The Pathfinder Trilogy

by Todd Stockert

  “There is an entire squadron entering tracking range,” his son informed him. “At least two dozen planes from a nearby airbase… they’ll be here in less than five minutes. What do you want me to do?”

  Smiling with mild admiration, the President leaned out into the aisle so that there would be no chance of Joseph missing his next words. “I want you to do what we came here to do,” he replied confidently. “Land.”

  *

  Hobak was watching the compound’s motion sensor array carefully, so he noticed immediately when two of the three CAP fighters suddenly broke up into little glittering pieces that faded slowly away. The other jet fighter turned on a dime and rocketed swiftly away from the shuttle’s position. Tapping into the combat communications channel, Hobak listened carefully. “This is Zephyr Two to base. Our missiles had no effect on that shuttle. Repeat. No damage. Zero joy. I have no idea what they hit Zephyrs One and Three with, but both of them are gone. Visual on two chutes though.”

  “Zephyr Two, this is home base,” a gravely, crusty voice responded calmly to the urgency of the pilot. “We believe they hit your companions with some sort of high powered laser system. Our visual from Zephyr One clearly shows that the wings of Zephyr Three were sliced off. We suspected standard rail guns, but they would have produced visible debris. You won’t be able to see the lasers… they’re invisible unless you’re in direct line of sight. Stand by… we’re sending backup. Beta squadron has launched and is on its way.”

  “Based on what I saw, nothing we use is going to even shake that shuttle,” replied the Zephyr Two pilot. “It looks like they’re circling to land. Perhaps we’ll have better luck once they’re grounded.”

  The rage building inside Hobak was becoming palpable. His face was reddening and sweat ran in large beaded drops from his forehead. He furiously grabbed a headset off of the tactical console and placed it on his head. Then, touching the receiver cap over his right ear, he intruded on the conversation. “Zephyr Two, this is Hobak 001 of the people’s Triumvirate,” he roared indignantly. “I have been watching the encounter with the alien shuttle, and you are currently guilty of leaving a combat operation without achieving your objective. Turn your fighter around and engage the enemy immediately.”

  The pilot’s voice, even heard through an electronically enhanced transmission, sounded as though he was close to passing out from fear upon hearing Hobak’s order. “If they wanted to, those lasers of theirs can probably destroy me right now, while my own missiles remain well out of range. There is nothing that I can do, Excellency, except go back and die…”

  “Then go back and DIE for the greater good of the Brotherhood!” roared Hobak fiercely. “Beta squadron is on its way. If even ONE of those fighters reaches that shuttle and engages before you do, your death at MY hands will make what they do to you look like a courtesy by comparison!”

  A prolonged pause followed. Then… “Aye… your Excellency. Message acknowledged.”

  Valiana pulled up a chair and seated herself comfortably, saying nothing. Having heard this kind of thing from Hobak for years now, and having argued futilely – sometimes with Durgon 001 fully backing her – she finally knew deep down that there was no reasoning with the man. This particular confrontation would have to play out under Hobak’s direction, with her content to sit on the sidelines and let him ‘make all the tough calls’, as he liked to claim. She was tired of his intractability and complete lack of perspective on important matters. All that mattered to him, in the current arena of politics and combat, was to have his way with everything. Anyone who tried to stop him was fair game. That much was clear to her, especially after the death of Durgon in Havana. But her moment was coming, and she planned to be ready when it arrived.

  *

  Three and a half minutes later, Joseph settled the shuttle’s landing struts firmly on terra firma. “That jet pilot turned around,” he hollered in warning. “He’s on his way back.” Unbuckling his safety harness, the young Lieutenant made his way hastily back to the passenger section where he found his father opening a large hatch. A solid metal walkway extended from the base of the hatch, angling down toward the ground at a level sufficient for walking comfortably. “Dad… you really shouldn’t go out there! These guys aren’t in the mood to talk.”

