by Lee Bond
Rillin had to stop the avatars on his prote from displaying the full breadth of the Offworlder's storied military career. It was so long, and held so many entries, it'd take longer than they had to get to the end.
"Very tall man." Aleks raised one of his hands as high he dared. "Dark complexion, dark hair. Fondness for floating in the depth of space, attempting to scare my men. Somewhat of an asshole."
Well, that brought half of the fifteen soldiers right to his doorstep -as it were- some of them pushing the muzzles of their rifles directly against his weary forehead and temples, an appropriate action to an unfair assessment of one of the greatest leaders Latelyspace had ever seen.
Aleksander continued talking as if there was nothing different or untoward about having quite so many guns pointed at him. "Also responsible for escalating this little military action into something a great deal more … hmm … energetic than either side no doubt wanted?"
"First off, Offworlder," Rillin stepped forward, pushing a few of his men out of the way so he could confront the orange-hued alien directly, "Fenris Valeren is a great man leading us forward to great things. Without him, our brother and sister God soldiers would all be dying in alleys, addicted to so-called supplements that destroyed their lives."
The assembled Latelian soldiers hoorawed softly. That gift alone afforded Fenris almost unilateral freedom to do whatever needed doing. Thirty million men and women, given new life and new purpose when they'd all accepted a much darker fate.
"And second?" Aleksander wondered, still holding on to one of Huey's clammy hands.
"Secondly," Rillin did his best not to shout, but failed, "it was that awful machine mind that started this war, in direct retaliation to Garth Nickels' presence here in the system, so if you're looking to blame someone, blame the AI."
"Water under the bridge." Aleks waved the insults away, completely dismissing the soldier's irritation.
"Sa," one of the other soldiers bearing a prote-scanner, "we've discovered the identity of the man lying next to Aleksander Politoyov as Hamilton Barnes. There's an auto-updated redirect here … uhhhh … negative on Barnes, I repeat, negative on Barnes. The corpse belongs to Huey T. Roboticus, known confidante of Garth Nickels and counselor for Chairman DuPont."
Rillin frowned. He didn't like -had never liked- the fact that Latelyspace had become home to an Artificial Intelligence housed inside the cloned body of Hamilton Barnes, one of the most loyal men to have ever served the Chair, but it'd developed pretty early on that he'd been in the minority. There’d always been a kind of open enmity between the AI and Fenris, as well, which Rillin appreciated. Yet, when it came to the running of the system, the Chairman’s word held sway in all things, regardless of propriety.
While Rillin mulled over Huey's purpose in Latelyspace, dread silence percolated through the ranks, an aghast pallor that settled in thickly.
With that in mind, and carefully schooling his tone, Rillin replied, rather snarkily, "Impossible. Huey is an …"
“Yes.” Aleksander nodded blithely. “He was.” The look on the lieutenant’s face was priceless, then grew to be the rarest thing in the world when the full totality of what’d happened the second they’d fired on the Orion Tunnel sank in.
Every single man and woman pointing their guns at him shuffled their feet nervously and they either looked back over their shoulders at their commander or looked to one another to see how everyone else was dealing with the news.
“Doesn’t matter.” Rillin stated defiantly. “Huey should’ve known better than to be on this … this … what is this thing, anyways?”
Aleks made a big show of the fact that he was still holding a corpse’s hands. The Specter could tell the Latelians weren’t quite ready to depart with their prize; now they were all standing still, it was easy enough to see that they were more equipped for a scavenger run than to take in hostages, but now they had one, traipsing all over the command area for the Orion Tunnel was taking a distinct back seat.
“Sis and sas, this is what used to be a thing known as an Orion Tunnel. A Quantum Tunnel capable of generating somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty different tunnels at the same time, a marvelous machine that could also shift itself from one place to another.”
