Sometimes, during war, it paid to be out of communication reach when trying tactics that were… experimental.
His assistant followed his gaze. Her forehead wrinkled with a silent query.
“I think it’s time for me to call in one last favor. But I need to know you’re not going to be a problem for me on this. What I’m about to do would be regarded as high treason. Your association with me would likely implicate you in my crimes if I were to fail and my actions become public.”
“Okay…” Seazza said, her body tightening with tension. “What is it you have in mind? Do I get a choice whether I keep this, whatever it is you’re about to do, a secret?”
“No,” Morgan said, standing and placing his fingertips to the surface of his desk. “I need to know now. Are you with me… or them? I need to know if I can trust you.” They locked eyes. Morgan drew a breath and waited for her answer… it could all stem on her next few words.
Seazza stood, pushing her chair back with the rear of her knees. She stared directly at Morgan as she said, “I’m with you, Admiral. Whatever it is you have planned, you have my trust. Just let me know what I can do for you.”
In any other situation, Morgan would have smiled with the relief and renewed confidence he had in his assistant, but the gravity of his actions prevented any expression other than a grim determination.
“We leave right away. I’ve procured an alternative ID pass. An unregistered ship is waiting for us in hangar eighteen.”
“Where are we going?”
“The vestan embassy.”
“That doesn’t seem so dangerous… why the cloak-and-dagger approach?”
“Because the embassy is more than it seems. We’re going to meet with the true rulers of the Vestan Empire, and we’re going to betray the CW to them—in order to save the CW.”
Morgan checked the message he had just received on his smart-screen. “They’re ready. Let’s go.” He looked up at his assistant, wondering if she would change her mind and become a problem for him. Over the years, he’d grown fond of her and he would prefer not to have to kill her.
After a moment’s hesitation, Seazza saluted him. “Lead the way, sir.”
***
The flight went without incident. They flew across the CWDF base during the evening, the sun setting, casting shadows over the lush tall trees that swayed back and forth together in the permanent tide of Fides Prime’s easterly breeze.
Morgan had always thought that the trees on this planet were interconnected, so synchronized and alive were their movements, but as far as he knew, no scientist had yet deduced any communication between individual specimens.
It was that same kind of telepathic inference he felt with Seazza now she was fully committed to his deceit and betrayal. Like he, she saw the bigger picture, realized they had to go above those in power if they were to save the lifestyle that they’d grown accustomed to.
Their actions would be for the betterment of the entire population of the Salus Sphere. Not just a handful of the elite.
Below them, the scenery turned from rural to urban in a hard line. Where once trees colonized the surface, here they were replaced with towers and spires, steel, glass and titanium, concrete and marble.
The capital city of Fides Prime glowed like a rare, complicated jewel, still uncut and embedded into its stone womb. Amber and blue lights lit up thousands of windows overlooking the city from their elevated position of the towers.
Morgan sat back as the AI autopilot took them lower and banked around a pair of huge rectangular commercial buildings, their surfaces glossy mirrors with its black, smooth surfaces.
Their E-class ship reduced its velocity and swept down in a graceful arc until it landed atop the vestan embassy building in an empty bay spot. Without getting out of the craft, Morgan sent a message to his contact via his smart-screen and waited, staring out of the ship’s observation screen to the embassy’s rear maintenance door.
Seazza yawned and leaned forward. “So who is this contact?”
“I only know him by his false ID number: 6160.”
“And he’s vestan?”
“Not quite,” Morgan said. “He’s… a crossbreed, of a sorts. You’ll understand shortly. I once did him a favor, saved his life. This is his chance to return that favor.”
Before Seazza could ask him any more questions, they both spotted a dark shape appear at the maintenance door. It raised a hand and waved once before disappearing back into the building.
“That him?” Seazza asked.
“It is. Come on, we ought to move. Lower the robe over your face in case we have any drones floating about.”
The woman did as he suggested, and he followed suit. The two black robes were official vestan dignitary items, supplied to Morgan by 6160. It would buy them some time once inside to get to where they needed to go without being seen.
Being a human and in the embassy wasn’t an issue itself, but considering who he was, and Seazza’s known association with Orzola, it would raise more questions and exposure than Morgan was comfortable with. Not to mention his contact absolutely insisted.
“Ready?” Morgan asked, standing by his captain’s chair.
Seazza shrugged the robe in place and affirmed. “You can trust this guy, can’t you?”
“I did save his life.”
“I know, but these are vestans. They’re not exactly our best friends right now, especially as Orzola and his lot ended embassy contact recently over the whole Axis tension thing.”
“That’s only a good thing for us, fewer people to avoid. Come on, we better not hold him up.”
The two of them left the craft.
Morgan shivered. The slicing chilled air whipped harshly through the thin fabric of the robe, making it stick to his legs and body. The door to the craft closed. The back of Morgan’s neck warmed suddenly with the hiss of hydraulic air. He focused on the door ahead, a shadow a shade darker than the dull gray of the vestan embassy.
