Homeguard

by Jason Cordova

  “Okay,” Aurelia chirped, her positive mood returning. Unbeknownst to her, the Wraiths gathered around breathed a collective sigh of relief. The legend of the goat would always remain in the back of everyone’s mind.

  “Attention all Wraith personnel,” a general broadcast cut through their comms, tabling the discussion. “Attention all Wraith personnel. Stand by for an important announcement from the emperor.” Aurelia didn’t recognize the person on the comms. Apparently, neither did Collyn, who responded immediately.

  “I don’t know who you are or how you got on this channel,” Collyn interrupted, obviously angry, “but remove yourself from it, or you will be charged with sedition.”

  “By authority of Emperor Ezekiel, I hereby order all Imperfects to remove their suits and gather in the central headquarters building of the Third Regiment,” the voice instructed. After a second, it repeated the phrase. The message quickly became a monotonous loop, and Aurelia, not wanting to listen to the man drone on and on with the same message, almost told Sfyri to block and mute the comm channel.

  “The hell I will,” Collyn replied, obviously frustrated. There was a long silence, and Aurelia began to wonder if that was it. When the voice came back, it sounded almost pleased at her response.

  “Have it your way. Don’t claim you weren’t warned.”

  The comms went dead, and Aurelia, not knowing what else to do, had Sfyri begin a search for any sign of the person who had messaged through their comms. Not thinking about it, she didn’t limit the search parameters. It was more ignorance than anything. It never occurred to the young girl to limit how far Sfyri should look, or what tools the AI might have at its disposal.

  Sfyri wasted no time, accessing every communication system on the planet, the expansive AI learning with each second how to navigate in and around security protocols as it began to backtrack to find the source of the transmission. Within 0.23 seconds, it had determined the signal had been transmitted by a military telecommunications satellite, roughly twenty-two thousand kilometers above the planet in a classical Molniya orbit. Given the higher latitude of the base, Sfyri had calculated within 82.3% that this was the source of the signal.

  Another 0.06 seconds passed as Sfyri double-checked the math and source before confirming it. It then backtracked through the military channels and discovered it was coming from a cluster of six ships, which were in the process of settling into a high-altitude orbit above the planet, nearly eighteen thousand kilometers away. A quick ship identification query told Sfyri these were ships of Battle Group Four. This was highly unusual, since Battle Group Four was part of the First Fleet, which was based out of Avalon and not Solomon.

  It took an eternity for Sfyri to confirm their identities, nearly 0.82 seconds. There was no denying that these were indeed ships from Battle Group Four, First Fleet (the Pride of Avalon.) DV Merciless and DV Avenger, both of which were venerable Solomon-class dreadnoughts, made up the core of the battle group. They were flanked by four corvettes. That done, it sent a querying linkup to the ships’ computers to confirm. It was roundly rebuffed, which typically indicated there was a high chance of enemy action, ranging from 63 to 80%. The variable was due to human interaction, something Sfyri figured it would never completely understand.

  Instead of telling Aurelia, Sfyri recognized the best person to inform of the current tactical situation would be Collyn, given her temporary command of the Third Regiment, as well as being seen as Aurelia’s “squad” leader.

  Linking up with Collyn’s Mark Six suit, Sfyri began a data dump into Collyn’s Leviathan cortex. It took almost 0.31 seconds before all the information had been uploaded into the lesser suit. Sfyri wasn’t an emotional being, but even an AI could feel exasperation when dealing with an operating system so horribly out of date in comparison. The upload should have taken a tenth of that time, if the proper AI had been installed. Sfyri made a quick upgrade request for the entire Third Regiment to occur at earliest convenience, which was promptly bumped to the front of the queue, due to the priority level the AI had given the request. If Sfyri could have frowned, it would have, when it saw the current wait time for an AI system upgrade for the Mark Six Wraith suits was six to eight months.

  “Whoa,” Collyn muttered as she was flooded with information unexpectedly. She looked back at Aurelia. “Thanks, Sfyri. That’s good information.”