  “At this point, neither am I.” The President approached and suddenly embraced his son warmly. “Some time, when we’re both back on Tranquility, I’m going to tell you about a little adventure that Adam and I had in a place called the Wasteland,” he said softly, enjoying the private moment with his boy. “We used this technology effectively there… I assure you there is nothing to worry about. You’ve seen how easily the shuttle deflects their attacks. The personal defenses that I have at my disposal work the same way, even if it appears as though I am unarmed.” He locked his gaze on his son’s sharp features. “Trust me.”

  “All right.” Joseph pulled away and headed back to the cockpit. “Do you want me to hang around for a bit?” he asked inquisitively. “With the stealth shield in place, they can’t see me and I could create a protective umbrella over you that nothing will penetrate.” He wasn’t at all surprised to see Kaufield shake his head.

  “You’ve got one more assignment to complete. Do your duty as ordered and then return to the Lexington, Lieutenant,” said the President in his most commanding tone. “I’m the President of the free human survivors, and it’s time for me to get to work.” He stepped out onto the walkway and made his way toward the ground below. “Don’t worry son, I’ll be fine no matter what happens. We’ve made certain of that.”

  Once there he waited patiently until the shuttle’s hatch closed. Above, in the haze-filled, partly-cloudy skies above, he could hear the distant roar of the lone fighter returning. Golden orange sparks exploded off of his personal shield, indicating that snipers positioned somewhere nearby were already targeting him. Determined to send a deliberate message from the very beginning, Dennis Kaufield waved toward his son’s profile in the shuttle’s cockpit as the vessel lifted off in a blast of heated air. It moved past him and then climbed steadily skyward, vanishing slowly behind its restored invisibility screen even as the sound of the enemy fighter grew steadily louder. More bullets exploded against the skin-tight shield and vanished instantly around its perimeter, prompting him to activate his eye HUD. Then he turned around and studied the surrounding terrain very carefully.

  His home planet was a filthy, devastated wreck of its former self, saturated with dangerous radiation.

  The tactical database that had served Adam so well in the Wasteland pinpointed the enemy attackers instantly, overlaying their hidden positions in the rocky hills with green-circled crosshairs. Snapping his wrists several times, he sent sizzling electric-blue pulses flashing from his wrist guns, rocketing toward the identified enemy positions. The electromagnetic bursts instantly blew huge holes in the ground near the targeted locations. When additional bullets continued to fragment against his defenses, Kaufield upped the intensity of the blasts by sixty percent and began to pound their positions repeatedly, this time blowing huge, spiraling clouds of dirt and rock into the sunlit sky.

  After the second round of much harder strikes, the sniper fire abruptly stopped.

  Turning toward the south, he noticed that the Brotherhood’s compound was roughly a quarter of a mile distant. The massive gray stone walls loomed high above the terrain below, hiding the small set of buildings contained within. Kaufield knew full well from intelligence data that the vast majority of the complex lay hidden far underground. Everything about the enemy base that he needed to know was immediately accessible, so he saw no reason to delay his progress. Moving forward in a standard trot, he watched the jet fighter streak across the sky toward his position. He continued, unperturbed, even as the fighter descended and assumed an obvious attack run. Dim orange sunlight flashed across its silvery metallic fuselage as new data crawled across the President’s eye HUD. Target acquired: SU-39 MIG Super-Flanker.
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br />   Again the green-circled crosshairs appeared on his eye HUD, this time targeting the airplane before moving slightly ahead of its position and locking onto its anticipated flight path. The President didn’t need to flex his wrists this time, instead opting to allow the wrist guns to auto-fire as controlled by the software running his implant. A massive pair of energy bursts flashed skyward, connecting with the fighter and sending it spinning off toward the horizon, trailing dark smoke and debris. The two missiles launched just before his attack disabled the jet, however, sped toward him at an astonishing speed, both of them trailing bright white plumes of swirling smoke.

  The entire area surrounding his immediate position suddenly lit up with a fierce and brilliant white light, followed almost instantly by a blast of heat and flame.