The tower rose up a further twenty stories from their current position. The needlelike protrusion created a long, thin shadow across the landing bay.
Staying within that narrow strip of shadow, Morgan led Seazza to the door, and when they reached it, he tapped three times. They waited.
Morgan knocked again, trying to ignore the flutters in his stomach, his anxiety manifesting as it always did when he was about to enter battle. That pre-adrenaline state where it seemed like the body was trapped within a series of quantum states, unable to settle on one thing or another, being everything at the same time.
When he thought he was about to lose his calm and knock again, the door opened. The waft of a minty spice flowed out, making his throat burn slightly. He stifled a sneeze and stepped inside, ushering Seazza with him.
It was so dark inside he couldn’t make out the corridor or the person he had come to meet. The door slammed behind him. Seazza startled, knocking into Morgan’s arm. He turned and placed a hand on her shoulder just as a bag was pulled down over his face. He struggled, but his attacker was too quick and too strong.
Something kicked him in the knees, sending him sprawling face-first to the hard floor. He opened his mouth to protest, but his effort was futile. A stun stick struck him on the back of the neck with a sharp pop, knocking him out instantly.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Mach had tried a number of communications after the threatening message but received no reply. Lassea and Danick set a course for the tracking beam’s source—a green planetoid. The two destroyers, blocky and dark gray with large cannons on either wing, cruised at the sides of the Intrepid.
Sanchez checked over his rifle and joined Adira and Mach around the viewing screen. “It’s a strange way to introduce themselves. Do you think they want our ship?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Mach said. “They’re not getting it, unless they exchange it for the Atlantis ship.”
“How do they know Salus Common?” Lassea asked.
Babcock shru
gged. “We don’t know how close they’ve got to the Sphere. I think it suggests they’re interested in us. The level and reason why remains to be seen.”
“I don’t like this,” Adira said as she gazed at the images. “Look at all that infrastructure.”
Details on the gloomy ground became clearer as they descended. They were heading toward a brown square space on the edge of a three-klick-wide area of metallic roofed buildings. Yellow lights surrounded the landing zone. Small arrow- and circular-shaped ships dotted around it. None were recognizable.
Both destroyers held their positions a klick above the planet. Whatever happened next, Mach knew they were committed to seeing it through.
Danick thrust near the ground and clouds of dust puffed from the surface, obscuring the view around them. Surface pressure displayed at 1.5 bars, temperature -4 and 85% carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If they were leaving the ship, it’d have to be in suits. They had four available.
Four solid dark blue armored vehicles on six wheels powered through the murky sky. Their single headlights stabbed through the dust toward the ship. Two parked at the front of the Intrepid, two outside the side entrance.
Six large figures clambered out of the back of the vehicles, dressed in black armor-plated suits and angular graphite helmets. Mach zoomed in on the side of the ship. The stocky aliens hunched over and carried long metallic energy weapons with glowing red dots on the sides. Standing straight he guessed they were at least seven feet tall, but they moved like upright primates.
All twenty-four aliens surrounded the side entrance in a semicircle.
“That’s a nice welcoming committee,” Sanchez said. “They don’t exactly look like a friendly bunch.”
“I don’t think they want a battle,” Adira said. “Only suicidal maniacs would stand outside a ship with handheld lasers and start one.”
A ten-meter-high droid, with a large window on the front of its square body, thumped across the landing zone on two mechanical legs and stopped behind the armored aliens.
Mach focused the top camera on the window of the droid. A three-eyed alien sat inside. A purple shiny suit stretched around its bulky frame.
A ping came from the comms console and the alien inside the droid moved its downturned mouth. “Welcome to Tartarus. Please excuse bad Salus talk.”
The crew crowded around the screen and stared at the scene outside.
Mach returned to his chair. “I’m Captain Mach. We are not here to fight. We only seek information.”
“What information?”
“Do you know about the previous ship that came through the wormhole above your asteroids and planets?”
“Bad ship,” the alien said. “We do not approve of it.”
Mach let out a deep breath and felt a release of tension. “That’s the only reason we’re here. We came through the wormhole from our area of the universe. The ship’s been attacking our orbital stations.”
“We talk and can help each other. Come outside and I’ll take you to the boardroom.”
“We only have three suits,” Mach said. “The rest of the crew will stay onboard.”
“This isn’t our atmosphere. Our buildings may be conducive to your body.”
“We’ll be out in five minutes,” Mach said.
It didn’t surprised Mach that they weren’t native to this huge, cobbled-together ring of dwarf planets and asteroids. He tried to imagine the size of the machines that constructed Tartarus. Nothing existed in the Sphere that could carry out this kind of work in a remote part of space.
Mach had already decided who would join him. This wasn’t a task that required any level of technical knowledge. He wanted the most capable members of the team alongside him in case the shit hit the fan.
“Adira and Sanchez,” Mach said. “Suit up. You’re coming with me. The rest of you, be ready to move. If you don’t hear from me in an hour, get the hell out of here.”
