But if the Kingmaker and his allies are incinerating everything in their path, why give Vega a pass?
Something on Vega they wanted to preserve?
“How long will it take to get to Fort MacDonald, Marie?”
“Only three days going maximum speed, which I assume is the speed you want.”
“You assume correctly. Know anything about the planet Vega, Marie?”
“Not a thing. It’s not really a tourist destination, Clay. No one goes there.”
“True, not even the Kingmaker and his Black Ships want to make a visit. They’re passing it up. There’s nothing in your vast store of virtual knowledge that Vega?”
“Nope. Want to check it out before you arrive at the fort?”
“No, I want a direct flight to Ft. MacDonald.”
“Fine.”
Chapter 17
Stephanie stood on the gnarled, dark green grass of Jarnger. Her sidearm was at her waist. Eric Norton and John Devins, so deeply bronzed they almost looked yellow, stood beside her holding laser rifles. For fifty miles there was nothing in sight. The three stood on a deserted plain, clear land in every direction. Flat except for the bumpy, tangled threads of green. The green blades intertwined with one another but not in a friendly way. A grassy battle was being fought beneath their feet. Some gnarls were three inches high. It was like walking on golf balls, Stephanie thought. She stood beside a tree which shared a trait with the grass. The branches, like the grass, were twisted and contorted. They wove around the trunk. The tree looked like it was hugging itself. She frowned again and looked at Majaste.
“Where’s your plane?” she said.
“It will be here. Don’t worry.”
“It better be or you don’t get the money.”
“My men probably had a little trouble loading the weapons. Plus we had to be a little discrete. The government doesn’t like planes with bombs using our airspace. I had to bribe a few people to look the other way.”
“Hope they haven’t looked back.” Stephanie said.
She heard a dull ring and Majaste pulled his phone from his pocket. He listened for a moment then nodded.
“The plane is in the air. In less than ten minutes you will have your bombs. Or rather your mist.”
“Good. All eight of them - correct?”
“Nine. With your lives on the line we thought you’d might like to test one, so we gave you an extra. Call it professional courtesy.”
“Duly noted. When we get back, you’ll get a bonus.”
Majaste nodded. “Always a pleasure doing business with you. One piece of advice. Find a very desolate spot for the detonation. The explosives are not loud but they are deadly. They dissipate in about three weeks, though. The perfect defensive weapon.”
A breeze blew speckles of dirt on Stephanie and her comrades. They didn’t blink. Stephanie eased on a pair of dark sunglasses. Norton and Devins just blinked fiercely, as if daring the wind to blow sand in their eyes. A small, furry creature scrambled along the knotty ground twenty yards away. Looked a bit like a rabbit. It peered at the humans then resumed its rambling. Stephanie stiffened when she heard a stir in the air.
She looked up and saw a faint black blur against the orange sky. Their plane was about a hundred yards from the meeting zone. Doorways were open, ready for the bombs. Stephanie breathed a sigh of relief as the plane came closer. It had no markings that she could see. Expected of a plane carrying unlicensed merchandise. It banked and came in lower, slowing down. The roar of the engine sounded over the landscape.
Majaste’s face contorted with fear. He pointed at the jet. “That’s not ours!” he yelled.
In a second the three soldiers aimed their weapons and fired at the aerial intruder. Yellow bolts of fire shot into the sky. Explosions surrounded the plane. It veered and hopped, like a small boat on a choppy sea. An underbelly door slipped open and five shiny black eggs zoomed toward Earth. One exploded when a flash of yellow hit it. The flames burned away a section of the jet’s tail.
Majaste had frozen, his finger still pointing at sky. Stephanie raced to him and grabbed his coat. “Get down, you idiot!” she yelled. She powered him a few steps then threw him behind the tree.
He hit the gnarled earth hard, giving an agonized shout. He covered his face with his hands. The ground groaned when two bombs sent fire over the grass. Stephanie punched her protection suit and the silver sheen covered her immediately. She covered Majaste as best as she could. The fire rolled over her, the grass crackled with heat.
Stephanie raised her rifle and aimed for the pilots as the jet zoomed by.
“You son of -” She fired several rounds. One blew away steel near the plane’s nose. The plane sputtered, then caught its second mechanical breath and flew by. Devins ran toward their plane. He raced into the open doors and crawled into the gun hatch.
“Come on. Want to try it one more time?” he yelled.
In the distance Devins saw smoke from the attack plane. It slowed. He doubted the pilot would try another run. Not when he was behind the gun sights. He could blow it out of the air. He waited but the plane did not turn around. It headed toward the horizon until it was out of sight.