  “What information?” Aurelia asked, confused. “Sfyri, show me what you showed Collyn!”

  Sfyri obliged. However, after a minute, Aurelia gave up and had Sfyri turn it off. It was difficult for the AI not to feel smug about its previous decision to take the information to Collyn in the first place. At least, as much as an artificial intelligence could feel. The time lost between telling Aurelia to share the information with Collyn, versus telling the temporary base commander directly, would be immeasurable for Sfyri. It would create inefficiency, and that was unacceptable.

  “What are they doing?” Collyn asked as she turned her head to stare at the sky. Aurelia followed her example and saw, courtesy of Sfyri, a small cluster of spaceships high in orbit above the planet. Beyond that, the helpful AI didn’t know anything else about the ships.

  “Those are Navy ships, right?” Aurelia asked Collyn. The Wraith nodded once, concern etched across her face.

  “Yes, but…” Collyn’s voice trailed off. Aurelia looked at her for a moment before she tried to understand what was going on.

  It came slowly at first. Unlike anyone else she’d tried to read, Collyn had a very guarded mind. Aurelia didn’t understand how she was able to do it and was afraid to ask, as she was breaking one of the rules Christine had set for her before leaving. With the DIB agent no longer as a positive, yet strict, influence on her, Aurelia knew she’d begun to bend the rules a bit. The remaining Wraiths on the base didn’t seem to mind, though.

  As Aurelia reached out with her mind and touched Collyn, she found a whirlwind of conflicting emotions within her friend. Fear, worry, and excitement were but a few of the massive tempests raging inside the Wraith. Aurelia almost pulled back but decided to press on. She needed answers and wanted to understand, though she knew she was breaking Collyn’s trust. This was one of the things Aurelia promised to never, ever do again.

  There. Aurelia found what she was looking for after what felt like an eternity, though it couldn’t have lasted more than half a second. Collyn was afraid because she wasn’t sure who was piloting those ships, or who they were following. This prompted more questions from Aurelia, who tried to figure out what she meant. The next part took a bit longer, until she realized Collyn shared the same fears her father had. The Navy was supposed to be loyal to the Dominion of Man. Apparently, this wasn’t the case.

  The worry she’d sensed in Collyn earlier wasn’t for her own safety, but for Aurelia’s. The woman took her duty to keep Aurelia safe as seriously as Christine had, perhaps more so. Aurelia didn’t quite understand, because she knew while she was in the suit, she would be safe. This feeling had been the strongest sensation she’d felt since first arriving on Solomon. It was constantly on the minds of every Wraith on the base. Safety and security were to be found in the suits, which was part of the reason she’d unwittingly crawled into one that was down for repair and fallen asleep.

  Excitement…wasn’t something Aurelia could easily quantify. It bubbled just below the surface of every other sensation in Collyn’s mind, like magma below the crust of a volcano. She found it difficult to understand why Collyn would want to keep such a tight lid on this emotion. Aurelia remembered her excitement the first time she’d moved something with her mind. Surely what was going on in Collyn’s head was similar?

  “Are they going to attack?” Aurelia asked out loud. Collyn looked at her for a moment, her face a plain and unreadable mask, before she responded.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Sfyri?” Aurelia asked the AI.

  “I conclude there is a 71.4 percent chance we will be attacked in the next fifteen minu
tes,” Sfyri responded immediately. “I am reasonably certain their method of attack will be by orbital bombardment. Shall I warn the others?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “As reasonably as I can be, given the circumstances,” Sfyri answered.

  “Okay, go ahead,” Aurelia told it as she turned her attention back to Collyn. “Sfyri thinks they’re about to attack.”

  “Thank you, Aurelia,” Collyn said in a distracted voice. “My cortex just finished going through all the information. We need to get somewhere safe in case they decide to drop rods.”

  “During an orbital bombardment, no identifiable location can be considered ‘safe,’” Sfyri interjected. “The best odds for survival during an attack of this nature is to be as far from the base as possible.”

