike that scum,’ he gestured to the thalien in the adjoining cell, ‘we have honor. We made a pledge to uphold the laws of the WLE, and we stand by it. Our commanding officer ordered us to stand down and we did so.’
He leant his head back against the wall tiredly.
Brohan narrowed his eyes. ‘Even if it means your life, and those of your men?’
Mara shrugged. ‘We are warriors; we will die with honor rather than break our oaths.’
Brohan nodded and turned to the two wolven guards. ‘Release them and get some med techs down here immediately.’
The warrior hesitated. ‘We have orders directly from Commander Shivon to deny all medical help to the prisoners.’
Brohan was enraged at such stupid, petty behavior. ‘Call him, now.’
The warrior punched up the command room on his com-desk and asked for Shivon.
Brohan could tell Tannan had already spoken to the commander, by the crisp ‘Yes, sir that the warrior spoke before signing off. He quickly punched in some more commands and the field in front of the door to Mara’s men disappeared.
‘Is this all of you?’ Brohan asked.
Mara nodded. ‘All that fought. There are more here that were off duty and sleeping that have been dragged in; they are in separate cells further along.’
Brohan clasped his head. What is that fool Shivon thinking?
‘They’ll have to stay put for the time being while I try to sort this mess out.’
Mara nodded. ‘Who are you?’
Brohan introduced himself and explained to the Sergeant and his listening men about Loki’s return and his reacquisition of the WLE warriors, and of the death of Pan by Zeus’s own hand, he then asked for and received a rundown of the uprising and the fighting from Mara’s point of view. Once the med techs arrived he remained quietly in the corner thinking while they worked on the injured men.
‘You’re not what I expected,’ said a voice from his side. Brohan turned to find that Tark had moved quietly to his side and was now watching him curiously.
‘What do you mean?’
‘First you treat my injuries in the simplest, most effective way, when there are other warriors around you who wouldn’t even think to help one not of their race, and now you are saving the lives of men whose brothers have committed treason. Why?’ he asked.
Brohan exhaled heavily. ‘Honesty, courage and honor,’ he said, staring into the vampire’s eyes.
Tark looked at him in surprise. ‘Explain please … sir.’
‘Every person I have asked for information here has shown me honesty by speaking the truth without embellishment. Each and every person in this room has shown courage in battle, and has been prepared to die for their beliefs. Each one has shown honor by continuing to follow their most basic oaths, to uphold the laws that they swore to protect, no matter the personal cost. That is what a true warrior does. The laws we swore to uphold might not always be convenient, or even fair at times, but they are there for a reason. These men gave their word of honor to uphold those laws when they became WLE warriors, and they have more than lived up to that pledge. That is why I choose to defend them’ he finished.
Tark stared at him as he thought over everything he said, Brohan changed the subject abruptly.
‘I will need both you and Sergeant Mara to make me a list of who you are sure can be trusted in this facility and, more importantly, who you think cannot. That includes anyone you can think of who may have been reassigned. I will need an honest assessment of what’s going on here, and I’m beginning to think you two are the only ones I’m going to get a straight answer from. It’s time the perpetrators of this shit storm faced justice, and its way past time the warriors of the WLE began to trust and have faith in one another again. If we can’t rely on our brothers and sisters for help, then we have become lost. I won’t have that. Lord Loki is back; and things are about to change.’
Tark stood to attention. ‘I’ll get on it immediately, sir.’
He turned and walked out to the guard’s desk. He returned a few moments later with a small compad and sat down next to Sergeant Mara, who now had a med tech working on his injured leg.
Brohan frowned. Tarks statement about the blood had shocked him to his core, for one warrior to withhold something that could help another warrior they served beside was appalling to him. These men had to be prepared to put their trust in each other’s hands, to deny someone something as simple as a few drops of blood to ease their pain and help them heal - it was beyond belief.
Hopefully by tomorrow he would have some idea as to exactly how much trouble the WLE had got itself into.
Chapter 21
Since leaving the Kydomois Tae had flown very carefully through the nebula, making sure she put as much distance as possible between herself and Ares. She had a pretty shrewd idea he mightn’t be thrilled with her choice of music. Bastard! She thought yet again as she rubbed her still throbbing temples gently. She touched the com-panel and asked her nanites to program in a direct course to Cassandra.
Almost immediately a course appeared on her view screen. Well, here goes nothing, she thought, as she changed direction to the new course. She just hoped this Cassandra would be a bit happier to see her than Ares had been, not to mention a bit nicer. Tae was trying to be very careful, as not only was she inexperienced, she was now flying through a very dangerous region of space. She had only ever read about nebulas before today, and now she had to navigate through one. Well I wanted to learn to fly. Looks like I’m going to be learning pretty quickly. She thought ruefully.