Two spots of blood covered Majaste’s chest. Stephanie grabbed the medical ointment she always carried and sprayed it on him. He sighed with relief.
“All-purpose antibiotics and medical nanos. You should be fine.” She sat beside him on the wet grass. “Tell me that wasn’t your guys.”
He swallowed and shook his head. “No.” he said weakly.
Stephanie spat on the ground. “If you get your money you earned it.”
When Majaste’s men landed their plane there wasn’t much discussion. The bombs were loaded quickly. One of the loaders stayed on the ground to drive Majaste to a medical facility. As Stephanie helped him into the passenger seat, she said, “If you find out who did that, let us know.”
“I will. And I will find them.” he croaked.
“You do that.” Stephanie said, easing him into the seat. Sweating, she walked toward her friends and jumped into the plane. “Here’s hoping we have a safe, smooth trip.” she said.
“Yeah. Haven’t had many of those.” Norton said.
Chapter 18
“You have your bombs.” Belen told me. “They’re being loaded on the transports as we speak.”
“Got the right brand?”
“I sure did. Three mini-mushroom clouds for you. If the mist doesn’t get the Molochs, the bombs should. Not even the Molochs can withstand an atomic blast. I could only get three of them. They’re not easy to purchase. For some reasons, governments don’t like them in private hands.”
“I know. Not sure of the reasoning. I think everyone should have their own private atomic bomb.”
“Glad to see you still have your sense of humor, Logan. You want anything else before we go?”
“We have the TigerShark jets?”
“They are being loaded too as we speak. And as soon as we get to Vega we will release the scanners over the territory the Molochs hold and the other continent. Doubt they will tell us much but we will have our eyes in the skies.”
“Good.”
“Does that ease your mind?”
“Nothing eases my mind, not a few days before battle. That’s not the time to relax. Even one mistake can be costly so I need to think of everything, double-check everything, foresee every possible option and, if needed, counter it. I can relax after we get back from Vega, not before.”
“What else could we possibly do?” Belen said.
“If I think of it, I will let you know. Oh, I’m sure you have contacts with the Federation. Why don’t you suggest their investigative division investigate the assault on Stephanie? I wouldn’t be surprised if the bad guys worked for the bureaucrats.”
“You’re not getting paranoid, are you?”
“No. I simply don’t trust large governments and I don’t trust large bureaucracies. They are dangerous and often get p
ower mad, for allegedly the best of reasons, of course.”
“Why would they undercut our Vega mission?”
“I don’t know for sure but taking a guess many of the policies of that bloated organization, full of flawed, fallen men and women, are in direct contrast to the views of our righteous friends on Vega. It would be quite a conflict. Maybe the bloats didn’t want any group threatening their power. As you noted, fallen races might not like the pure and pristine in their midst.”
“I think it was you who said something like that.”
“Just ask them to launch a preliminary query. With your influence I’m sure they will.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Now let me introduce you to a member of our team you haven’t met. He just arrived.” She flicked a button her desk. “Doctor, will you come in here?”
Belen’s office door opened and a tall, silver-haired man with an aquiline nose and a dark goatee walked in.
“Logan, this is Dr. Stephen Meadows. He will be heading out medical team. He has any number of PhDs in any number of subjects so he will be doing any scientific analysis we need done. Dr. Meadows, this is Logan Ryvenbark.”
He looked almost frail but he had a firm handshake.
“Belen has told me a great deal about you, Major. It’s a pleasure.”
“Glad to have you with us, Doctor. I hope you will enjoy the trip.”
“I’m sure I will. I am at home in a laboratory and Belen has provided me with the finest lab in this region of space.”
“She’s just given me a few toys too.” I said.
Chapter 19
Lt. Gen. Sherman Tecumseh Custer stared at the screen showing the interrogation room. He didn’t quite know what to make of his “guest.” Reports about Antony Holiday “Clay” Starret indicated the man was used to fine food and equally fine drink. His background was sketchy. His information did not list the birthplace or any of the man’s childhood. He didn’t seem to lack for money, and he had a cosmopolitan style that made him respectable to many difference races on different planets. In general, the man seemed to be on the side of the angels. Which provided some credibility for the fantastic tale he told. But, he would have to go over the man’s tapes and even question his computer before coming to a decision.