***
Mach peered into the gloom outside the airlock window. The tartaruns continued to surround the entrance. None aimed their weapons, but their size and stooped posture gave them an air of menace. Mach held his adapted laser in his left hand and placed his glove against the pad to open the door.
“You both ready to do this?” Mach said through the helmet’s comm system.
“Go for it,” Sanchez said.
Adira turned to face them. “We should assume that they can pick up our speech when we’re not using our external speakers. It’s not a stretch to imagine they have frequency scanners and decryption devices.”
“Agreed,” Mach said. “All casual conversation ends here.”
The door rose with an electric hum and the temperature reading on Mach’s HUD plummeted below freezing, stopping at minus five. He trudged down the short ramp, ready to thrust his laser forward at the first sign of trouble. The alien in the droid moved its muscular arms around a set of controls to its front. The droid’s body swiveled around and it pounded toward dull gray warehouse-sized buildings on the edge of the landing zone.
Mach briefly paused to look at the different colored ring of dwarf planets and asteroids. It had the look of a giant misshapen bead necklace floating in space. The tartaruns who formed the semicircle around the entrance parted into two lines. They flanked Mach, Adira, and Sanchez as they followed the droid. The armored vehicles rumbled behind them.
An electric grinding noise came from one of the buildings. A metal door, the size of a destroyer’s hangar entrance, rolled to one side. A shaft of artificial light radiated across the ground. The droid headed for the gap and entered.
Tartaruns on either side of Mach made soft whining noises, like wind blowing through a gap in a derelict structure. The one immediately to his right pointed its weapon, a meter-long black rectangular block with a grip at the bottom, toward the open entrance and grunted.
Mach glanced across to Sanchez and Adira. Both focused on the light ahead. Sanchez’s laser gently rocked in his grip. Mach had seen him do this several times before on other planets, usually when he expected a fight.
They entered the building into a clean bright space around the size of half a football field. Twenty dark blue armored vehicles lined one side of the smooth silver walls.
Across the scuff-marked scarlet floor, ten droids on folded legs had been parked in a neat row. The tartarun positioned his droid at the end and the body lowered with an electric groan. A side door punched out and slid to one side.
The alien, now wearing a transparent mask around the bottom half of his dark gray face, jumped out and landed in a crouch on the ground. He looked at the group through his three eyes and strode toward them. A bone protruded from his back with every stride.
“We move to next compartment and talk,” he said. “My name is Pank.”
Without waiting for an acknowledgement, Pank turned and headed for a light blue transparent door at the far end of the area. The soldiers remained beside the vehicles as the group followed.
Pank didn’t seem particularly threatening, but that didn’t mean much to Mach. His main concern was heading further away from the Intrepid. If the tartaruns turned out to have hostile intentions, this made an escape much harder.
The door slid to one side, revealing another on the opposite side of a small square empty room. A tartarun version of an air lock no doubt, after Pank told them during their initial communication that this wasn’t his atmosphere.
Mach, Adira, and Sanchez squeezed in behind the alien and waited. Pank reached into a hole in the wall and twisted his arm. The door behind them closed, and air hissed into the room from holes in the roof.
The door in front jolted to the side and Pank led them into a darkened room. A long black screen filled with flowing green symbols ran along the right wall, providing weak light, highlighting the faces of twelve tartaruns that sat in front of it on white blocks.
“Head ambassador is coming to see you,” Pang said. He took off his mask. “This is engineer room.”
“Do you have any information about the Atlantis ship?” Sanchez said.
Mach had decided to let the tartaruns lead the conversation, in case of accidentally offending them, but he saw no harm in Sanchez putting their cards on the table.
Pank’s prominent brow, over his large central eye, creased. “What ship? You mean wormhole ship?”
“That’s the one,” Adira said. “Has it attacked you?”
“Yes. Head will negotiate with you. His Salus Common better than mine. I spoke to him on our journey to the engineer room.”
“How do you know our language?” Mach asked.
“Speak to Head. I’m at my limit. Thank you.”
Peering around the twenty-meter room, Mach couldn’t gauge the level of their technology. The droids, armor and destroyers were reasonably standard for developed races, but he wondered where they came from and what resources they had access to. It seemed impossible that they’d be able to build up a fleet and advanced weaponry from a series of dwarf planets and asteroids.
A door at the far end opened and bright light flooded into the room. Pank retreated to the tartaruns watching the monitors and crouched between two of the blocks. A single neon strip blinked alive on the ceiling, brightening the area.
A tartarun dressed in a yellow robe over his arched body walked into the room, using his arms to assist his stooped walk. He stopped in front of Mack and rose up on his legs, towering over all three of the group.
“My name is Borkan and I lead the Empire of Tartarus. Welcome to our system.”
Mach extended a hand, but quickly withdrew it after Borkan flinched back. “Sorry. It’s normal for us to shake hands when being introduced.”
“Pank tells me you want information on the wormhole ship?”
Carson Mach 1: The Atlantis Ship Page 19
