by Jay Korza
“It is good to see you again, Emily,” Jenny cooed.
“I wish I could say the same, but I can’t. Not given the circumstances.”
“The circumstances are that you and I stand together once again. The Coalition is realizing that they should be a part of the Cherta Empire. The circumstances could not be better.”
Jenny slithered her way past the greeting party and headed to the conference room she knew they would end up in. Emily kept her frustration from boiling over; it was a hard-won fight.
In the conference room, Jenny sat in the middle, along one of the long edges of the oversized meeting table. On her left was Jack, the minister of faith and to her right was Martin, aide to the minister of first contacts.
Was it because Jenny was the highest ranking official or because she was a Cherta royal that she sat in the middle, in a position of power? Of course, displays of position as related to power could be an alien concept lost on the Cherta, and Emily was just applying her views to another race that didn’t share the same values. But Emily didn’t think that was the case, not with how smug the Cherta were, especially when asserting who was better than whom.
Emily decided to put a theory to the test as she took her seat across from Jenny.
“Although I can assure you the Coalition still has no desire to join your empire, I can tell you that my team is eager to work together to end this threat to both our peoples, Your Highness.”
Jenny didn’t skip a beat. “I am glad that we may continue this partnership in earnest.”
Also in the room was Seth, Surgeon, and Wilks.
“Nothing? She calls you out on your heritage and you have nothing to say about it?” Seth demanded.
“Just because I never informed you of my lineage does not mean I was ever trying to hide it.” Jenny looked to her sides. “Neither of my colleagues share my royal family line; however, many other people within our government do. It would surprise you, no doubt, to find out that many of our average citizens share portions of my family’s DNA. But I am still not an empress or any other form of ‘royal’ as you might put it.”
Emily couldn’t be sure, but she thought Jenny told her the truth. “Fine, we can discuss that point later. It’s not relevant to what we need to accomplish today. Well, your DNA is but not its social significance.”
“Agreed.”
Seth had cooled down now. “Okay, let’s get down to the details. Why do you need our help? You have the royal DNA, which is the key to the warrior birthing facility. You no doubt have the transmission protocols, considering we were able to obtain them from your facility that you led us to. I can’t see a piece of this puzzle that you don’t have. Which begs the question, why do you need our help at all?”
Jenny raised one of her hands. She still attempted to get her human gestures just right but she could never quite make any of them seem realistic. “You are forgetting one piece to the puzzle. The transmission device. We do not have one but you do.”
“No, we don’t,” Seth argued. “We looked through the material we have. Jeeves believes he can construct one but it will take him weeks to accomplish it.”
“Jeeves does not need to build one; he already has one built inside of him. He just does not know it.” Jenny smiled her fake and disturbing facsimile of a smile.
Emily wasted no time. “Jeeves, roll in here on the double.”
The door to the conference room opened and Jeeves entered. As he did, Baldylocks passed by in the doorway and paused to look in, curiosity getting the best of him.
Jenny caught a glimpse of the large blue warrior in the hallway and involuntarily recoiled and hissed at his form. The warrior now took a step forward into the room. All three Cherta reared back this time.
“What is the meaning of this?!” Jenny demanded. “Have you aligned yourselves with the warriors?!”
Emily couldn’t help but be elated at the turn of events. They finally had pulled one over on the Cherta—not on purpose but the satisfaction was just the same. Just to see the Cherta not only surprised but also terrified was worth the price of admission.
“No, we haven’t.” Wilks stood to introduce his newest soldier. “This is Baldylocks, also known as Cueball. Sometimes the Big Blue. We really haven’t decided on a final name yet and he hasn’t been much help in that department either.”
Baldylocks stepped in and looked the Cherta up and down. “So, some of my DNA comes from you guys, huh? I feel weaker already.”
“Hey, that’s no way to treat your forebearers,” Surgeon added.
“You mean the people who helped to take my original species, splice them with the Protectors only know what, and then enslave them for millennia? Those forebearers? You can have them.”
“Point taken,” Surgeon conceded.
Jenny was finally coming to grips with the situation and able to talk again. “I have so many questions. And so many apologies. I know that I did not have a direct hand in your creation or the enslavement of your people, but I am filled with remorse at the outcome as it is.
“Looking at you in the flesh, I can see the resemblance of the Cherta DNA that helped form you. I cannot help but feel a certain kinship with you.”
“I feel nothing of the sort for you or your friends,” Baldylocks said, a little more evenly this time.
“But this is not possible. The warriors have a genetic barrier built into their code that does not allow them to return to their birthing planet. This warrior should be on the ground now, in his death throes.” Jack spoke up for the first time.
Emily looked to Baldylocks, who obviously didn’t have an answer. “I have always been different from my brothers. From the moment I exited my tube, I knew I was. I had to suppress certain feelings and thoughts while I awaited being born. Because of my differences, I was almost ended more than once while still in the tube. I narrowly avoided those moments.