  The first few seconds proved to be the most disorienting, as Kaufield’s personal shield auto-intensified but also turned opaque. Filters dispersed the flame, toxins and kinetic energy of the explosion as its effects blossomed around him in swirling clouds of black, orange and gray. The skin-tight electromagnetic defensive armor also nullified sound, protecting his vulnerable sight and hearing from the increased surrounding activity. It was a test of the implant’s abilities that he would normally have avoided, where necessary, but he had held few illusions about what any sort of confrontation with the Brotherhood would entail. Earlier aboard the Lexington, as the Earth carrier assumed orbit once again around its home planet, the President and his allies had stood by helplessly, watching what was left of the major population centers in Cuba burn in hellish clouds of nuclear fire.

  He found the situation mildly ironic. Although his personal use of the brain implants was extensive, most of his experiences were shared ones gained via his participation in the Sentinel program. Adam Roh held most of the direct combat experience, and yet the others who had linked with him to offer support – even if from very far away – possessed shared memories. The President and the other members of the implant project had all literally seen through Adam’s eyes and participated with him during the Wasteland mission. Data scrolling by on Kaufield’s eye HUD notified him that the explosion was dying down. Time to proceed.

  [“Kaufield to shuttle,”] he transmitted telepathically. [“It’s time, Joseph. Please implement attack plan Niner Niner Four.”]

  Temporarily shrouded in darkness within the safety of his defensive force field, Dennis Kaufield stood where he was and waited for the remaining clouds of smoke and fire to fade away.

  *

  Hobak watched the aftermath of the fighter strike from the Command station’s rows of monitors, where an assortment of images from various angles on the battlefield allowed him to see pretty much everything. “The defenses and firepower wielded by that man are certainly impressive,” he acknowledged grudgingly. “It isn’t easy to knock one of our fighters out of the sky, and he did so using only hand weapons.” Twin balls of flame and rising plumes of dark black-and orange-filled smoke clouds completely obscured the area where President Kaufield had been standing only seconds earlier. Massive clumps of charred, smoking dirt and rock fell back to Earth around the blast site. “Any personal defenses he has can’t be as powerful as the shuttle’s,” speculated the Brotherhood leader hopefully, “although they sure managed to handle our snipers’ fire well enough.”

  Next to him, Valiana completed a routine check on their remaining assets in the field. “Speaking of snipers, I have a casualty report for you. One soldier is wounded, while the other four are retreating back inside the walls,” she reported firmly. “They’re ignoring repeated orders from their commander to return and reengage the target.” Shrugging her shoulders indifferently, she glanced over toward her colleague. “Then there’s the matter of the pilot of the SU-39 this President just downed. He ejected safely, which – by my count – makes three pilots out of three who were able to safely eject after surviving his attacks,” she stated bluntly, her eyes blazing daggers. “You order men to die even as your counterpart spares their lives.”

  “Which is why he no longer lives on this planet,” Hobak growled back at her. “And I’m beginning to believe he no longer lives at all!” Chuckling with enthusiasm and amusement, he watched the residual smoke and fire from Zephyr Two’s missile attack rapidly fade away. “Perhaps we can contact their ship and…”

  On the monitor, President Dennis Kaufield stood where he had been, apparently unharmed.

  “I must admit, I would like to know how he managed to pull THAT off successfully,” gasped Valiana.

  “It cannot BE!” Hobak thundered, clearly enraged beyond the point of normal, rational thinking. Every decision he made now resulted from blind obedience to his out of control, primal urges. Working quickly, he adjusted the visual pickups on the digital imaging systems watching over the battlefield. One of them zoomed in as closely as it could on the President, clearly showing Kaufield standing in the middle of a burning crater without a scratch on him.

  He was astonishingly, completely unharmed.

  Hobak studied the face of his enemy meticulously, memorizing every detail of the man’s features. While he was doing so, Kaufield’s lip curled upward in a mischievous smirk and then he turned and looked directly at the camera producing the image. Again, both remaining members of the Triumvirate were caught completely by surprise. This newest move on the President’s part seemed, at first glance, an absolutely impossible action.

  “Somehow, they’ve tapped into our monitoring system,” guessed Valiana tentatively. “How else could he possibly know which of the images we’re currently using to watch him?”

