Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike

by Doug Dandridge

  Too bad, boyo,” he thought of the young hero. I stood at your side when you married, now you can do the same for me. The other people serving as Men of Honor, nine of them, stood to the side of Walborski. They included three cabinet Ministers, two Admirals, and a Field Marshal, as well as three other nobles, including Major General Sir Samuel Baggett. One of the men was Lord T’lisha, the Phlistaran Minister of Security, looking splendid in the formal clothing of his own people, cloak over his shoulders. The Minister looked as uncomfortable as the Best Man did, though for different reasons. He was in charge of all security services in the Empire, and had to have been informed of the possibility of an attack. And surely he wishes he were in the command center. Or, knowing the old barbarian, with one of his people’s great axes, charging and enemy, just like his ancestors.

  The Emperor looked up and around for just a moment, his eyes taking in the hundreds of drones that filled the air. Some were from the news services, getting high definition 3D images of the ceremony. Some were from the security services, scanning every face in the cathedral, sniffing the air for particles that might have DNA samples, then triangulating on any that might be of interest. And there were drones tasked with knocking down anything in the air that tried to get too close to the couple.

  Sean walked to his place, aware of all the eyes on him, waiting for the moment when they would all be drawn elsewhere, as his were at this moment. The music started, and Jennifer walked down the aisle, her own proud looking father holding her arm, her ten Maids of Honor in a line behind her. And, just as Sean predicted, every eye left him, drawn to the radiant beauty who was walking forward to join her life to his.

  “You do have the ring?” he asked Cornelius out of the corner of his mouth as the procession walked down the aisle. “Tell me you have it, so I don’t have to order you on a suicide mission to the Caca home world.”

  “I have it, your Majesty,” said the Ranger, patting one pocket, then another, then acting like he was about to panic.

  Sean almost burst out laughing in a relief of tension as the young man reached into the first pocket he had pretended to check and pulled out the box.

  “I guess the Cacas are safe, for now,” said Cornelius. His face broke out in a smile, and Sean almost broke out into laughter again.

  Straighten up, he thought as Jennifer walked up to stand beside him. This is big boy stuff now, and you need to act it.

  The party all faced the Patriarch, who started to recite the ceremony that had been old when humankind left the Earth. “My brothers and sisters,” intoned the deeply resonate voice of the man who had served in the priesthood for over a hundred and seventy years, rising to the pinnacle of his profession. “We are gathered together, in the sight of God, to celebrate the joining of two people into one. Sean and Jennifer have proclaimed their love for each other in their betrothal, and now they will affirm that love with their joining. Let us pray.”

  The ceremony seemed to fly by to Sean’s perception, while proceeding with agonizing slowness at the same time. There were the two readings from the book that had guided the Christian faith for thousands of years. That book, no longer considered the inerrant word of God by the space faring race of humans, was still considered the basis of the religion. One reading was from the Old Testament, and Sean was not even sure what it had been about when it was finished. The second was the timeless story of Jesus and the wedding feast, and the changing of the water into wine.

  Did any of this ever really happen? thought the Emperor as the words were read. He had not been the most religious of adults, though raised in the church, like all in his family. Appearances had to be maintained, and so he had attended services whenever possible. At this time his belief or disbelief was not really all that important. Many of his subjects believed, not all in the way of the Reformed Catholic Church, but in traditions close enough, even if that similarity was only that they had also originated on the planet of the species’ birth.

  And then came the part that everyone was waiting for. Jennifer’s father symbolically gave his daughter to the man who would be her husband and protector, the rings were produced, and it was time to say the words.

  “I, Sean Ogen Lee Romanov, take this woman, Jennifer Conway, to be my lawful wedded wife. To have and to hold, in equal partnership in all that I do, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.” Sean slid the ring on her finger, then presented his own left hand for her to hold.

  “I, Jennifer Conway, take this man, Sean Ogen Lee Romanov, to be my lawful wedded husband. To have and to hold, in equal partnership in all that I do, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.” She slid the ring onto his finger, symbolizing their joining.

  “Then in the name of God, the Almighty, through his son, Jesus Christ, I name you man and wife. May no man break asunder what God has joined.”

  Those last words had always struck Sean as silly, since the divorce process in the Empire, and even in the Church, was simplicity incarnate. But looking at his bride, his heart beating faster, all he could think was we can make this last a lifetime.

  “You may kiss the bride,” said the Patriarch, whose own wife was looking on from the chorus with a beaming smile.

  Sean wasted no time in taking Jennifer into an embrace, and kissing her tenderly for all to see. The kiss went out all over the news nets, and hundreds of billions of citizens saw that, for the first time in over a year, a couple again sat the thrones of the Empire. And with that couple, could an heir be far behind?

  “I present to the congregation, the Emperor Sean, and the Empress Jennifer. May they share their love through the decades, and may that love be brought forth in their wise rule.”

  The crowd erupted into a deafening roar that lasted for minutes. It quickly died off as the Patriarch again spoke, and the ceremony continued with the Eucharist.

