Edge of the Vortex

by Donald B McFarlane

  Wey nodded and looked at Admiral Taark, before picking up the pad that was sat in front of him.

  Taark looked across the table at Joe and Rhea. “Refreshments?”

  Joe smiled. “Please, I’m starving!”

  Joe looked at his watch. It had been over an hour. His belly was full, and his hangover was receding, but the real reason that they were all gathered in that room, the conspiracy, hadn’t been mentioned once since the Royal Inspector had picked up the datapad that Roper Daz had prepared for him. When he finally set it down, the five other occupants in the room took notice and moved back to their seats if they had gotten up, and all fixed their gaze on one of the most powerful men in the Etelainen.

  “This is not good.” Wey nodded his head to himself. “I’m embarrassed.” He looked at the admiral, then slowly over to Daz. “If this file that you’ve put together is accurate then we are looking at a conspiracy that stems from the highest reaches of power within the Alliance. The members that make up this organisation must have ties to every critical part of the Alliance from the military to the political wing and everything in-between.

  “So, what are we going to do about it?” Joe asked, looking at Wey. “And what about Earth?” He looked to the Admiral. “What about Terra?”

  14

  Tohil Facilities, Canada

  17 January

  “So, what you’re telling me is.”

  “Yes.” Doctor Gaius Stephenson nodded and crossed his arms while leaning back in his chair. “We can access all Coalition communications using the recovered drone.” He pointed at the screen. “This is Universal, and we can translate it.”

  John Robert rubbed his chin and moved closer to the computer monitor that was showing both lines of code, and simultaneous communications traffic from Coalition forces in orbit and on Earth. Reaching into his khaki trouser pockets, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and without looking, pulled one from the pack and put it in his mouth before returning the box. Leaning forward, he got his face a few inches away from the computer screen before pulling a lighter from his jacket pocket and quickly lighting his smoke.

  “You know I’d prefer you not to smoke that in here.” Stephenson said dryly.

  “Keep your pants on, Doctor,” Robert replied. “There isn’t any alien tech in here.”

  Stephenson shook his head. “I was thinking about my health.”

  Robert looked at his head scientist and shook his head, before pointing, cigarette in hand, at the monitor. “Why isn’t this more secured?” He stood back up, turned, and took three paces away from the computer. “I’d have thought the Coalition would have taken more precautions with their communications network.”

  Stephenson shrugged his shoulders. “Either their codes haven’t been breached by Alliance forces, or they’ve dropped into a less secure level of access since the Alliance fled the system.”

  Robert turned around and pointed back at the screen. “And we have access, right now, to their entire communications network?”

  “Yes.” Came the reply.

  John Robert took a drag on his cigarette. “The question is what we do with it.”

  Before Gaius could respond, an announcement came over the rooms public address system. “Sir, we’ve just detected a massive EMP burst over North America.” The voice said.

  That got John Robert’s attention and his head quickly snapped up to the ceiling while he dropped his cigarette, and quickly stepped it out with his RM Williams boot. “Are our systems affected?” He asked.

  “No, Sir. All systems are online and functional but all internet access is down, but hard-lines to our other installations are still operational.”

  “And our satellites in orbit?”

  “We are unable to detect them, Sir.”

  “Very well. I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

  The line went dead.

  “What are you thinking?” Stephenson asked.

  John Robert pulled out his pack of cigarettes again and lit another smoke before replying. “We need a better understanding of what is going on. We know that the Coalition is in orbit and that they most likely have EMP’d the entire planet. We need to know what their plans are and how they affect us.”

  John Robert took another long drag on his cigarette and took two paces back towards the computer. “Doctor, start a log of what you can from these communique. I need to know as much as possible.”

  “You think that we can actually do something about this?” The Doctor waved his hands in the air with a bit of hysterics.

  John Robert smiled. “My dear Doctor. The fate of the world may depend on it.”

  15

  Earth Orbit

  17 January

  “Where is Sector Commander Varus?” Sajoba asked, striding onto the large bridge of the command ship.

  “In his quarters.” Replied watch commander.

  Sajoba nodded and kept walking until he reached the command chair, and sat down in it. “Status on the EMP blast?”

  The watch commander walked over to Sajoba, datapad in hand. “Successful. All Coalition forces on the surface were unaffected. At this moment, there are no indigenous craft in the air, and all major water-borne vessels have been neutralised, along with the global power grid.”

  Sajoba looked at the watch commander. “Have any attempts been made to breach our sites?”

  “Not since the EMP blast.”

  “Excellent.” Sajoba smiled. Perhaps it was time to have a little fun with this planetoid. “Show me a full list of all weapon systems available again.”

  The watch commander quickly moved his fingers over the datapad until he reached the page he was looking for. “Sir.”

  Sajoba took the pad and looked at it. An alphabetised list of all the weapons on all the ships in the system was listed, and it was a long list, too long for Sajoba to bother scrolling through. “Give me the list of all deployable systems.”

  The watch commander took the pad and tapped on it a few more times. “Sir.”

