by Shawn Jones
“That wasn’t a sound strategy on their part. Why does that make you responsible for their safety?” Rand asked.
“Because I choose to be. You forget, Speral’s is a non-aggressive species, so poor strategy on their part is understandable. I’ve got enough blood on my hands, Rand. I don’t need more of it to be innocent.” Cort stood and paced his office. “So long as our Federation does not end up in direct conflict with Speral’s people, we will have no problem. And it may not be a problem for long, anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Kim raised her eyes from her monitor to look at Cort, but he didn’t immediately answer. “What do you mean, Cort?”
“I’ve been studying the crystal expansion. Speral’s planet is due to be infected within five years. I asked her about it this morning. They have begun the equivalent of a genetic lottery to determine who will be evacuated. And at this point, there isn’t a seedable planet for them.”
“My Gods,” Black said.
“So you see, even if I have to do it on my own, I will protect her people.”
--
Doctor Verne commed Cort the next morning. “Cort, I met with Chief, Rand, and Mike Rage last night. Then I sent a message to Dar Sike. There are some hurdles to overcome, but we would like to build several thousand domes in North America for Speral’s people.”
Cort remained cool, saying only “I appreciate that. More than I can express.”
“Cort, don’t think we are doing it because of your speech or because of your self-imposed obligation to Speral’s people,” Doctor Verne said. “The decision was made because it will serve two purposes to move them Earth. Number one, it will negate the possibility of losing you as part of our defensive capability. Number two, it will allow us greater access to their technology. The domes will allow them to control their environment so they will be able to breathe. Our gravity is significantly lower than theirs, but they will be able to survive. We will not force the decision on the two alliances, but Dar thinks they will happily agree in exchange for our efforts on behalf of the environment as well as future trade concessions and our defense of Earth. If by chance, they do not cooperate, we will build domes here on Mars for them.”
“I’m surprised, Doc. Very surprised. But I don’t buy your reasons for a minute. More likely, your Hippocratic Oath kicked in.”
“I have studied history, Cort. Chief Rhodes is a pupil compared to my knowledge of it. I even knew some of your personal history before you appeared in our time. But the history books only tell so much of the story. They paint you to be a natural born killer. Someone with no sense of honor and no sense of remorse. I resist your influence because the military cannot be allowed to rule. In human history it has never turned out well.”
“History books paint many warrior’s that way, Doc. It doesn’t mean they are right, though. As far as military rule goes, I agree. But I also believe that when the time for military might arrives, civilians cannot be allowed to interfere. You have studied history you say. Do you know who Douglas MacArthur was?”
Verne had to search his memory for a moment. “Yes. World War Two, right?”
“And the Korean conflict. That is the relevant period right now. Mac was one of the greatest military minds in human history. An egotistical son of a bitch, but a military genius. He had the opportunity to end the conflict and put both China and the USSR on their heels. China specifically declared that if MacArthur crossed a line known as the 38th Parallel, they would become involved in the conflict. President Truman didn’t accept Mac’s arguments that the Chinese were already involved would not become more involved, so he ordered him not to cross China’s ‘line in the sand’. Long story short, Mac ignored Truman, crossed it a couple of times, then openly criticized Truman as being a pacifist. So Truman fired him. Mac was right, Doctor. And the US spent trillions of dollars over the next several decades paying a cold war that was a direct result of Truman’s mistake. If Truman had let MacArthur run the war instead of being diplomatic, we would have won and saved trillions to boot.”
“I don’t mean to be cruel Cort, but a little diplomacy would have save Speral’s fleet.”
“Doc, do you remember the day Glydnal came here?” Cort asked with a sigh. “Because I do remember it. I called the shots that day, and I gave him every chance to maintain peace, but he refused. He thought he was dealing with the same mentality and the same technology as he was when he faced Atlantica. That loss is his fault, as was the loss of his fleet. I am still responsible for it but I am not to blame, and diplomacy would have resulted in the deaths or capture of at least some of our people, including me.”
“At the expense of Speral’s people?”
“Every fucking day, Doc. A single one of my people will always be worth a thousand of theirs to me. And that’s why it’s time for diplomacy to take over. My time as a military ruler has to give way to civilian leaders. And Doctor I think you are the person to lead us, but I have one admonition for you. Once you give me a military task, don’t turn into Truman. Tell me your goal, and I will make it happen.
