“I am so sorry, Sergeant,” said the soldier. “I’m Sergeant Klein. Where the hell did you come from?”
“The valley to the south,” said Cornelius. “You know, the one that blew the hell up some odd days ago.”
“That was you?” asked Klein. “We wondered who did that when it went off so far behind schedule. What happened to the rest of the company?”
“They were wiped out going in,” said Cornelius. “I was the only one who survived.”
“Damn. Well, we can get you from here to the base.”
“We’re flying now? How the hell did you get away with that?”
“Of course you don’t know,” said the other man after a moment’s hesitation. “The Ca’cadasans packed up and left. After you knocked out their regional HQ, a fleet came into the system that outgunned their force and they took off.”
“Hot damn,” cheered Cornelius.
“So the planet is ours again?” asked Rebecca.
“Such as they left us,” said the Sergeant, frowning as he looked down at the child. “We’re evacuating all remaining civilians through the wormhole gate. Only a military presence will be left here, in case they come back.”
“You’re going to evacuate a hundred million people?” asked Rebecca, trying to imagine getting that many people off planet through the single wormhole.
“I’m sorry to say that only three million civilians survived,” said the Sergeant.
“Three million,” stammered Rebecca. Out of over a hundred million people. That many killed.
“Look,” said the Sergeant. “We were here checking out the place, making sure the Cacas didn’t leave anyone behind. The rest of my division is doing the same across this continent. But we’re done here, so let us give you a ride to the base. I’m sure they’ll want to debrief you, Sergeant. And I think the docs would like to look over the both of you.”
“Sounds better than walking, eh, Rebecca,” said Cornelius, walking with her after the other soldier to the transport car.
She nodded her head. “Clean clothes and good food sound wonderful,” she said, following Walborski onto the vehicle. She looked out the window the entire trip back to the base, the natural beauty of the planet that was her home passing below in her still blurry vision. She wondered if she would ever see it again, and made a vow to herself that she would. I will be part of the fleet that takes this space back from the Cacas, she thought.
The base was a bustle of activity. The transport came to a landing on a field that was now full of aircraft, a sure sign that the enemy no longer controlled the orbits. Some were loading up with soldiers and taking off. Others were offloading civilians, who were forming up an orderly line and walking into the subterranean structure. Their vehicle landed at the edge of the field where there was open space.
“The brass will want to debrief you, Sergeant Walborski,” said another NCO, running up and saluting Cornelius.
Rebecca was surprised that one NCO would salute another, and she mentioned that to Klein.
“He’s a holder of the Imperial Medal of Heroism,” said the Sergeant. “The highest award for bravery in the Empire, given by the hand of the Emperor.”
“Wow. Then he may just be getting another one,” she said, watching the Ranger jogging after the other NCO.
Cornelius looked back, held up a hand to halt the other Sergeant, and ran back toward her, stopping in shouting range. “Don’t go through the wormhole until I get back. Understand?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding and smiling.
“You can wait with my unit,” said Klein, motioning her over to a tent off the field.
Rebecca sat in an offered seat and allowed herself to relax. I’m safe¸ she thought, though she still wasn’t sure what the future held. She found that out two hours later when the Ranger returned, a smile on his face.
Epilogue
SUPERSYSTEM SPACE: JUNE, 1001.
“Cadet Walborski reporting as ordered, Sir,” said Cornelius, snapping to attention in front of the Commandant’s desk. He waited for the Colonel to salute him first, as was the custom. The Colonel too had the ribbon for the Imperial Medal of Heroism on his dress uniform. But Cornelius now had a star on his ribbon, marking him as one of the very few multiple award winners in the history of the decoration.
“We have heard good things about you, Cadet,” said the Commandant, rendering the hand salute. The officer had a salad of ribbons along his left breast, but to Cornelius the most impressive thing was the Ranger flash on his left upper sleeve. “Or, should I say, Sir Cornelius.”
