Emperor-for-Life: DeadShop Redux (Unreal Universe Book 6)

by Lee Bond

  Ergot grinned slyly. This next bit was a big deal, but there were only a few -ten thousand or so- in this batch of grunts who'd see the benefits of the upgrade right off the bat. The Foursie took his time rummaging through the kit at his feet. After a few seconds of showmanship, he held a...

  Gigantic camo-green belt with large boxes attached to the thing all over everywhere straight up into the air over his big, grinning face.

  Startled silence followed swiftly by guffaws and giggles split the air, while Harmony rippled and shivered like a flag under high winds.

  Ergot turned the belt over in his hands, grinning wide, sharing the inside joke with those Goddies who had indeed seen through the charade. It didn't take long for curiosity to worm it's way into the soldiers, and when everyone was paying attention, Ergot the Foursie continued.

  "If you think this is still a standardized battle belt by now, you should go on home to momma's house and call it quits." Ergot wiggled the belt. "This is the Battlebelt Mark 2. It is upgraded and enhanced in da ... darn near every way you can imagine. Unlike the old belt, which broke down more often than not, and even if it did work, nearly always poorly, BBM2? Augmented by better connectivity to your onboard avatars and through Harmony, this little bitch can and will lock and locate whatever flavor of Cordon-tech is running through those bastard Heavies and provide you with what you need to get through the day. Out with the old, in with the new, right? You guys know how this works so I ain’t gonna blabber. Put it on, hook it up, forget about it. And last but not least..."

  Ergot tapped the side of his head. "We all know some of us have been monkeying around with Harmony, seeing just how far the power can be pushed, what it can do. For those lovely boys and girls who've been practicing with energy bolts, well, congratulations, so have I, only better, because I'm Ergot and you're not."

  Again, the brothers and sisters in boring green laughed and stomped their feet. They loved getting new gear, and Ergot was frankly hilarious.

  "I'm picking out those amongst you who're capable of doing this right now, and I'm sending you this."

  Very complex images and calculations flooded those Goddies handpicked by Ergot, slow-motion emotive feed displaying the Foursie generating and expelling -with pinpoint accuracy- enough Harmonic energy to do the very same thing as the Gravity Lances.

  "Why am I showing you this? Well, obviously, because there's always the fucking chance your Lanceman ain't gonna make it through invisible mines and what the fuck else they've been planting this whole time, and it's just plain old common sense to have something else ready to go, right?"

  The once-brutish fools turned sublime warriors nodded shrewdly. The opposition had had too much time already to make the battlefield their own, but there was nothing that could be done about it now. The logic behind the Horsemen’ decision to determine the lay of the land on their own while the Army forces prepared themselves more fully -while perhaps a little flawed in execution- really was one of the better ways of resolving the overall situation, which was Trinity's occupation of Latelian space, and not one single confrontation; while they were and always would be in control of Latelyspace, pretty much everyone on the Latelian side was bored as dirt with the way things were playing out, and so ... they'd decided to lollygag.

  The hope was that the Trinityfolk would miss the fact they were being played, and summon forth as many of their collaborators as possible to the Storm so that when they were engaged on the battlefield, most of the invaders would get got.

  It would mean the loss of many Goddies, but that was what Onesies were for, right?

  Father Vasily's words of encouragement still roared in their ears and pushed blood through their veins. They would do as he'd asked, but only to a point. The War on their home turf had to come to an end, soon, for it wasn't just their old OverCommander who had an odd feeling in the back of their heads.

  They all did. The End was coming. Darkness would fall. And sooner than they knew. “All right, you ugly bastards, that’s it for show and tell. There’s other little bits and pieces in your new kit, but I wanted to show you these here before you go out and get creamed. This way when Fenris asks me what the blazes happened, I can tell him you guys weren't paying attention. Once you get aboard your carriers, take the time to familiarize yourself with everything. Practice with the shield-prote. Transit time from Hospitalis to our individual troopships, less than an hour. Time to The Storm, four hours, fifteen seconds. If you don’t know what you’re doing by then, I encourage you to introduce yourself to the engineers aboard, and ask them ever so politely if it would possible for you to take a look inside one of these new-fangled engines we’ve got. Hear it’s one of the only things powerful enough to kill us real quick. Remember…”

  “A clumsy Goddie kills himself. An ignorant Goddie kills his brothers and sisters." The parade field echoed with the words.

  They were ready.

  Ergot saluted his brothers and sisters, a smile on his face and burning pride in his eyes. “You got that right.”

  Then he amped the caliber of his voice up so it rang from end to end and spilled out into the streets some fifteen miles away. “All right, you glorious maniacs, shag your asses to the nearest carrier and let’s get the bloody hell on our way.”

  The sound of a hundred thousand God soldiers running towards destiny was deafening.

  It wasn't long before the skies above Hospitalis were filled with troop transports launching towards the Storm. Men and women, children and oldsters, they all flooded the streets, crowded rooftops, stared into Screens, witnessing, witnessing the day that their mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, rode into War on the backs of metal beasts.

  It truly was a good day to die.