While they digested that bit of unfortunate news, Aleksander added one final bit of information as an afterthought, as if it’d temporarily slipped his mind. “Oh yes, and it seems this was the method Trinity used to send troops across The Cordon. Could’ve conceivably shipped any number of Goddies anywhere in the Universe, right past Huey’s Shield, all without my Army being the wiser. Sadly…” the Specter trained off meaningfully, shrewdly watching the already crestfallen lieutenant’s expression drop further.
Well, that wasn’t the best of news, not at all.
“Doesn’t matter.” Rillin hissed, pointer finger pushing directly against his prisoner’s forehead. “We’ve got something just as good, just as valuable, as this dead Orion Tunnel. We’ve got you, Commander Aleksander Politoyov, and you’re going to stop the war.”
“That’s highly unlike … unlikely.” Aleks pushed back with his forehead, calmly keeping his eyes on the commanding officer, when one of the Goddies shoved their rifle into him, attempting perhaps to literally shove the barrel right through his skull.
Rillin made sure the avatars on his prote were acquiring the data streaming from the rifles’ cameras properly. Everything was streaming from the portable ‘LINK he carried in his pack back to their ship, and from there, it was being bounced through hundreds of ‘LINK-relays, right back to the one man who needed this information the most. Of course –and, Rillin hated to admit it, even to himself- he was actually sort of glad that Fenris was currently preoccupied with the Storm War.
He didn’t think he could deal with the Apocalypse Man’s dark mood.
Still, he and the Trinity dog were engaged in an interrogation masquerading as polite conversation and so Rillin thought it best that he get as much information about, well, anything the man felt like talking about, and as long as the course of their discussion stayed along strictly military or top secret lines, Aleksander could remain right where he was.
“I’m curious to know why you think that might be, Commander Politoyov? We’ve got you bang to rights and the moment we start streaming your torture across the stars, your men will lay down their arms.”
Aleksander laughed, and this time, the soldier with the urge to push her rifle through his forehead actually did poke him with extreme prejudice in the skull, hard enough to break the skin. The wound had him hiss once, quietly, and that was it; warm blood began trickling freely down this side of his head and onto his once-clean uniform.
The Specter pretended the wound didn’t exist. Were he dealing with non-professionals, sitting there, under arms, bleeding pretty thoroughly from a poke to the head, would have those non-professionals squirming in their boots, but these were Latelian soldiers. They might not be proper Goddies, but they bred them tough in Latelyspace. Not one of them was impressed.
“This was my only set of clothes.” Aleksander looked at the dribble of blood staining the spot on his uniform where his honors would go if he were that sort of man anymore. “And as to your intentions to beam my torture to the stars?”
“Yes, old man?” Rillin was really warming up to the role he’d cast for himself, though part of him did hope with most pristine fervor that Fenris would be okay with the adlibbing. “Hollyoak and his twisted machines may no longer be available, but we’ve still got quite a few methods of working the truth from traitors. I think they’ll be just as applicable to war criminals.”
“Torture me all you want, Latelian.” Aleksander sneered, accidentally catching some blood in his mouth. Ah well. “The soldiers, my soldiers … they won’t act. They won’t do anything differently. They’ll see me on their screens and they’ll go on doing as they have been doing. They won’t believe you. The Army boys may stand down for a while, they may attempt to locate me so they
can get a rescue mission off the ground, but my Specters? If they’ve got booze and smokes left, they’ll get themselves righteously shitfaced, smoke too many cigarettes, swing by the nearest moon and blow it up in my honor. Then, depending on if their mean drunks or not, they’ll pick right up where they left off. Hell, for all I know, they'll start up a Bettor and Bettor franchise and sell tickets. But they won't come for me. Because down here in the dirt, soldier, we're all walking corpses. We’re all Specters. And Specters? Born to be cannon fodder.
Now, I know you’ve got superior numbers. Thirty million plus God soldiers. That’s a big number. The second biggest number of soldiers I’ve ever personally encountered, but the thing you’ve got to remember is, is that most of my Heavies are here, on this side. If you think most of them are lined up at the Storm to do just and valiant battle with you and yours, you’re wrong. Torturing a man, that to them, merely looks like me? That'll only rile them up. Insanely loyal. So, go on ahead, polish your torture devices and get your camera crews ready, Lieutenant, but warn your civilian outposts and unprotected worlds and cargo ships and whatever else you’ve got in this system that isn’t under direct scrutiny by the Army. My boys don’t play fair when they’re upset.”