  “I really don’t care,” said Hobak defiantly, touching a finger to his transceiver headset. “Beta squadron, you are cleared to engage,” he boomed imperiously. “Do not allow that man to reach this compound alive. That is a direct order from the Triumvirate, and failure carries with it all kinds of dire consequences.” Valiana opened her mouth to say something, but Hobak silenced her with his expression and a raised palm. “Find out the names of the snipers who left the battlefield,” he told her furiously. “Their bad day is going to get worse.”

  “As you command,” she replied compliantly, turning back to her own workstation and busying herself there. “However, don’t be at all surprised if you don’t live long enough to carry out that threat… this guy is not going to take no for an answer.”

  “That’s why we’re going to obliterate him regardless of the consequences,” promised Hobak indignantly, turning just far enough to eye her warily. “Any consequences,” he told her ominously.

  There was nothing else to say. Wordlessly the two of them sat there, watching President Kaufield on the monitors, as he resumed walking directly toward the outer walls of the Brotherhood complex.

  PROJECT EARTH

  Pathfinder Series: Book Three

  Chapter VI: Making It Right

  Planet Earth, the Emirate of Guitan, present day

  He was Hobak 001, Supreme Commander of the Triumvirate, formally cloned in a laboratory under tightly controlled conditions as a child and commissioned as an adult solely to serve the Brotherhood of the Dragon. That was his official title anyway, and as he leaned back in his chair he suddenly realized just how bad things were getting. His counterpart, Valiana 001, Supreme Governor of the Triumvirate, formally commissioned to serve the Brotherhood of the Dragon, was seated right next to him. Together, watching from the security monitors in the Command center of their central stronghold, the two of them were watching the most amazing event that either had ever witnessed. Somehow President Dennis Kaufield, a man dressed in civilian clothing partially hidden beneath a lightly-colored tan robe, continued to live. He was walking directly toward the stone wall surrounding the Brotherhood’s main headquarters, headed right toward the main gate.

  Massive explosions and clouds of smoke and burning orange flame continually detonated around him, temporarily screening him from view, and yet in some inexplicable fashion this President of the so-called ‘normals’
simply ignored it all and continued, unimpeded, toward his intended destination. Us, Hobak realized with a sudden knot forming in his stomach. He’s coming after us, and our best pilots have so far been unable to stop him.

  It wasn’t for lack of trying.

  The roar of jet engines thundered out of the tactical console’s speaker system, drowned out only occasionally by the volatile electronic squelch generated by repeated additional detonations. There were over two dozen MIG SU-39s out there now, an entire squadron. The Super-Flanker was one of the most sophisticated warplanes ever developed by the former nation of Russia. And yet nothing they did seemed capable of stopping this lone human male. First it was missiles whose smoke trails crisscrossed in the air as they sped from their various launch points to their central target. Once all of the fighters exhausted their missile supply, pilots resorted to laser-targeting President Kaufield and promptly began dropping bombs on him. Hobak’s stomach condition had been fine up until that point.

  It was only when several of the planes resorted to strafing runs, using standard regulation bullets, that he began to feel as though the situation currently facing them might indeed be hopeless and destined to fail. Watching it all unfold on the security monitors in front of him, Hobak swore softly and studied a list of additional assets available to him. “Tell the rail gunners on the main wall to target this man and open fire,” he told someone via his communications headset. Valiana studied him quietly, observing the futility of his actions, and silently wondered how someone could believe himself to be competent even when cold harsh reality instantly revealed the exact opposite. He’s not getting it, she thought with frustration. He doesn’t realize we’re finished.

  “Have you considered calling for a temporary cease fire,” she suggested calmly. In response, Hobak turned and simply glared at her. “I’m serious,” she continued, determined to bring some sort of sanity back to the mayhem she was bearing witness to. “It’s plainly obvious that this Proteus technology is far superior to our own weapons. President Kaufield had a major advantage over us simply by retaining command of the Pathfinder, allowing his crew to escape and form an alliance with aliens in the first place. At the very least, even a small break in the fighting will allow our military experts to analyze his defensive systems and search for weakness.” It’s a very helpful suggestion, she thought while silently deliberating her own next move, which is why…