“I am learning that slowly Cort and I admit that the history books are wrong about you, but I did not fully realize it until yesterday. Rand and Chief tried to tell me but I was smarter than they were, or so I thought. Why do you think I am the person to lead us?”
“Doc, I’m being commed by Speral, so I need to go, but thank you. May I pass along the news to her?”
“Of course. I will talk to you soon, Cort.” Verne disconnected and Cort opened the link to Speral.
“I’m sorry Speral, I was finishing up another conversation. How are you today?”
“Cort Addison, I regret that I must return to my planet for the foreseeable future. My ship and the few we have built since you destroyed our fleet are needed elsewhere.”
“How long does your planet have, Speral?”
“Cort Addison that is unknown. However we must begin looking for another planet to seed. Our needs limit the planets we may occupy to very few, and most of those known are already inhabited by higher species.”
“Speral, our government met yesterday to discuss your situation. While they are not ideal, we wish to make a region available to you on one of our planets. If the other two governments on Earth agree, we will cede most of the region that attacked you. If they do not agree, we will cede a significant portion of Mars to you.”
“Cort Addison, I am touched. However your environments are not similar enough to ours to make long term habitation possible.”
“We can build domes for your people. Then you can adjust the atmosphere to suit your needs. It would also allow you to bring some of your native flora and fauna species with you.”
“Cort Addison, I had not considered that possibility. I will communicate your offer to my people.”
Twenty
Unknown Planet
“Okay Speral, stay close,” Cort said as he jumped from her ship. He set up the platform Doctor Black had designed for him. The legs of the platform were a rigid, porous material that was folded in a way that reminded Cort of a queen’s ‘ruff’ collar, except that the turns never quite touched. The crystal would have to travel over a hundred linear meters to travel a single decimeter to the bottom of the structure. Observation had shown Cort would have five minutes from the time the ground below him crystallized until his boots would be vulnerable.
“Fifteen seconds, Cort,” Kim said from Speral’s observation deck. She watched as Cort drew a sword from his back and kneeled on the edge of Doctor Black’s construct. It felt like just another second before she screamed, “NOW!”
Cort saw the crystal consume the strange orange grass below him and plunged the sword into the ground cutting a cone shaped piece of crystal from the surface. Stabbing into the cone, he lifted it from the ground and dropped it into a porous copper sphere. The top of the cone righted itself and Cort closed and sealed the sphere before placing it in the center of a stack of wire wrapped coils. He flipped a switch on the top coi
l and dropped the sword to the planet’s surface. A minute later the crystal consumed the copper sphere.
“Time?” Cort said.
“Two minutes and ten seconds,” Kim replied.
“Are you seeing this? It seems to be holding,” Cort said.
“Yeah, come on up.”
“No. We wait until the crystal growth rate would reach the coils. We cannot take the chance that we didn’t contain it.”
“Dammit. Two-thirty,” Kim said.
A minute and a half later Speral descended back to Cort and he jumped into the ship’s open airlock. Once he secured the magnetic levitation chamber he looked down, just in time to see the platform crystallize.
--
Mars, Ares Federation
“We have it,” Black said as Cort opened the comm. “We have the crystal’s resonant frequency. It destroyed three of the four samples you brought back. I’ve sent you the data.”
“What about the fourth?” Cort asked.
“We are still studying it,” Black responded. “We want to know more about it.”
“Who is ‘we’?”
“My team.”
“No. Stop now and destroy it, Doctor. We can’t keep a sample of that crystal in our system.”
“I’m sorry, Cort. Doctor Verne approved it,” Black said sheepishly.
“You aren’t a bit sorry Doc.” Cort closed the channel. Two minutes later he was talking to the Minister of Defense. “That last crystal needs to be destroyed, Chief. We can’t keep it in this system.”
“Cort, we need to know more about it. Doctor Black is confident that he can control it.”
“I will destroy Deimos, Chief. I just ordered it be tracked by all available fractionals, at all times.”
“Rescind that order now, Cort.”
“No. My standing orders are to destroy the crystal, wherever I find it. We know how to that, and the crystal is now in our home system. Move it or lose it.”
“Cort you don’t call the shots anymore. It’s under civilian control. We keep the crystal.”