  Sajoba took the pad and gave it another scan. There was a considerable number of warcraft at his fingertips, but he wanted something spicier. He was finally on the verge of making his career something for the legends. A lowly base commander sends a single ship beyond the Reach on a hunch, and the next thing he knows, a world is conquered and then the war won. The thought of it put a smile on his face.

  After some scrolling, Sajoba finally reached a category that made him pause. “Biological warfare.” He said out loud, looking at the datapad. “Hmm.”

  He opened the section and noticed only two entries. “What are these?” He held the pad up so the watch commander could see them.

  The watch commander stared at the screen for a moment, his face slightly contorted in thought. “Never seen them before, Sir.”

  Sajoba looked at the officer, then brought the pad back down to his eye level. Tapping on the screen, he brought up the first entry. A hydro-based entity that was capable of making a small body of water undrinkable, and unsuitable for use as a fuel source. Boring. Sajoba backed out, and went to the next biological on the list.

  “Wind-Stalkers.” He said under his breath, and tapped on the icon, and started reading the description. “Egg-born, bipedal,” He stopped reading out loud for a moment. “Urban pacification.”

  He handed the pad back to the watch commander. “Where are these, and how many do we have?”

  The watch commander took the pad and scrolled through the page. After a few moments of silence, he finally replied. “Sir. There are four-hundred units aboard this ship.”

  Sajoba looked up in shock. “This ship?” He looked back down, and towards the giant view screen at the front of the bridge, and Terra beyond. Standing up, he walked forward. “How long does it take to deploy them?”

  Another pause.

  “They can be loaded in a Class F transport and taken down to the planet’s surface within a few days, and once on the surface, droids will unload the eggs, and then they sh
ould hatch after two days.” He replied.

  Sajoba smiled. “What happens once they’re done with the pacification?”

  “It says that they only live for five days so I would think that they would expire where they stood.”

  “Now we just need a suitable location to try them.”

  The watch commander moved to where Sajoba was standing and brought up a three-dimensional hologram of Terra that floated above the datapad. “Perhaps an island. Restrict the Wind-Stalkers geographically. The file said that they suffer adverse effects from exposure to water, so a dry location would be ideal.”

  Sajoba rubbed his hands together and looked at the 3D map. “How about here?” He pointed at a large island.

  “Allow me to check compatibility.” The watch commander said.

  Seconds later he was done. “That location is suitable for the Wind-Stalkers.”

  “Excellent. Find a populated area and deploy them at its borders.” Sajoba ordered.

  “Sir, should this first be authorised by Sector Commander Varus?”

  Sajoba shook his head. “No.” He turned to look at the young officer. “This is on me.” He turned his attention back to the floating planet that hovered beneath the ship and smiled. “Hand me that datapad.” He ordered, and stuck out his left hand, and waited for the pad. Once it was in his hands he brought the information on the Wind-Stalkers back up and started to read more detail about their biology and capabilities. The smile on his face got bigger.

  16

  Traxis

  17 January

  Joe was growing a little bit impatient, and that was the understatement of the year, as far as he was concerned. There had been much discussion since his arrival at the 7th Fleet’s headquarters about how to deal with the internal threat to the Alliance, but nothing said about the news from Earth. And it was that point that was driving him mad.

  Royal Inspector Wey had finished reading the entire report that had been prepared for him and had given the group his reaction. After that, there had been more talk about how to proceed, which leads to follow. The list was long, and while Joe knew that it was important business, he had other fish to fry.

  “What about Earth? Terra?” He looked around the room, first at Rhea, but he left his gaze upon Admiral Taark, the one who would most likely have the most to say on the subject.

  “It’s too soon to say, Colonel.” Taark shifted in his seat. “Fleet command needs to come up with a counter to the Coalition’s move, but that won’t happen quickly. You have to be patient.”

  “Patient?” Joe looked at Rhea, then back to the Admiral. “Sir, I don’t know I can afford to be patient. We have no idea what the Coalition is doing, or what they want from Earth.”

  “Do you have a proposition, Colonel?” Etsiva Daz asked.

  Joe nodded. “I do. Doctor Stokes can stay here and work with the Royal Inspector and yourself, while I go and try to find out what’s happened to Earth, and what can be done about it.”

  17

  2 Kilometres north of Saint Paul Island

  18 January

  It didn’t take long for the team from Alliance Diplomacy to figure out what was happening, and what they had to do next, at least according to their guidebooks. Sector Prefect Dinalis and Lord Soturi had spent the first few hours after the Coalition incursion trying to reach any other Alliance forces in the system, but it became quite clear to them that everyone who could flee had done so, leaving the Planetary Command Ship alone for all intensive purposes.

  After diving as deep as possible in the Salish Sea, the PCS had moved out in the Pacific at best speed, forty knots, not too fast to draw attention from Coalition forces in the system, and reached a position just north of Saint Paul Island thirty-four hours later. Settling down to a depth of 7000 metres, the Ship Master assured Dinalis and Soturi that they were undetectable due to water temperature levels, and unless the Coalition searched for them with deliberate care, they should remain undetected.

  “Well,” Dinalis took a sip from his warm beverage before setting the cup back down on the long conference table that was devoid of the humans that the PCS had been sent to Earth to support. “I suppose we’re played out.” He looked at Soturi. He always hated having a private conversation with the Jin-Mona. The fact that Soturi could read his thoughts always made him a bit uncomfortable.