“The day I defected to the Coalition, I knew I had become something more than my brothers would ever be able to achieve. There are others like me, I’m sure of it. But not many.”
“Am I still needed?” Jeeves politely asked.
“Yes.” Emily looked to Jenny, who was able to gain her composure once more.
“Jeeves.” Jenny addressed him. “I would like you to enact subroutine…”
The rest of her words were in the Cherta language and completely undecipherable to the humans in the room. But the sounds entered into Jeeves’ system and were heard by his subprocessors and forwarded on to his security cache, where it was translated and enacted.
“Interesting.” Jeeves tilted his head. “I was unaware that module was present. I understand now. I believe I have the codes and transmission device ready to exchange information with the birthing planet’s security system.”
“We should get underway then. Time is of the essence,” Jenny prodded.
“I’m still not sure why you need us or what you get out of it? I’m sure you could give Jeeves another secret code to just make him come with you and do your bidding,” Emily said.
“You are correct. But the last piece of the puzzle we don’t have is your team. Your team has fought against our soldiers and the warriors and have won every engagement. Our soldiers could not hope to have the same possibility of success that yours would. We still need each other and will until this planet and all of the facilities on it are destroyed.”
“Destroyed?” Baldylocks puffed his chest in anger. “My brothers in those tubes have done nothing wrong. They haven’t even been born yet. You can’t destroy them because of what you created in the first place.”
“What did you think was going to happen once the security of this system was breached?” Jenny asked. “Did you really think the Coalition was going to save your brothers and not continue their enslavement but in Coalition uniforms? The only way we move forward is with the understanding and agreement that the final outcome is a complete destruction of the warrior race.”
Emily looked to Baldylocks and couldn�
�t help but keep from tearing up. “I’m sorry. But we have to agree. We can’t let the Nortes cabal gain control of your brothers. They will destroy and enslave the galaxy.”
“I know it’s hard to see it this way, buddy, but we’ll be freeing them from slavery also,” Wilks added.
“You don’t have to deploy with us if you don’t want to. We’ll understand,” Seth offered.
Baldylocks thought for a moment. “I will help my team. I will not let you down. But I would like a promise that we will do everything we can to find other warriors like me who have already been born differently, and can live a free life if they choose to.”
“Absolutely. You have my word.” Emily looked around. “Brother.”
“Then we should go,” Jenny concluded.
Chapter 20
The dropship was crammed with personnel and equipment. Jockey was worried that once they hit atmosphere, the ship would not be able to take the weight. The Cherta pilots assured him that their bird could handle it and that he should just sit down and leave the piloting to them. Then they muttered something that roughly translated into Protectors-damned backseat pilots!
Jenny made it clear that only one dropship would be allowed to descend and continue on from the platform. It was part of the security protocols to make sure a large assaulting force couldn’t be snuck through, much like they were trying to do now. The only upside was the troop limitations would also be applied to the cabal’s ship that had already passed through the security some hours ago.
As they approached the orbital platform, they passed through the remains of one of the cabal cruisers. It had opened fire on the team after they transmitted the security protocols and it had paid the price. The other ships dared not attack following the display. They did, however, transmit plenty of empty threats warning the Coalition team to turn back or be destroyed.
Seth sat on the floor. They had gutted the interior of the dropship to make more room. Between his legs and leaning her back against his chest was Emily. It might have been a romantic or sweet moment if Seth wasn’t doing the same to Surgeon, who was doing the same to Bloom, and so on all the way back to the end of the dropship. Three rows of soldiers sat nut-to-butt to make room in the cramped space.
Seth looked over Emily’s shoulder and saw she tapped away at her datapad. “What are you working on? Last will and testament?”
“Not funny. At all,” Emily protested. “I’m actually going through Hugesh’s notes. She spent over forty years in the vault. That is a very long time to spend with just an AI hologram.
“He began to teach her about the warriors’ genetic coding. They would play games of who could code a better warrior for different circumstances. She has a ton of variants in her files. Some for living in the vacuum of space, or fighting on the surface or atmosphere of a gas giant. A really interesting one for survival on a liquid methane and cyanide planet.”
“I’m glad the Coalition outlaws genetic tampering other than for the purpose of disease mitigation. I wouldn’t want someone trying to grow me gills for a special operation somewhere.”
“What’s wrong with gills?” Scan said from somewhere in the back. He then proceeded to gargle-laugh, which almost always got a chain reaction laugh from the rest of the team. Which it did.
“No offense, buddy! Love your scales too.” Seth smiled, happy that his team could still release a little of tension in moments like this.
He turned back to Emily. “Does this help us at all?”
“I don’t know. It might help us find other warriors like Baldylocks. If we map his DNA and compare it to the base model, and even these make-believe models, we might be able to find the anomaly that makes him unique. If we capture warriors, we could test them to find out if they are inclined to be reeducated or if they will stick to their original programming.”
“Reeducated? I know what you mean but that doesn’t sound good regardless of the intentions.”