Walborski winced a bit at that, another battle he had lost with the Emperor. Sean thought anyone who had accomplished what he had on Azure, against all odds, should be rewarded, and that a knighthood was the least he should get.
“Preacher sent word about you,” continued the Colonel. “But I must caution you. OCS is a hardcore course, and you will receive no special treatment here.”
“I didn’t think that I would, Sir,” said Walborksi, no longer a sergeant, but now a Cadet Officer entering the yearlong Officer Candidate School. He had no idea where he would be assigned afterwards, or even if it would be back with the Rangers, though that was the way he would have bet. He was sure he would get a combat assignment though.
“Cadet Sempsin will show you to your quarters, Cadet,” said the Commandant with a smile. “And good luck.” The Colonel gave him another salute.
“Colonel,” said Cornelius as he was returning the salute. “Couldn’t we just let me salute the officers over me?”
“Well, Walborski,” said the Colonel, his smile growing wider. “That will teach you not to play hero in the future. Your job as an officer in his Imperial Majesty’s Army is to lead other men, to get the best out of them. But, from what I have read in your file, you earned both of those awards. So you will accept the honor given to you, and you will like it, as long as you don’t let it go to your head.”
“Yes, Sir,” said Cornelius, snapping back to attention.
“If you’ll follow me, Walborski,” said the other Cadet, who Cornelius took to be an Officer’s Candidate near to graduation, and therefore his current superior.
“Yes, Ma’am,” said Cornelius, walking beside her from the room. He played with the ring on his left hand unconsciously as he walked.
“How long have you been married?” asked the woman, looking up at him.
“Two weeks,” he said with a smile. “I just came off my honeymoon.”
“Was it at a nice place?” she asked.
He barked a short laugh. “You could say that.” You wouldn’t believe how nice, he thought. The Emperor’s own hunting lodge in the Alsacian Mountains of Jewel. Just he and his bride for a week.
“All of your family there?”
“Hers was. I really don’t have any besides my kids.” And it had been a small ceremony, only Devera’s parents and her brother, and for witnesses the Joint Chiefs of Staff. With the Archbishop of Capitulum performing the ceremony, and the Emperor as Best Man. Cornelius had been horrified when the ceremony had been suggested by Sean with those luminaries as guests and minister. He had tried to argue his way out of it, but Sean had told him to shut up and obey the orders of the man he had sworn his oaths to.
“What happened to the first wife, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“She was killed, by the Cacas.”
“Oh my God,” said Sempsin, putting her hands over her mouth. “I am so sorry.”
So am I, thought Cornelius, shaking his head, almost reaching up to feel the ring he had worn around his neck since entering the service. A ring that now resided in a box in his quarters in the palace. “I had a real thing for killing the Cacas after it happened,” he told her, stopping and looking into her eyes. “A death wish. No more. Now I want to kill them, same as before, but not at the cost of my life, if I can help it.”
The Senior Cadet looked over his ribbons and decorations. “Looks to me like you know what you’re talking about.
I would really be interested in talking with you sometime about what combat is like. I mean real combat.”
“What did you do before you ended up here?” he asked, looking at her lack of decorations.
“I took a test,” she said, leading him down a short corridor to a closed door that she opened. “They thought I was officer material, so here I am. And here we are,” she continued, gesturing to the small but nicely appointed room.
Cornelius looked over the room, a bed, desk, easy chair, and a window overlooking the drill yard. “This will be just fine,” he said, walking into the room. “Much better than living in the jungle.”
“Dinner is at six,” she said. “Your training group starts tomorrow. You made it just in time to miss having to wait a week for the next group. I will be one of your Cadet Instructors, so let me know if you have any questions.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” said Cornelius, snapping to attention, but waiting for her to initiate the salute. When she had left he sat on his bed. His bags had been delivered to the room, and after a moment he started to unpack, starting with his family pictures, which he placed on the desk. In one Devera held Cornelius Junior. In another Devera stood with an arm around Rebecca, his and her daughter by adoption. At least I made sure you were safe, he thought, looking at the child. And I mean to keep all of you safe, no matter what.