Rillin swallowed nervously. It was difficult not to be swayed by the old man’s absolute conviction, just as it was difficult not to be concerned about the numbers of Heavies in the system that remained unaccounted for; the Army overall had perilously little information concerning the vastly augmented Specters classified as ‘Heavy Elite’, and the few altercations on record between them and God soldiers of any category up to Three saw the Goddies as the underdogs.
One on one was nearly even odds, no matter that even the youngest of God soldiers had to have at least eight hundred years of life under their belts. What the Heavies lacked in age and experience, they made up for in intensity and savagery.
Controlling the tone in his voice as best he could, Rillin addressed Politoyov calmly. He had to, for the sake of the men and women under his command; the old, orange Offworlder’s chilling words carried with them an uncomfortable prophecy of death and destruction for the innocent of the solar system, and they’d had a profound effect on his soldiers. They all of them had friends and family on worlds and outposts that weren’t all that well protected, and the mere thought of howling Heavy barbarians screaming out of the darkness to rape, pillage and raze their lives to the ground was unacceptable.
“We’ll just have to see about that, old man.” Rillin returned Politoyov’s sneer with one of his own, hoping to Pete that he was having an effect on his men. “We’ll torture you anyways, we’ll beam it to the far ends of the solar system regardless of what your men will do. If we can’t get them to surrender on their own terms, we’ll just keep working until you start giving up secrets. Access codes, military orders, plans, that sort of thing.”
“Again,” Aleks countered, enjoying himself in spite of the pain, “that might work for Army, but not for my boys. Plans? Never made ‘em. Orders? The fuck’re those? Codes? If they could, they’d scan their cocks into the digitizer so they can lay ‘em across the readers. Secrets? My boys couldn’t keep a secret if their lives depended on it. No, they’d rather blurt the truth out right there on the spot, just to see the look on their enemies faces as they figured out how truly fucked they were. Just like all of you. All of you, in this system, are fucked. Trinity’s here, kids, and It’s wearing the big boy pants. Why don’t you lay down your arms and let us politely organize everything, just like we’ve always done? The last of the Sovereign Systems? Call it quits now. Save yourself the effort. The loss of life. The …”
Angry female Latelian soldier -eyes wide as saucers and flashing whites in the corners- slammed the butt of her rifle into Aleksander's face, eager to silence the enemy's rant. It was bad enough they all of them whispered their concerns over the Heavies when they were bunked down.
Hearing them spoken aloud, from the man that'd trained them … that was another thing entirely. The orange Offworlder -for the Love of Pete, who walked around being orange, anyways?- was reeling where he sat, ruptured skin leaking a fresh slew of bright blood on his rumpled officer's uniform. Aline smiled toothily, sketching a small bow to her comrades when they all chuckled at the invader's response.
"Clocked him good, Aline." Bortöen repositioned his rifle, on the off chance that the goof decided he was going to make some kind of stand. Stranger things had happened, and the man before them was the leader of Trinity's forces. There was no telling what he could get up to. "How you like that, Offworld scum?"
"Liked it just fine, Latelian." Aleksander perked his head right up and locked eyes with the speciest. "First time I got hit like that, I was five years old. Took a concrete block to the side of the head during a conflict on my old home planet. Nearly cracked my skull open like an egg. Ever since then," here, he rapped the non-bloody side of his head, "rock solid."
Rillin realized that if he didn't take control of the situation here and now, things would spiral wildly out of control; that last speech had had an even more horrifying and electric effect on his team and if they returned to Fenris with the corpse of their enemy's leader, not a single one of them would see another day.
It was time to pack the Commander up and take him back to their ships. "Get him prepped and ready, sis and sas. Let's call it a day. The sooner we get this war criminal back to base, the sooner we can start digging into his brain."