“I know. I don’t like it either. I also don’t like the idea of taking a warrior and adjusting his code to make him more like we want him. Even if it is to stop war, to stop him from wanting to kill us for no reason, we are still forcing him to be something he wasn’t meant to be and enslaving him in a different way.”
“All good points. Luckily, we don’t need to worry about those things right now. We can talk about them later.”
A moment later, the dropship landed on the platform. The forward deployment door opened and Jenny slithered out. She took four operators with her; she assured them she wouldn’t need any more.
She returned a moment later. “It is done. We may proceed.”
“That was easy,” Surgeon said.
“Too easy,” Joker replied.
“Shut up, Joker,” came in unison from at least half of the other operators. Except for Joker, they all laughed the rest of the way down to the planet.
Davies sat a few people away from Daria. He looked to her and then over to Mike. After they thought Mike was dead, they had become closer than Davies thought would ever happen. And after they made love on a mission that seemed to have happened lifetimes ago, Davies had a difficult time returning to the way things had been before.
Davies, Mike, and Daria were drifting apart and there was nothing he could do about it. He knew it was completely his fault, his emotions that were getting in the way. He had tried to push them down behind barriers like he had done for all those years before, but the physical embrace he shared with Daria broke down all of his barriers and there was no way for him to rebuild them now.
He wanted her and sometimes felt like he would do anything to get her back. If only Mike had just stayed dead.
They landed without incident at the entrance to the main facility. The buildings were sparse, functional, and unimaginative. The architect definitely hadn’t been hired for his creativity. But the structures still stood, which was a testament to his ability, whomever he had been thousands of years ago.
Baldylocks was the first at the door. His personal shield was a good asset to put first in line but his bulk also kept him from suffering a seat in the back with everyone else.
As Baldylocks exited, he saw a blur of blue hide behind a concrete barrier near the facility entrance. Then the blue head slowly rose and Baldylocks saw one of his brothers, freshly born and leery.
“Brother? I was not told reinforcements would be arriving from orbit. I was only told of an enemy force that would be arriving called the Coalition. What would you have us do?”
The junior warrior clearly realized Baldylocks was a senior warrior and gave him the respect he deserved.
Baldylocks used his right lower arm to gesture to his teammates still in the vessel, to warn them to stay down and away from the door. He was going to use the other warrior’s ignorance of the situation to his own advantage.
“I have come to inspect your ranks, ensure that you have prepared properly. When were you born?”
“We were released from our tubes this very day, not long before you landed. We barely had time to obtain weapons before we manned our posts.”
“How many have been born this day?”
“I am unaware of that number. Though I have fifteen more brothers with me at this post.”
“Good. Good. I would like to inspect you now. Bring your brothers forward so I can see them.”
“Yes, brother,” the junior warrior replied.
As the tenth warrior stepped forward, Baldylocks could see that the junior squad leader received information through his commlink. The junior’s face hardened as he looked into his brother’s eyes. The look of betrayal was unmistakable as the junior raised his weapon and tried to fire.
But he was too late. Baldylocks saw the transmission take place and assumed that there could be only one outcome from the conversation. His weapons were already up; he fired and cut the junior down, along with four other of his brothers. At least three others were severely wounded; the rest took cover and the fight was on.
Baldylock
s’ shield flared as he took multiple plasma rounds and ran for cover. The rest of the team used the distraction to un-ass from the dropship and join the fight.
Nitaha was the first one out. She bounded over several people’s heads to get into the fight. She launched from the hatchway, and aimed for Baldylocks’ lower right arm that didn’t currently have a weapon in it. She barked in midair to get his attention and he knew what she wanted.
He grabbed Nitaha’s combat vest and used her momentum to throw her even faster than she already moved. She arced upward and landed on the roof above the attacking warriors. From there, she was protected from their fire and could easily lob a few grenades down into their bunkered positions.
The explosions rang out and the overpressure washed over the operators still trying to find their footing in the battle. In these first moments of chaos, the soldiers had precious seconds to determine the best routes to take for cover, firing positions, and to set up assaulting arcs to get through their enemy.
Cannon was the first Coalition casualty of the day. He was towards the rear of the dropship and by the time he reached the hatch, the warriors realized they needed to stem the flow of enemies coming from the ship. They turned more fire towards the hatch and Cannon took three plasma rounds almost simultaneously.
Davies started to reach down for his friend, to pull him to safety, but he saw only half a face look back at him. Davies started to stand again but a plasma bolt flying by his ear put him back down and he laid flat. Davies crawled around to the left and found cover near Baldylocks.
“I’m sorry you had to do that to your brothers,” Davies said as he reloaded.
“It’s war. People die.”
“Yeah, but it’s one thing to kill someone in a firefight; it’s another to unload rounds into their faces when they trusted you because you’re family. I’m just sorry, is all.”
“Thank you.” Baldylocks paused for a moment to regard the pink hairless ape next to him, and in that moment, he was glad to have friends.