  “We should get away from the base,” Aurelia warned Collyn after the AI finished. “It’s not safe.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Collyn murmured in a thoughtful voice. “Shiva Squad, vacate the premises. Send out a general evacuation order for all personnel on the base. Transmit a distress signal to…crap. They’re probably jamming any distress signals transmitted through the jump gate. Tell the entire base to go to Red Alert status. All Wraiths are to get into their suits and prepare for imminent attack.”

  “Where’s a good place for us to run to?” Aurelia asked Collyn.

  “This part of Omri isn’t known for much, except wide open plains and river basins,” Collyn answered. “If we were in the southern part of the continent, we’d have the Peka Mountains to hide out in. Omri isn’t like the other continents on Solomon, Aurelia. I think that’s why the Wraith Corps base was put here.”

  “This was the best location for a military airfield,” Sfyri confirmed. “However, according to my records, there are almost no heavy minerals on this planet, which explains the larger size and lower gravity than other planets in the Dominion.”

  “Shivas, spread out and head for the Kenneckie Forest to the north,” Collyn ordered across the general comms of the Wraith suits. “Micah, take your squad south. Jolene, west. Get away from the base as quickly as possible.”

  “The forest?” Aurelia asked as Sfyri helpfully brought up all the information available on the ’net regarding the woods. It was dark and foreboding, even in the brightest of daylight, and filled with large and potentially dangerous predators. Aurelia didn’t know what a marsupial was, but it sounded utterly terrifying. “Is it safe for us to be in there?”

  “Aurelia, you’re a psychic in a near-indestructible battle suit,” Collyn reassured her. “You’re what we call an apex predator. There’s nothing in the forest that can hurt any of us, much less you.”

  “Oh,” Aurelia responded sheepishly. “Right.”

  “Let’s hurry,” Collyn suggested. “I know I don’t want to be caught in the open if they decide to start dropping bombs.”

  “Why do they want to do that?” Aurelia asked in a confused voice as she followed Collyn into the large forest bordering the base. “What if they hurt people?”

  “The base is far enough away from the city that anything outside of a city-buster tungsten-filled kinetic rod won’t do much to them,” Collyn said as they moved through the skinny trees that marked the beginning of the Kenneckie Forest. A few dozen steps further, and they were among the large, towering trees that made the woods famous planetwide. The wood from these trees was a dark color, nearly black, and highly prized by luxury consumers. Thus, the woods were protected by law and only harvested on rare occasions.

  “Incoming,” a voice stated calmly over the comms. Aurelia stopped running and looked up into the sky. Though the tree canopy was thick enough to block out the light, the suit was able to penetrate the foliage and show her the sky above. Sfyri helped by providing an overlay of the sky before highlighting where the ships in orbit were. Aurelia squinted, and the AI quickly zoomed into the grid, understanding her unspoken request. She was barely able to make out the four objects falling directly toward the planet.

  “Collyn, I see something falling from the ships,” Aurelia announced. “Sfyri says there’re four…uh, kinetics? Did I say that right?”

  “Yeah, that’s what Micah was talking about when he said ‘incoming,’” Collyn patiently explained as she ran back to grab Aurelia. The girl shook her off.

  “They’re not headed for us,” Aurelia explained. “Sfyri’s showing they’ll all hit the base.”

  “Yeah, but Sfyri isn’t in charge,” Collyn answered. “We keep moving so they’ll have to widen their search. That makes us harder to find, which is why I had everyone split up into different groups.”

  “Oh,” Aurelia muttered, abashed.

  “Eighteen more kinetics detected,” Sfyri suddenly announced. “Impact in four seconds.”

  “Crap,” Collyn grunted over the comms. “That’s why you keep moving, Aurelia. Damn. This is gonna suck.”

  The initial four rods had been carrier rods, a new system the Dominion Navy had been developing for three years. Each dropped from orbit with stabilizing fins and retro-thrust rockets to slow its descent as the onboard targeting computer searched for objects to attack. Once it found its targets, smaller kinetics were fired out of tubes and streaked toward the ground. They were the ultimate anti-armor kinetic rounds. The Navy was using them in combat for the first time, and they performed exactly as designed.