  ***

  Captain Homolka didn’t much care for the fact that the goddamn Heavies had shown up to this little scrap at all, nor did he particularly care for the fact that the man who’d so presumptuously taken charge had done so with such flawless ease; ‘Marker’ –no honorific titles at all, and damned if anyone of his people could uncover anything about the man other than his Heavy Elite status- had just rolled on in to the proceedings without batting an eye and that had been that.

  Even the other Army guys were doing as the Heavy ordered! It was scandalous. When they all got back to Trinityspace proper, they'd all find themselves court-martialed.

  “How are the limpet mines doing?” Homolka demanded irritably, unable to let the situation go. They’d all just nodded at everything the frustratingly ordinary looking man had said. And the revelation that they’d had things like Hand of Glory missiles and other experimental tech in the form of BAM-cannons this whole time?

  Inexcusable. It was almost as if everyone had thrown their hands in the air the moment they’d crossed the Shield Wall into Latelian space, deciding right there on the spot that no matter what, they were in it for themselves!

  Who did that? During war?

  Not only was it inexcusable, it was criminal, to boot!

  Homolka had already made his views on the matter very well-known via encoded message stored inside a virtually indestructible case. If luck was on his side, when this war was over and done with, he’d either deliver it to whoever was in charge or -given the fact they were following the orders of a filthy Specter- following his death, he could only hope Trinity Rescue found the device and followed through with his recommendations.

  Everyone needed to know how poorly they’d been acting this side of the Shield.

  “Proceeding on schedule, sir.” Yeva flicked a couple switches and put the data on the big screen for the Captain to look over with his own two eyes. Their commanding officer had been asking for an ever-increasing amount of updates on nearly every facet of this operation since he’d come back from that massive, messy-looking ship full of Heavy Elites, a fact that none of them had missed and had all of them wondering just what'd gone on over there.

  The Captain of Honor Your Offer shook his head, disgust crinkling his features. �
��These deployment patterns are just no good.” He cast a hand disparagingly at the wide open spaces littering the empty void. “Look at that. They’ll come sailing right through! And there’s no reason to assume that just because those big asteroid ships are parked at the other end of The Storm means their troops will do the same! They’ve got black hole engines now. They could come at us from any direction! Not just the front!”

  Yeva saw where her Captain was coming from, and licked her lips nervously before reminding him of some pretty important facts he seemed to be ignorant of, or was intentionally ignoring. “Pattern analysis of standard God soldier deployment indicates that they will do precisely as ... Marker ... has suggested. The data we have on their exploits across The Cordon is very sparse, but there's enough to that suggest quite strongly. They generally prefer to come at their objectives head on. Puts the fear of God into whoever sees them coming.”

  “Is that why they call themselves God soldiers?” Homolka mused on the possibility. “I’d always found the fact that they call themselves ‘Goddies’ rather strange, considering that until very recently, even speculating on the possibility that some higher power might even exist carried with it a death penalty. Fascinating.”

  Yeva, who’d figured that out in about three seconds, said nothing. Homolka was edgy, and an edgy Trinity Captain was also a tightly wound Captain and the last thing she –or anyone else- wanted to do was upset the man.

  “But that doesn’t diminish my concerns, Tech Expert Yeva.” Homolka’s voice went broody, dark. “Where are we getting this ‘verifiably true’ data?”

  The fact that her Captain was quoting directly from the mission debrief while pretending to know nothing about the Intel put Yeva on her verbal tiptoes. They’d all always known that Homolka held more than a disparaging point of view when it came to their rough and tumble counterparts Special Services, never more so than when Specter'd crawled out of the mud to stand on the forefront of civilized warfare Universe-wide, but his true colors were definitely showing at the moment.

  It was natural and it was understandable.

  Career Army and Navy had always looked down their noses at Specter. Didn’t help that the greatest Commander the Universe had ever seen had been bounced out of Assembled Army to run a ragtag assortment of criminals and deviants, either, but there it was.

  Yeva, though, was and always would be a pragmatist. Specter could do things no one else did. Would do them, at the drop of a hat, for no other reason than it needed doing, usually -and here was a most mutinous thought- while Army fucked around on the sidelines arguing about where the cameras were going to be placed and who got to shoot first.

  “Waiting on your answers, Tech Expert Yeva.”

  Yeva thought about slumping in her chair, but didn’t; Homolka really was chomping at the bit and even the smallest amount of laxity right now would have him frothing at the mouth. “Heavy Techs, sir. The Heavy Techs. Whenever the Specter Elites are deployed across The Cordon, they … deviate, these days. As often as possible. To acquire tech, or updates, or just for … fun. Trinity allows it. There are theories why …”

  “Not interested in what the wise ruler of all of Humanity chooses to do with It’s time, Tech Expert, but the integrity of the data."

  Yeva blinked once, then nodded firmly, wondering what in the hell she’d done wrong to gain the personal and apparently permanent interest of the Captain when the fucking bridge was literally stuffed to the tits with extra personnel now they were on a war footing.

  “One of the things the Heavy Techs do, sir, is … dig. For data. Anything they can find, on anyone they can find. Mostly they go looking for footage of their hero, Specter in the Stars, but because Specters are Specters, sir, they also hunt for God soldier data. They prepare for everything. I wouldn’t be surprised, sir, if they have a plan to battle the very fabric of the Universe, should it somehow become sentient and angry.”