Aleksander allowed a positively exuberant smile to cross his face. Things were going just the way he wanted. He knew that -following the events of the next few minutes- he could expect to endure quite a few more bumps and bruises, but there were some things that needed to be done regardless of personal comfort. He allowed the two soldiers nearest him -not the woman who'd beaned him twice or the speciest bastard- to grab hold of his shoulders.
As expected, their grips were rough, fingers digging into the soft spots of his muscle and skin.
Rillin stepped back out of the way. Something wasn't right. Something was … weird. The situation was … not what it seemed. Why was this thing called the Orion Tunnel here, and why was the Commander for Trinity's Army aboard, and why was Huey -firmly and permanently affixed to the ruling elite of the Latelian Commonwealth- here as well?
And more importantly, why was Aleksander Politoyov holding on to one of Huey's dead hands so fervently? After all his talk about loyalty and realism, sorrow over a fallen companion sounded more like a week-long binge than holding hands.
Rillin's eyes bulged out of their sockets as he caught sight of a slender collection of wires trailing up from behind Politoyov and spiraling upwards around the column to disappear into the bowels of this truly daunting structure. He followed the wires back to their origin, saw that they passed from the column and into …
Into the old man's hand.
Which was still holding onto Huey's lifeless hand.
"Stop!" Rillin shouted, lunging forward to push the foreigner back down to the ground.
But it was too late. There was a loud snap and as everyone watched in horror, an actual bolt of pure energy surged up the wire and disappeared.
The only thing that any of them could hear was Aleksander Politoyov's dry, dry laughter.
"What did you do?" Rillin howled, motioning for his men to move upwards, to track the destination of those wires.
***
"Don't bother sending your men to the source, Lieutenant." Now that he was standing, Aleksander realized the double-tap to his skull had perhaps done him a little worse than expected; he was feeling woozy, and a few of the closer soldiers were on the blurry side. "There isn't time."
"What in the hell are you talking about?" Rillin howled, motioning for his men to stop. He saw that a few of the soldiers took personal offence at the curse word, but thankfully they all realized that this was most definitely not the time to deal with morals. "Spit it out, old man, and hurry!"
Aleksander winced as a few drops
of his blood splattered into an eye, then blinked away the tears. "The interesting thing about the being you know as Huey is that he's an Artificial Intelligence housed in perhaps one of the most efficient and excellently constructed clone bodies ever created."
"We know all this!" Rillin practically danced from foot to foot. Above them, wherever that surge had gone, noises were beginning to clank and clamor. He'd done something to the Tunnel. They had to find out what it was, and undo it. "What does this have to do with anything?"
"Here, in Latelyspace, the powerful AI sphere was able to effectively communicate with the 'LINKed systems of the clone body thanks to his ability to operate directly with something called the HIM." Aleks smiled wanly. "I'm afraid I never got a proper explanation of what that was from Huey or Orion, mostly because our kind host was more interested in pitting us against each other instead of letting us engage in small talk. I presume this HIM is something of importance. Anyways." Gods, he'd kill for a cigarette, purely to set the mood. "That was here, in Latelyspace. Huey, though, proved to be quite the planner, and knew that if there was ever a time he'd need to move beyond Latelian borders, he'd also need to ensure that he was able to continue controlling his inherited body."
Rillin didn't like the sound of this. Nor did he like the clamor ratcheting down from the structure above their heads. "Get on with it, old man. Or we'll kill you where you teeter."
"No." Aleks shook his head firmly at the threat. "No, I don't think so. Now, this next part, I must admit, I only found out by accident and out of desperation, and for what I gained, I genuinely wish I could thank Huey. In the end, he and I weren't so different from one another. Always planning, always thinking around corners. Your man Huey placed the seat of his consciousness inside the clone body, hiding it away permanently, guaranteeing it's safety at all times. Especially here, in rigid, rigid Latelyspace. From what I gather, there was a bit of a … wrinkle."