* * *
“How’s the homework coming?” asked Devera Walborski, looking in on Rebecca.
Rebecca sat at the desk in her room, puzzling out the intricacies of hyperspatial calculus, a subject considered far beyond her tender years. She had just turned thirteen standard years on Azure, still two years from the start of puberty. But she had tested out in the upper one hundredth percentile in mathematics, and she was determined to get into the Fleet Academy when she turned the minimum age of twenty-one. Having the Emperor as a Godfather might help her with her admissions, but even Cornelius told her that it wouldn’t wash if she didn’t make the grades.
“It’s tough,” she admitted to her adoptive mother. “But I don’t doubt I’ll figure it out.”
“I have no doubts either, Honey,” said Devera, walking into the room and running a hand over her adoptive daughter’s shoulder.
Rebecca liked Devera. She still had trouble thinking of her and Cornelius as her parents, though legally they were. But she felt really lucky to have fallen into the situation she was in. She looked up from the flat comp she had been working on through the windows to the beautiful day outside. The green leaves and mostly harmless brown furry animals had been something to get used to, as did the fact that nothing on the palace grounds would try to harm her. Her cat, how she liked the sound of that, her cat Duchess, lay on that windowsill absorbing the rays of the sun that still looked dim to her, even though she knew it was the kind of star humankind had evolved around.
“I have to get going,” said her new Mom, bending over and kissing the top of her head.
Rebecca looked up and saw that Devera was in her military medic uniform, staff sergeant chevrons on her collar. Devera had been assigned to the military hospital in Capitulum so that she could help raise her and Cornelius Junior, while studying to become a Warrant Officer Medic, something she had always dreamed of. And possibly a real doc from there. If only Cornelius were here, she thought. She knew the reason that he wasn’t, and at least he was safe for the next year or so while he prepared to become an officer. She knew Devera missed him terribly as well, even though they were just off their honeymoon. She also knew that Cornelius was due to come home on a weekend pass in a month, something he hadn’t told his wife, planning to surprise her. Rebecca had felt honored by his trust in helping to make that happen.
“Don’t spend all your time indoors,” admonished her Mom. “Studies are important, but you need to enjoy your childhood while you can.”
Rebecca nodded, wondering if she would ever truly be a child again, after all she had gone through on Azure. “I think I’ll go riding this afternoon. Sonia has been telling me about the horses again, and it sounds like fun.”
The Palace boasted its own school, where the children of everyone from nobles in waiting to the servants were able to get a first class education. That had surprised Rebecca, not that there was a school, but that there was no separation by social class. With Cornelius knighted by the Emperor she was considered a Lady, as was her new mother. But even the children of the servants were treated as equals at the school. Something to do with Sean’s grandfather wanting the children at the palace to all be children, and not little adults.
“You be careful on those things,” said Devera, turning to walk away. “I know they’re fun, but horses are big animals, and not to be taken lightly.”
Rebecca huffed at that as her adoptive mom walked from the room. From what she had seen horses were big friendly beasts, so unlike anything she knew from Azure. Now that she thought about it, she couldn’t wait to sit one of the beasts. She might even get a look at the Royal Consort, maybe even talk to the woman.
She checked the time and realized she had another ten minutes before she needed to leave. She took on another problem on the flat comp, but couldn’t get her mind around the math for the moment. She decided to pack up and leave just a little early. That would give her some time to talk with the other girls her age. Slinging the pack over her shoulder, she walked outside to wait for the car that came around to pick up her. While waiting she looked up into the sky, at the blue expanse she knew hid the array of stars. One day I’ll be grown up. And I’ll be coming for you, you alien demons. I’ll be coming for you, and you will tremble, knowing who it is.