  Sean and his new Empress walked back up the aisle while flowers flew through the air. The doors opened, and the double line on Fleet, Army and Marine officers appeared, stretched from doorway to the stairs, forty meters away. All held swords overhead, forming an archway of blades for the couple to walk through. The pair had taken the first step outside the church when something exploded off in the distance, and the angry humming buzz of particle beams reached through the air over the screams of the crowd.

  Chapter Eighteen

  When the war of the giants is over the wars of the pygmies will begin.

  Winston Churchill

  CAPITULUM, JEWEL. DECEMBER 12TH, 1001.

  “Everyone ready?” asked Detective Lieutenant Ishuhi Rykio over the com. The acknowledgements started coming back quickly from all the elements of the operation. Higher ranking members of the department were also on the link, monitoring. But the operation was his, and he meant to strike hard.

  The Lieutenant looked over his dispositions on his link. He had snipers on every rooftop, teams of SWAT in heavy armor waited across the street from every entrance, while other troopers crouched on those same rooftops, ready to spring into action. There were even teams set up in every known underground passage beneath the building. And we scanned down there thoroughly, thought Rykio. If there was a still hidden tunnel down there, it wasn’t because the police hadn’t tried to find it.

  OK, he thought, taking one last look at the building, then back at the team behind him. “Go, go, go,” he said into the com, running into the street with ten other men on his tail.

  Everyone was dressed in combat armor, the light type worn by police during raids, and much like the Army version used by their light infantry divisions. It enhanced their strength by about three times, and gave them protection from moderate sized projectile weapons, and just a touch of laser fire. The com and sensor suites were almost on par with the much larger medium and heavy suits worn by the Army and Marines. The two men closest to the Lieutenant were wearing the same type of heavy suits used by the SWAT teams. Their fu
nction was a little different than that of the other cops.

  “Take it out,” shouted Ishuhi over the com, pointing at the heavy warehouse door.

  The two men in the heavy suits ran flat out into the door, the strength of their armor smashing the steel alloy barrier off its hinges and into the room. They followed after, pulling their laser rifles off their backs and sweeping the large room with their light enhancing sights.

  A shot rang out, a chemically propelled weapon, such as used by many civilians, including members of the criminal underworld. The round sparked off a wall, and one of the heavy suits fired his laser into the area where he had determined that the bullet originated. A scream echoed across the mostly empty room, and more shots followed.

  “This is the police,” yelled Ishuhi over his suit speakers, feeding into all the other suits of the raiding party. “We have this building surrounded, and you are outgunned. Drop your weapons, now, or we will be forced to fire on you.” First with stunners, he thought hopefully. I would rather have this crew alive than dead. Or at least with intact brains, where we can get something from them.

  We give up,” called out one of the men in the shadows. A chemically powered assault rifle clattered across the floor, out into the light. Pistols followed, until a dozen weapons were laying on the plasticrete floor.”

  “Move into the light with your hands up,” called Rykio over the speakers. “Fingers laced behind your heads.”

  Men and women started to appear, coming into the light, and the Lieutenant began to think this might be a fairly bloodless operation after all. He was still thinking that when a pair of particle beams, angry red, came lancing out of the dark to strike one of the men in a heavy suit.

  The suit could withstand the hit of a particle beam rifle for several seconds before the armor failed. Two beams struck at the chest, within a centimeter of each other. In less than a second they had eaten a hole through the armor and vaporized the thorax of the man within.

  “Shit,” yelled the Lieutenant, dropping to the floor with his stunner out. “Bring them all down.”

  The room filled with the sound and vibrations of sonics, and the people who had already surrendered fell limply to the floor. That didn’t stop the pair of particle beams from lancing out again. One hit a wall and burned a deep runnel into the plasticrete. The other hit a cop in the arm, slicing through the alloy and vaporizing the limb underneath. The cop fell to the floor, screaming in agony.

  At least he’s alive, thought Rykio, checking the man’s status on his HUD. It would take some weeks to grow back the arm, but when it was done, he would be good as new. A thought flashed through the Detective’s mind of the days when that was not true, and losing a limb, or several, was considered a tragic loss.

  “Open fire on those people with the particle beams,” he ordered over the com. “Full powered lasers.”

  A moment later the lasers lanced out as well, visible through the air that was cloudy with the smoke of vaporized biomass. The police swept the beams through the darkness that hid the criminal gunmen, several moving at ankle level, a couple more at waist, and still others at chest level. One particle beam came back, barely missing one of the cops. Another sweep of lasers and the return fire stopped.

  “Hit that area with some stunners,” ordered the Lieutenant. He fired the grenade launcher under his own rifle, loaded with a sonic stun grenade, which impacted along with several others in the corner. By the light of the flash the grenades put out he could see a pair of bodies, one laying at an angle that showed it was missing a head.