According to her instrumentation it swirled with all the typical gases and dust of a classic nebula. It also seemed to have a quite a lot of asteroids, along with what appeared to be tornadoes of plasma that cropped up here and there, only to fade away as her jumper continued further in. She studied her sensors as they picked up different types of odd radiation and gaseous anomalies; she quickly thanked the gods of luck that she was in an undamaged jumper. She didn’t know if she could have trusted the badly damaged Shalia to keep everything dangerous outside of the shields.
After another halfhour’s careful travel she looked to her view screen. She should be able to see Cassandra’s s
hip by now, but her course was only leading her straight to another asteroid, this one was massive, it looked even bigger than the Olympus. Tae brought up an outside image and frowned in confusion, her jumper was still taking her directly toward the massive asteroid, which on closer inspection, seemed to be surrounded by a strange light.
Did Cassandra’s ship crash? Had she and her crew remained alive long enough for her burrow down into the rock itself? Now what am I supposed to do? Her jumper rocked lightly as it passed through the field of light. Realizing she had only one option open to her she turned on her communications equipment.
‘This is Tae Rames to Cassandra, I believe you’ve been expecting me,’ she said as confidently as she could manage. Nothing like a bit of bluffing, she thought.
A woman’s light laugh seemed to echo around the jumper until Tae realized with a start, that the laughter she was hearing was inside her own head. The woman was communicating directly with her mind.
‘Welcome,’ said a soft lyrical voice. ‘Tae, it is good to finally meet you, I’ve been expecting you for some time now. Please follow the path laid out on your view screen.’
The initial course that had been laid on her view screen had disappeared and a new path now faced her. Tae powered back to slow the jumper even more, then she did as she’d been told, she followed the path to the rock. As she neared it two huge doors appeared in its side, they were set back a little and hidden from immediate view by the surrounding rock.
One of the doors opened to allow her entrance; she hesitated for a moment, then taking a deep breath she moved her ship inside. She slowed the jumper to a crawl as she peered around with interest.
I’m definitely in some kind of a ship, she thought, it had the exact same design as an Orion class ship’s hangar bay entrance, except for the fact she seemed to be inside a giant asteroid.
Tae continued to look around as she moved her jumper forward, she was now totally fascinated by her surroundings. As her little craft continued on through the short tunnel she noticed two massive pressure doors that she passed under before she came to another set.
Definitely like the Olympus, she thought.
She brought the jumper to a stop and waited as the doors closed swiftly behind her. Almost immediately the inner doors opened and she proceeded to the inner hangar of what she now thought of as the asteroid ship.
She looked around astounded, this too was massive, it was definitely on a similar scale to the Olympus; even in here there was an eerie similarity to Zeus’ flagship.
But a little different, she thought, only now noticing the smaller details.
The walls were fitted with what appeared to be lifters, they had been very cleverly designed to stack excess jumpers or ordinance if required, instead of just having them sitting neatly in rows upon the floor. Theoretically, although the hangar was empty now, its clever design could nearly triple its space if it received an influx of jumpers.
Now that’s clever, thought Tae in admiration for the design.
Dragging her attention back to the hangar proper she saw a tall brownhaired male was standing about a hundred meters further in, waiting for her to land. The cavernous hangar only had one small jump ship and three mid range troop carriers parked near what she thought would be the hangar’s command centre. Tae took a calming breath and headed for the man. Landing the ship neatly she quickly shut down the engines and went to the door, opening it expectantly.
Shock set in as she realized she was staring straight into the eyes of the tech that had implanted her with her nanites when she was a child.
‘Welcome, Miss Rames,’ he said, smiling at her with genuine warmth. ‘I am Adam, Cassandra’s aide. I am here to take you to her.’
Tae gasped in shock. ‘You’re the tech that gave me my nanites,’ she blurted out.
He smiled at her shocked statement. ‘Not quite, I believe you might be thinking of my grandfather, Sebastian. I’m told I look remarkably like him.’
‘That’s not possible,’ Tae said, confused. ‘I only saw him around five years ago, and he definitely wasn’t old enough to have a grandson your age.’
Adam nodded. ‘Don’t worry; I am not lying to you, Miss Rames. All of your questions will be answered soon, I promise you. If you will please follow me, Cassandra is waiting.’
Tae nodded and began to follow him warily, every one of her senses now on alert. She kept giving him sideways glances as he led her toward the turbo lift. He had to be lying because, on closer inspection, this man looked slightly older than his supposed grandfather. She could believe he was his brother, perhaps, but why would he lie about something so trivial?
She shook her head. Had she just gone and got herself into yet another mess? On the bright side, it looked like she was going to get a few answers about what was going on this time and, more importantly; exactly what had been implanted in her brain by Adam’s socalled grandfather. Tae prayed it wasn’t yet another nasty surprise. The way her luck went, she decided she wouldn’t be holding her breath on that score.