Custer considered it amusing that he was not related to either one of his namesakes. He was definitely not related to the fool who got his men massacred at the Little Big Horn. Although he had some American Indian blood, he was not related to the great chief Tecumseh. And he had no relatives who were kin to the Civil War general. While George Armstrong Custer was one of the dumbest generals in the Union Army, Sherman was one of the best.
When the war broke out, Sherman was the headmaster at a military school in New Orleans. He was having dinner with a few southern aristocrats when the news broke. Sherman upset his dinner guests by telling them the South was incredibly stupid to start a war. They would lose because the more industrialized north would wear them down. Briefly, he sketched out what would occur during the four bloody years and, to an astonishing extent, he was correct. Sherman also realized, more so than any other general, the increasing futility of frontal attacks. He did everything possible to avoid such encounters on his march through Georgia. He was hated by the South, but he bore no personal animosity toward his opponents. When he signed a peace treaty with the Confederate Gen. Johnson, it was so generous to his foes that it had to be rewritten by President Lincoln, a man known for his charity.
What would Sherman do now? Custer wondered. A second later he answered his own question. Get all the information from your “guest” and then determine where it leads. His experts were now trying to decipher the tapes of the alleged negotiations. The general was impressed with Starret. Even now the man smiled in the interrogation room and looked like he was having a jolly time with his questioners. He had even asked for a glass of wine during the questioning - but the military base did not have the vintage year Starret requested.
Gen. Custer tapped his desk with his fingers. What Starret had described were the preparations for a galactic invasion. The Kingmaker was not known to the Federation Military, but the Xulons and the Critts were. He didn’t think a great deal of the Critts’ military abilities, and thought even less of the Xulons', both on a civilian and military level. They were troublemakers, and if some adversary wanted allies for an invasion, these two scummy races were the perfect choice.
He had sent out extra patrols and asked for reinforcements, just in case. If the Black Ships came they’d have to attack Ft. MacDonald first and destroy it. So how many ships and other forces did they have? His experts hadn’t deciphered the talks yet but from Starret’s description, the Kingmaker and his allies appeared confident. And to be honest, it wouldn’t take much firepower to obliterate a solitary outpost. If a war was coming he’d need to pull back and join other Federation forces. Unless he wanted to be akin to one of his namesakes and get wiped out while inflicting as much damage as he could to the enemy. But that wasn’t a wise move.
He tapped a button on his desk. The face of his second-in-command, Col. Hawatha Stevens popped up. “Col, I want you to begin preparation for the abandonment of this outpost, just in case. If I have to give the order, I want everyone in the skies within three hours.”
“Yes, sir. You believe the stranger’s story?”
“I don’t know. But we have to make preparations. Are all the scanners clear?”
“Yes, sir. Nothing to disturb us.”
“Let’s hope it stays that way. But send all the scanners we have out. Both short and deep space. I want every listening device we have on the galactic rim. And we’re upgrading the station from green to yellow alert.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter 20
The three Black Ships, one of them bearing the Kingmaker and all of them cloaked, had just flown by the outpost. They were heading to their own planet and they were preparing for war. They were determined to make Ft. MacDonald a battle very much akin to Custer’s Last Stand.
I listened silently as Stephanie gave me her report. She was not only a skilled soldier and an ingenious knife fighter, she could have been a historian. She gave a specific account with no emotion and no extraneous details. She described the battle with the mysterious black jet in a matter-of-fact tone.
“When our plane landed we didn’t bother to follow the attackers. We loaded the bombs as quickly as possible and high-tailed it back here. Majaste was kind enough to provide us with an extra explosive. He figured we might have to test it.”
“He figured right. We don’t want to get to Vega and have our weapons not work.” I said. “The testing ground has been set up on the other side of this planet. We already have the headquarters and a few AIs in place to judge the result. The test should be carried out this afternoon. Pity we didn’t capture one or two of the assassins. We could have put them in the middle of the test zone.”
Stephanie snickered. “That still worries me, sir. I don’t know how the word got out. There couldn’t be a spy in our ranks. Or, rather, I don’t think there could be a spy in our ranks. Is that possible?”
“The thought crossed my mind. We can exempt, I think, our dozen military vets. But Belen has a huge complex and hundreds of employees here. One of them might be a suspect. But not that many people know you were headed to Jarnagen. I told Belen and Rab, and I suppose Belen told a few people in her brain trust. But we’re bumping up against the same question. Who would care? Who would care two shakes of a dog’s tail that we are heading to Vega?”
“I’m sure you will find an answer, Logan. That’s why they pay you the big bucks.”
Deadly Voyage (Logan Ryvenbark's Saga Book 1) Page 13