  Homolka stared off into the middle distance, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “Was a time, Tech Expert, people turned their eyes to Assembled Army ... that is, Trinity's Military Services ... for hope. Now it’s these … freaks. These criminals.”

  Yeva almost peed herself at the derogatory comments burning their way from the Captain’s mouth, but kept herself on lockdown. Tremax -lurking over by his own Screens- looked like he was ready to barf. As surreptitiously as she could, she checked the faces of all the Techs in her row, then the other rows as well.

  Good. They were all studiously staring at their screens, faces as blank as clean slates.

  Surely the Captain had to know that those very same Heavy Techs were wired into every inch of every non-Specter ship. They’d all tried preventing such intrusions.

  For about three seconds.

  They’d all been assured by the invading Heavies that the electronic intrusions -performed so smoothly and swiftly across allegedly tamper-proof systems that it reeked to high heaven of long-term practice- were purely for coordination purposes and that nothing said or done by anyone aboard any vessel would be held against anyone, at all, ever and that not only that, but the actual operation of each ship would always remain in the hands of those who crewed her.

  If there was one thing anyone working in TMS knew, it was that not only were Specters the biggest liars in the Universe, they were also notoriously prideful. She made a mental note to keep her eyes and ears peeled for random system failures; Specter might not kill them outright for Homolka's attitude, but it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that Environmental might shut down, or elevators might stop working.

  “But that’s neither here nor there, end of the day." Homolka said bitterly. “It’s our own teams. In possession of world-altering weaponry. Not using them. Hand of Glory missiles, Yeva. BAM-cannons! Who knows what else? A single vessel could have already destroyed their home planet, Yeva. Yet here we are, gearing up to duke it out next to a godforsaken solar storm that’s affecting all ship operations. Light years out, and we’re suffering.”

  Yeva looked to Tremax -who was still thankfully parked beside her- for a miniscule amount of support, but he -like everyone else- had had the wisdom to keep their heads down. She wanted to be angry at his cowardice, but couldn’t be; Homolka was well and truly losing his mind, and after the stunt she and Tremax had pulled, she didn’t think she was too far behind the good Captain. Waiting for that other avatar-shoe to drop wasn’t making things any easier, either. They'd all thought hanging around the outside of the Shield Wall, plagued by men floating in the depths of space, had been the worst thing imaginable about.

  They'd been wrong, of course. Trapped inside the system, hunted and hounded by gigantic soldiers with powers that bordering on the supernatural, obviously identifiable as enemy combatants because they quite sincerely looked different in every damn was possible ... they were all going bonkers, one minute at a time.

  Homolka's eyes were burrowing into the back of her skull. He was eager for an answer to his rhetorical question.

  "Too many civilians, sir. Army has not and never will assault a mostly peaceful planet. Trinity wouldn't allow it. I can't say for certain, but I feel confident that there are AI safeguards to prevent that from happening, without being able to contact Itself for authorization to target a civilian world with planetkillers, any mind controlling those Hands of Glory would surely prevent them from being used against anything other than a target-rich environment."

  Tremax smirked and whispered 'target-rich environment' under his breath, then did his best not to laugh when the woman of his dreams smacked him lightly on the leg.

  Homolka nodded slowly, digesting Yeva's entirely rational evaluation of the situation. Trinity Itself did indeed deplore the wholesale slaughter of innocent lives on a regular basis, unless they were either violating one of It's many and varied Restrictions or if they had the unfortunate luck of being across The Cordon.

  It was the fact that they hadn't even tried! That none of them had really even bothered to properly move against one
of those worlds! That was what bothered him the most. Since those heavy losses in the very beginning -not to mention when those traitorous Heavy Elites had been blasted into atoms by some kind of Latelian Glory-variant- they'd all effectively abandoned their posts, choosing only to engage the enemy when they needed food or supplies. Even the raids had fallen by the wayside; the enemy had tightened up their supply lines to the point where it wasn't worth the effort most of them time, meaning...

  Meaning they were all eating horrid MRE's and sucking down recycled water by the gallon.

  Dreadful!

  "We can do better than this." Homolka announced stridently. "We can turn this war around. Make it work to our advantage. Layer more limpet mines into the areas that are currently empty. I don't care what Marker and his cronies think. If those Bam-cannons are anything like Enforcer BAMs, they're not going to be nearly as effective as they're hoping. Too much empty space and if those God soldiers behave as typical, they aren't just going to park their ships in striking range then faff about waiting to be shot at. The mines, though ... nearly invisible. Sure they'll suspect something, but by the time they realize that we set the course for this war, it'll be too late."

  Yeva opened her mouth, then clicked it shut. There was nothing any of them could say or do. In times of war, the Captain of any Trinity military vessel had the ability to order governing AI's to kill anyone on the spot for treason, without justification or proof.

  Homolka wasn't cracked all the way through. Yet. But he was getting there and the AI wouldn't run a psych eval until or unless the bodies started piling up unreasonably high.