The End
Appendix A – Terms and Definitions.
Augmented: People who have had their genome manipulated beyond that of the general population, often with negative effects. Those augmented, which include Army Rangers, Marine Recon and Naval Commandos, as well as Special Agents and Intelligence Operatives, are retroactively genetically engineered by means of programmed nanotech, which alters their organ functions, while also increasing the toughness of bones, tendons and ligaments through the deposition of carbon nanofibers.
Battle Armor: Various forms of armor worn by soldiers, marines and spacers in the services of all the human governments, as well as most of the alien powers. Battle armor gives the wearer protection commiserate with the type of armor, as well as increased sensory feeds, computational power, and strength. Most of it is fully encasing, sealing the wearer in a seamless unitary suit for maximum protection. One of the major shortcomings of battle armor is its tendency to emit electronic static that can be picked up on sensors at a distance. Battle armor comes in several varieties, such as:
Militia Armor: Normally light battle armor that has outlived its usefulness with the regular and reserve forces and is assigned for the use of planetary militia. Ranges in capabilities from strap on armor with no augmentation of strength and senses to fully encased light armor with doubling of strength.
Light Battle Armor: Worn by Army Light Infantry and most support troops, including vehicle crews, the sixty kilo fully encasing suit doubles the strength and carrying capacity of the wearer and gives increased visual and audio inputs. Light Armor does little to increase the observable size of the human/machine symbiote.
Medium Battle Armor: Worn by Army Medium Infantry, Shipboard Marines, and Shipboard Naval personnel, the hundred and twenty kilo suit is fully encasing and quadruples the strength and carrying capacity of the wearer. It also deploys limited flight capabilities, allowing ground troops to move quickly over the land and space borne personnel to move across gaps in a damaged ship or through space in the event of an evacuation, voluntary or otherwise. Medium armor comes equipped with electromagnetic screens that aid in defense against particle beam and light amp weapons, as well as adding light bending stealth capabilities. Medium armor does increase the size of the human target to a small but significant degree. Medium armor can cost up to a million Imperials a set.
Heavy Batt
le Armor: The luxury car of armors, massing a ton of metal standing almost two and a half meters tall. Worn by Army Heavy Infantry, deployed Marines, and the Engineering Crew of warships, it increases strength and carrying capacity by a factor of twelve and supports full flight capabilities and electromagnetic screens. In the case of Marine and Army Heavy Armor, the suit deploys built in weaponry, while the Engineering suits carry onboard cutting, welding and large object manipulation devices. Heavy suits come in multiple varieties, including heavy weapons versions that carry an extra three hundred kilos of equipment. Heavy suits start out at five million Imperials and up for each set.
Cloning: The growth of living material or an entire living creature from a single cell or cells. Cloning is used to grow body parts for the repair of the severely injured or recoverable dead. Cloning of a complete human or other alien sophont is illegal within the borders of any of the human governments. The reason for this law is the fact that all attempts at cloning a human being have led to individuals with psychopathic tendencies, in other words, a lack of conscience. This has also held true for several alien species, thus the blanket ban over all intelligent species. This effect has also been observed in over half of all en vitro births, making artificial wombs illegal as well.
Galactic Standard Calendar: Standardized date and timekeeping for the Empire and all other human governments. Based on the three hundred and sixty-five day Old Earth calendar without the addition of leap year days, it is used as the standard time scale or birthdays and Empire wide holidays. Time keeping between worlds with different length days and years is difficult in and of itself, without the added complications of relativity, slowing the internal clocks of spaceships in transit. All inhabited worlds keep time based on atomic clocks, while spaceships keep time based on computer algorithms that keep track of relativistic effects. Planets with different length days have compensation built into the calendar, adding days on planets with shorter day night cycles, and subtracting them from planets with longer cycles. Planets of course keep their own year length calendars to track local holidays and events of interest.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 05 - Ranger Page 39