  “Cover us,” he told the rest of the cops, designating one to move up with him. Police doctrine called for them to stick together. Rykio was having none of that shit. He had been a Naval Commando, and in his experience it was always better to keep the possible targets separated. He waved the other man to the far side of the room while he moved to the other, then they both walked toward the downed criminals, in some cases stepping over the prone bodies of the stunned humans.

  “And these aren’t human,” he said over the com as he looked down at the headless being. The skin on the neck looked human, but the next layer of flesh under that didn’t. And the spine looked alien in the extreme. “We have shape shifters here. Everyone be careful.” And I’m calling the Fleet in on this one, he thought, linking into the Naval Intelligence circuit and sending out the call.

  “We have some people trying to leave the building,” called out one of the rooftop teams.

  “Try to take them down with stunners,” he told the team leader. “If they don’t go down immediately, kill them. And don’t let any escape. They might be shape shifters.”

  As he received the acknowledgement he waved the rest of his team forward. Men moved out to search the warehouse, while others secured the criminals with magnetic restraints.

  “Over here,” yelled one of the men, and Rykio ran to see what was going on. “There’s a door here, sir,” said the officer, pointing at what looked like a very heavy barrier in the frame.

  Rykio tried to open the door, but it would budge. “Get over here and see if you can bust this down,” he told his remaining heavy suit man.

  After two minutes of hammering on the door it was readily apparent that it was not opening by force. Lasers burned into the metal alloy, which was similar to what was used on warship hulls. They didn’t burn through enough, and the door stood here and mocked them.

  “We need demolitions in here,” he called out over the com. “Now.”

  * * *

  Prime was having trouble believing that the humans had found him. After all, hadn’t his people only gone out late at night, being very careful to make sure that they were not followed. Or at least his own kind had, but could the same be said for the humans he had hired? They were only criminals, after all, only in it for the money. And not the brightest of people.

  My mobile units should be striking at their Emperor and his reproductive unit now. If they are successful, this Empire will have been decapitated. If not, we will still have had an effect on them that they will have trouble recovering from. Now, I must make sure there are more of us here, on their capital world.

  The twenty growths attached to his body were not ready yet. Half of them were still in the early stages of formation, no larger than human children, missing even the limbs they needed to walk. The other half were about a day from being ready. But they must be used now, so I can guarantee that my kind survives here. One or more of them can become a Prime.

  The Prime sent a thought through his body into the half of the mobiles who were almost ready, waking their brains, turning control of their bodies to the newly awakened consciousnesses. The mobiles started to move, pulling themselves away from the Prime, ripping the last strands of biomass holding them to their progenitor.

  Go, signalled the Prime to his progeny through a release of pheromones. Leave this place. Seek dark places, mature, and grow more of you.

  The mobiles started for the door, looking like incomplete humans. They would be spotted immediately if they were to go out into the open. They could only survive by hiding, until they could capture some of the genetic code of a human and make themselves over.

  The creatures had almost matured mentally, with the capability of thinking for themselves. As soon as they were through the door they scattered, heading into the sub-basement, where half a dozen tunnels led from the complex.

  Defend me, the Prime ordered the smaller, less complete mobiles. Those creatures, with the mental capacity of a human toddler, pulled themselves away as well, breaking off, then crawling with their partially developed arms toward the walls of the room. Reaching them, they scrambled up the surfaces and onto the ceiling, secreting a resinous compound to hold them to the surface. There they waited for a target to appear.

  * * *

  “Fire in the hole,” yelled out the demolitions specialist, a woman from the Fleet who had come with the force that had responded to Rykio’s call. With a bright flash the door bl
ew off its hinges and out into the warehouse. Smoke swirled for a moment, then cleared, revealing another room.

  “Hold up,” order Rykio, reaching out his hand to stop his men from advancing. “You guys, stay up here and make sure nothing comes out.”

  The Lieutenant followed the other people through the hole, a team of Naval Commandos sent by the Fleet, eleven in all. Rykio, also augmented as a former commando, made twelve, and the men moved quickly and silently into the room.

  One of the commandos waved and pointed, and half the men turned that way while the others kept up their observation of the other surfaces in the room. The doors looked like a lift, something that was on the schematic of the building that Rykio called up on his HUD.

  “This leads us where we want to go,” he said to the Lt. Commander in charge of the team. Since Rykio was a full Commander in the reserve, he was in charge of the party, and the other officer nodded and waved one of his men forward.

  A few moments later the doors slid open, revealing an empty shaft that plunged down about ten meters, ending on the top of the lift. Two commandos jumped the short, to them, distance down to the top of the lift, then opened the top hatch to go through. It looks clear, sent one of the commandos over a com link. Two more commandos leapt down, then another, until all of them were through the car and into the basement on the other side of its door.

  The men fanned out and searched the basement. At one point a man was found, holding his hands out and making sure that they knew he was unarmed. “It was only a job,” said the man, stammering. “I didn’t know what kind of a monster I was working for. You gotta believe me.”

  “Who the hell are you?” asked Rykio, walking up to the man whom the commandos had already put restraints on. “And what do you mean, monsters?”