She followed Adam into the turbo lift, taking note of what level they were leaving.
You can’t be too careful, she rationalized to herself, especially with all that had happened to her lately, and the inordinate amount of people who kept either locking her up or trying to kill her. The lift stopped at the thirtyfifth level, its doors opening onto a wide passage.
Adam smiled gently at her again, as if reading her thoughts.
‘This way, please.’ He walked out ahead of her and proceeded down the passage.
Tae followed along behind him meekly, not saying a word. She figured he was walking ahead of her to show faith that she wouldn’t attack him, and he hadn’t searched her for weapons either, she realized with a start. Perhaps things really were looking up. As she walked she reached out her hand, trailing it lightly over the pale grey wall of the corridor.
She stopped abruptly. She had the strangest feeling; she rubbed her fingers gently back and forth, fascinated. For some reason she got a vague impression of … pleasure?
‘Please,’ she heard Adam say from a doorway just ahead. Tae took her hand from the wall; she felt a strange sense of loss as the contact was broken. She continued on to join Adam and entered the room.
‘Welcome, Tae,’ the voice inside her mind said once again.
Tae looked around; the room was bare except for an occupied bed against the far wall. She stepped forward hesitantly.
‘Please don’t be concerned, Tae. I’m afraid my body has recently stopped working, but as you can hear, my mind is still quite active.’
Tae walked up to the bed curiously. An incredibly ancient looking woman lay there as if sleeping peacefully, her long silver hair was in a side plait draped over her shoulder, it fell gently over the plain white linen dress she wore, someone had folded her hands neatly across her stomach.
She looked kind, serene. ‘Beautiful,’ Tae breathed.
‘Why thank you, Tae. I’m afraid it’s been many years since anyone has called me beautiful.’ The voice laughed lightly. ‘Although in my distant youth I was once thought to be quite fair to look upon. I even attracted the gaze of a god once.’ She sighed.
‘Are you, Cassandra? How do you talk to me like this, and what did Adam put in my head?’
Tae addressed her most pressing questions to the sleeping woman, who she now noticed had several tubes running discretely in and out of her body,
‘Yes, Tae, I am Cassandra. The tubes you are looking at are all that is keeping my body alive, unfortunately I am very much a mortal and, after all my years here, my time is finally growing short.’
‘What do you mean?’ Tae frowned at her. ‘How can you be mortal? The gods talk of you as if you are one of them.’
Cassandra laughed again. ‘A god? Hardly, although old I can attest to.’ She sighed. ‘I was given immortality nanites when I was nineteen years of age.
They were meant to last around five thousand years before they would need to
be renewed, and perhaps they have. You see, we are in a type of a time bubble young, Tae, and although I have managed to live a very long time in here; for every day that passes here, mere seconds elapse outside its protective shell. It now seems all those centuries of seconds have finally added up. I’m dying at long last,’ she said in a surprisingly cheerful tone, ‘but you have come to me, so all is not lost.’
Adam reappeared with a highbacked chair which he sat by Cassandra’s bed, he tenderly brushed a stray hair away from the old woman’s face then left.
‘Please, Tae, have a seat I have a story I need to tell you and not much time left with which to tell it. It will then be up to you to make a decision on your fate, and that of all the races around you.’
Tae frowned in confusion and sat. ‘Perhaps I should start at the very beginning so you have a better understanding of everything.’ Cassandra murmured as if to herself, then having made up her mind she began her story. ‘Like all great tales this one starts thousands of years ago.’
‘There was once a galaxy that was ruled by a race of fierce and brilliant beings. Their technology was so much more advanced than any of the other races in their part of the galaxy that they conquered them with ease. They were a beautiful, yet totally amoral race who lived on a once glorious world called Titan; their supreme ruler was known as Cronus. In his neverending quest for dominance over their galaxy Cronus had gradually strip mined Titan of everything he saw as valuable until, finally, the once beautiful world was a barely habitable shell. Its once mighty forests had been cleared to reach the minerals beneath the soil, its animal life decimated, and its waters polluted beyond recognition. Even the very air they breathed was poisoned by acids.’
Tae frowned, immediately reminded of images she had seen of Earth from before the Gods’ War.
‘The Titans knew they needed another planet to inhabit,’ Cassandra explained, ‘but Cronus wanted none of the other worlds the Titans held dominion over. He had no desire to try to rehabilitate the worlds he was in control of. In his insatiable lust for power and conquest he had began the same campaign of strip mining them of anything of use. He cared nothing for the millions of species he was destroying in the process, even those species that served faithfully onboard their ships. So he decided to look for ways to travel to other galaxies that might be ripe for conquest.’