  Sfyri detected the incoming objects, which were travelling at well over four times the speed of sound, just before they slammed to the ground nearby. The resulting shockwave threw them all off their feet.

  Aurelia, who happened to be nearest to the blast, slammed violently into something large and solid, stunning her. Her head hurt, and all she wanted to do was sleep, but Sfyri kept trying to say something to her. Struggling to move and finding it impossible, Aurelia realized the force of the explosion had put her into the thick trunk of a massive Churly tree.

  This normally would have been an interesting discovery to the young girl, since it wasn’t every day she got to see actual tree rings from the inside. Unfortunately, Aurelia was unable to appreciate the oddity of being stuck in a tree, as Sfyri used the suit’s internal medkit to put her to sleep almost the instant she became aware of where she was. This was partly to keep her from harming herself. Sfyri became aware that the others were calling for Aurelia, insisting she remain calm. The AI found this odd, all things considered. Their suits should have been able to determine the occupant of the suit was unconscious.

  Oh, well, Sfyri thought to itself and began to calculate the estimated length of time it would take for the other Wraith suits to extract them from the tree.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Seven

  Andrew

  Figuring out how to count the time without external indicators is a trick few individuals could manage. It took years of training and the ability to trust one’s instincts, as well as knowing the steady beat of said person’s heart. Andrew was one of those people. Training in both the DIB and Jericho had honed this unusual skill to near-perfection. This ability was helpful, because it allowed him to ascertain only a week had passed since his capture. It took another four days, give or take ten hours he’d lost to another beating for mouthing off, for him to discover where they’d taken him.

  El Muladar was the nickname given to the prison by Bureau agents across the Dominion. The jail was officially called Puerta Rocas Penitentiary Center. Located on the small moon of David’s Rock, it was a maximum-security prison used to hold the most dangerous criminals. Housed within this prison was a Top-Secret location known only as the Special Projects Division. This, Andrew had discovered, was where he was being kept prisoner. It was really the only place he could be, given the political and public persona of Darius Hastings. Not for the first time, Andrew cursed the cover he was forced to maintain.

  The Special Projects Division didn’t officially exist. A black site prison for rebels and other enemies of the state, it was a convenient location to interrogate anyone
accused of treason, without the niceties of the Twelve Laws to protect them. It was a favorite locale for DIB agents to bring suspected foreign intelligence officers upon capture. Especially, he recalled with wariness, agents of the Caliphate.

  Andrew should’ve figured it out quickly, but the gas they’d tagged him with during his capture had affected him more than he wanted to admit. As such, the gravitational pull of the moon he’d been squirreled away on wasn’t as obvious as it should’ve been until the effects of the gas had fully passed. The knowledge of his whereabouts didn’t comfort him; in fact, being a “guest” at Special Projects made him far more fearful than he would have been had he remained ignorant.

  Ignorance is bliss, he thought as he tested his bonds for the thousandth time. There might have been the slightest give on his wrist restraints. Or it could have been due to the fact that he’d lost a few pounds since his incarceration, and he had more wiggle room now. Either way, Andrew vowed to try every day to escape.

  He hadn’t seen the Mad Cleaver since first awakening, though his presence lingered in the room. Thankful for the crazed man’s absence, Andrew took solace in the fact that nobody had beaten him recently. Nobody had even spoken to him since his last beating, in fact. Which was nice. It gave time for the bruises to fade.

  All his life, Andrew had gotten into trouble because of his mouth. Being the middle child of the mildly-famous Espinoza clan, he was neither the popular child (Kevin) nor the strongest (Gabriel) growing up. He was intelligent and witty, sarcastic, and full of puns. Unfortunately, Andrew sometimes lacked tact, which meant whenever he was threatened or afraid he would mouth off to the person. Sarcasm was a weapon that cut both ways, as he often discovered. If not for Kevin, and later Gabriel, Andrew would probably have been beaten up more often than he actually had been in his youth.