  Soturi nodded and looked towards the front of the raised deck they were on, where the ships flight crew were sat at their stations, in silence. The multitude of stations that filled the sides of the amphitheatre-like space was also equally devoid of activity. It was as if the ship was asleep.

  “What are our odds if we tried to run for it?” Dinalis asked.

  Soturi shook his head. “Poor. The Coalition would have ringed the planet in some form of protective shielding by now. We’d never get through, and we are not able to jump out.”

  Dinalis nodded. “Then we must make a fight of it here.”

  Soturi looked at his colleague, head tilted back, almost looking down his nose at the head representative of Alliance Diplomacy. “A fight, you say?”

  Dinalis took another sip of his warm beverage and nodded. “Yes, a fight.”

  A smile started to crawl across Soturi’s face. “Good. Very good.”

  18

  Wandoo National Park, Australia

  18 January

  The droids moved about their business quickly, and with precision. It was still early morning, and the sun had yet to rise in the east, and under the thick canopy, it was cool, perfect conditions for the Wind-Stalker eggs. The first ship down had been a relatively small shuttle, depositing the labour droids that would unload and place the eggs on the ground. The placement of the eggs was critical to the result that Base Commander Sajoba wanted, and the first egg to be placed was the queen, who was always placed at the tip of the direction of travel, while the rest of the eggs were set in a giant triangle formation behind her.

  Once the queen hatched, it would travel away from the pack of hatchlings behind it, which would lead the entire swarm of four-hundred Wind-Stalkers down the Great Southern Highway towards the target destination that had been selected in orbit.

  The second ship to land contained the queen and then the largest eggs that were available, and would guarantee the largest hatchlings. The follow-on ships brought down the rest of the eggs, and after all four-hundred were placed in the woods, the droids assembled in a small clearing and waited for their transport to return, and once it had arrived they boarded in an orderly fashion and left the planet’s surface.

  The moment that the ship cleared the planet, a signal was sent to the command ship reporting that the assets were off world and that the clock was running until the Wind-Stalkers were operational. This, of course, caught the eye of a bridge officer who had not been present when Sajoba had given the order to deploy the creatures to the planet, nor when the initial placement of droids had been conducted.

  This revelation was immediately forwarded to Sector Commander Varus who was on the bridge at the time and had been kept in the dark about the bio-weapon deployment. Summoning Sajoba, he demanded an answer, but Sajoba said that he was just running a test on the Wind-Stalkers, and thought that since the planet was subjugated he could do as he pleased.

  Varus kept his temper under control. There was nothing to be done once the urban pacification creatures were taken out of the deep freeze they had been stored in, other than sending in droids to destroy the eggs or bombing the site, neither of which Varus could be bothered to do.

  Sending Sajoba away with a warning, Varus knew that he was starting to behave in a manner that wasn’t usually his custom. He was often the first to strike when the chance presented itself, and to keep the pressure on an opponent until it was no longer required. While he felt sure that the inhabitants of the planet below had been given a stiff warning after the destruction of six cities, he was starting to wonder if they were going about the occupation in an entirely wrong direction.


  None of what Varus thought of the war and their presence over Terra mattered the moment the first rays of sunlight hit the top of the queen’s egg. The hard-white shells were dirty and had barely been cleaned after being picked up from Dodd-Sikes IV. The eggs were quickly cooled to a temperature that allowed the Wind-Stalkers inside to hibernate until they were heated to a temperature that enabled them to quickly develop from the stage they were frozen at, which was normally during the third of their four incubation cycles, to a level that allowed them to fully develop and hatch with a matter of hours.

  When the queen had had enough of her fill of the warm sun’s rays, and her growth cycle was complete, her body sent off a bio-charged pulse wave that almost instantly reduced the external structure of the egg to a soft, runny substance that lost all shape immediately, and quickly became nothing more than a puddle of goo on the forest floor.

  Uncurling itself, the queen stretched towards the sky, unveiling her two-metre long torso, before bending back down towards the ground. Her long body was covered in brownish-green scales that was perfect natural camouflage for the terrain she suddenly found herself in. The queen, like all the other Wind-Stalkers had a set of powerfully built and thick hind legs and a set of front arms with a single, dagger-like claw at the end of it.

  The head of the creature had quad-compound eyes, all facing forward with the two largest eyes in the centre, and another two smaller eyes on the sides. The Wind-Stalkers had the ability to see in multiple spectrums and had crystal clear vision out to 100 metres, but beyond that, they had almost no sensory perception. Their hearing was limited, and they could only detect sounds in certain frequencies which made them vulnerable to being hunted in open terrain.

  A single mouth ran just below the eyes and ran from one side of the head to another, and when the creature's teeth were exposed, it revealed twenty hyper-sharp teeth on both the top and bottom rows, four deep, giving the creature an impressive 160 tooth bite. But even with this impressive array of chewing and gnawing power, the queen leaned forward, much like a Terran bear, and started eating the grass that was to be found next to the remnants of her egg.