“If the crystal is still in this system tomorrow morning, I will destroy it.”
“You said you were going to start following orders. I’m ordering you to stand those fractionals down, General Addison.”
“You need to talk to Doctor Verne. When you do, ask him about President Truman. Tomorrow morning at 0600, Chief.” Cort disconnected and commed Kim. “I want to know about any ship movements for the next eighteen hours. Any ship movements. Are we clear?”
“What’s going on?” Kim said as she brought up her monitors.
“They want to keep a piece of the crystal on Deimos. I told them they have eighteen hours to move it. If they don’t I will blow Deimos out of the sky.”
“Is it up for discussion?”
“No. I’ll see you at home.”
“Okay,” Kim sighed, “love you.”
--
Cort stood on the command deck of the Ares Federation Ship Remington. It was the first transdimensional ship built by the Ares Federation, as well as its first warship. The AFS Remington was for all intents and purposes a double-barrel Gauss cannon attached to a propulsion system, and the barrels were massive. Each one was two kilometers long and just over forty meters in diameter. The tungsten slugs fired by the barrels were cylinders forty meters in diameter and eighty meters long. The sabot rounds that contained the resonance torpedoes were just as large but weighed considerably less than the one hundred and ninety four thousand metric tons of their tungsten counterparts.
“We are in position, sir,” Captain Jade “JJ” Jones said to her boss. Until her grandfather moved the family from a small non-allied island in the Pacific to Atlantica, JJ’s family had never been injected with synthetics. Consequently she still visibly retained much of her Polynesian heritage, but her diminutive size and build did nothing to attenuate her command of the ship. “My capacitors are charged, and the coils are online. We just need you to pick a target.”
Cort studied the screen in front of him. “Okay, JJ,” he said as indicated a large asteroid passing in front of him. “This rock, single barrel, and use a test slug.”
“Weapons. Test slug. Port barrel,” Jones commanded. “By the numbers, people.”
The weapons officer said, “We have a lock, sir.”
“Talk to your captain, not me.” Cort was irritated that the weapons officer bypassed the chain of command.
“I was, General,” the man said cautiously.
“General,” Jones said, “we adopted that from Speral’s people. Their command structure uses ‘sir’ for all superiors, regardless of gender. I don’t want my people differentiating between male and female officers.”
“I see. I’m sorry, Lieutenant.” To Captain Jones, Cort whispered “That’s a great idea, JJ. I’m sorry for interfering.” The bridge crew smiled. Clearly the general didn’t realize how much his voice carried.
“Thank you, General,” Jones said. Then to the bridge she said, “Resume the test.”
“Lock is confirmed. Coils are charged. Port barrel is ready. Switches armed. Transfer speed is seven. Waiting for your command, sir.”
“Fire,” Captain Jones ordered.
The transfer speed determined the amount of time each switch had to feed energy into the aluminum test slug. The lower the number from one to ten, the more time each of the five hundred coils had to energize the slug. By the time this slug left the barrel, its supercharged plasma carried enough energy to obliterate the five kilometer wide asteroid Cort had selected. The impact was spectacular, turning the viewscreen pure white for several seconds.
“Okay people, secure the weapons. Cycle the capacitors back to propulsion mode,” JJ ordered. After hearing acknowledgement from her bridge crew she turned to General Addison. “Orders, sir?”
Cort was impressed with Jones. She was no nonsense and understood the urgency of the situation. She wanted to get the weapon and engine trials over just as quickly as he did. “Let’s go test the resonator injection procedure, Captain. Take us to Mercury.” After that, I’m turning you loose with your coach gun, Captain.
The End
About the Author
Shawn Jones was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He now writes in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, where he lives with his wife Lorelle and son Alex. An avid outdoorsman, he enjoys fishing, camping, hiking, and sailing.
Dedicated to my son Alex. If I can be half as good a writer as you are a basketball player, I will be a success.
Special thanks to Jonah Miller, the smart guy, to Fiber, the nitpicker.
Thanks to my beta readers Dawn, Goose, Shawn, and Mel.
Cover art:
[email protected] | CC BY-ND (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/)
Warrior’s Blood, Copyright 2014 by Shawn Jones. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced without the written permission of the author except for brief quotations embodied in reviews.
