Gemini

1

March 3, 2045

Paul skidded his ‘mongoose’ to a halt, jamming on the breaks and grinding the four massive tires against the floor of the ‘Mario Kart’ vehicular course as he landed himself on top of a pressure-sensitive panel, which lit up blue beneath him. Off to his left in the distance a short bridge extended across a narrow ‘ravine’ in the city-like landscape, with Jason zooming across on his own mongoose a moment later.

As soon as he was across, Paul twisted the four wheeler’s hand controls and accelerated away down one of the many road-like paths, with the bridge immediately retracting now that the mongoose was no longer sitting on the activation switch. However, another of the symbol-tagged panels on the floor lit up in front of Paul, glowing a bright green, indicating a defensive pickup which he immediately raced towards…all the while keeping an eye on the location of the three rovers maneuvering their way through the course.

When Paul’s widely spaced tires crossed over the green symbol it deactivated and was replaced by a small dot on a screen between his handlebars, indicating that he now carried a ‘block’ weapon that he could use on any of the square panels covering the course…but not on the medians that outlined the roads, some as expansive as a parking lot while others were less than two inches wide and standing a foot tall.

Spying one of the rovers on a parallel road to his left, Paul cut a sharp turn, feeling the pod-like center portion of the four wheeler mechanically tilt into the turn along with the thick tires, enabling much more maneuverability than the standard civilian versions. The trainees had nicknamed the vehicles ‘mongooses’ after a similar off-road transport in Halo, though with one major difference…in the video game the mongooses had a tendency to roll over, often coming back up after multiple spins to right themselves. The reverse was true of the Star Force mongoose, which had been designed wide and low to the ground to prevent flipping while affording maximum speed and maneuverability.

That maneuverability was limited to 40% on Paul’s vehicle, which had an elongated seat with side handles that could accommodate a second rider if need be, but at the moment Paul’s one and only teammate on the course was zipping about in his own mongoose, given the mission requirements of the Tandem Challenge.

A month ago all ten teams had entered the final stage of their training, having completed all tier 1 individual challenges and their tier 2 subcategory prerequisites. Most of the trainees had already progressed onto tiers 3 and 4, but those were deemed as ‘extra’ and not required for graduation, given that it wasn’t expected for the trainees to master every discipline, but they did need to acquire a certain level of basic proficiency in everything, along with a moderate level of skill in each subcategory grouping. With those requirements met, and the last of the team challenges completed, all members of the first class had transitioned into the Tandem Challenges.

Half of the Tandems required teammates, while the other half required pairing with non-teammates, with the scores going towards both individual and team totals. Every challenge required passage with at least 3 separate pairings, with the highest score for each individual being recorded for themselves and their team.

Paul and Jason paired up as often as they could, finding they worked together slightly better than with anyone else, and this vehicular challenge was no exception, the point of which was to slow and deter the three target rovers as they made their way around the course sufficient to get their slower moving rover to the finish first. It was a game of the tortoise and the hare, with the trainees trying to give the tortoise every advantage possible.

When Paul turned towards the side of the road he had approximately three meters of road to work with before he hit the median. He lined himself up and accelerated up to his truncated maximum speed and hit a button on his left handlebar…

Hydraulic lifts in each of the wheels jumped his mongoose up into the air enough to clear the lip of the median, allowing him to ‘hop’ over the boundary and cut ahead on the course…something the rovers could not do. The slow, computer controlled rolling boxes had to meander their way through the designated paths while the mongooses could cheat their way across, so long as they timed their jumps right.

Paul landed awkwardly, half bouncing out of his seat as he skidded into a right hand turn and tore off down the road, racing to get ahead of the nearest rover. He traveled fifty meters up then drifted right before jerking his way back left and making an angled hop up onto the two meter wide median, then bounced down on the far side just ahead of the rover.

The mongoose’s tires spun aggressively to keep from hitting the rover, which would result in a speed penalty, and clawed away at the smooth floor tiles as it gained speed and a small lead over the armored box that reminded Paul of a white metallic soccer ball.

Up ahead the pathway turned left as a portion of the median jutted out, constricting the road down to a square and a half wide. Paul slowed as he approached the bottleneck with his right hand thumbing the handlebar controls to select the green icon on his screen. When the mongoose passed over the square Paul had in mind he pressed the activation button and the green icon on his screen disappeared…transferring to the tile on the floor, which two seconds later rose up a meter high, effectively blocking the road save for two narrow gaps on the side large enough for a person to walk through, but not the meter-wide rover.

The device’s proximity sensors stopped it from hitting the roadblock, bringing it to a halt inches away where it spun about in place and began backtracking to the nearest intersection where it would take the shortest available path to the finish.

Meanwhile, Jason was on another section of the course off limit to the rovers thanks to the ravine where he activated a second bridge that was now behind the enemy rovers…but just ahead of the trailing friendly. As he sat on the activation panel, Jason saw their rover, as well as one of the others, immediately change course as soon as the bridge was extended, with both sensing a shorter route to the finish, but the enemy rover had a much larger distance to travel backwards than the friendly rover did to cut back into the offshoot.

Jason waited patiently for it to arrive and cross the bridge into the island-like shortcut, then he motored off the activation pad, dropping the bridge before the other rover arrived. Sensing the way was now blocked, it reversed course and began retracing its original path, now significantly delayed and lagging behind the friendly rover as it sputtered on ahead.

Zigzagging around the friendly, Jason passed it by and moved on forward, looking for where Paul was. He saw him heading for one of the binary power up ‘bumps’ at the top of a tiny ramp…whose corresponding activator was on the ‘island’ that Jason was just about to move off.

Pulling a hard, spinning right turn Jason shot into an offshoot of the road that led to a dead end a few dozen meters away in a circle-like roundabout, in the center of which was a tile with a large ‘3’ on it. When Jason’s mongoose slid to a halt on top of it the ‘3’ glowed white, while at the same time a purple symbol on top of the bump in front of Paul glowed to life.

Paul gently ramped up and over the bump, with his tires making contact with the flat top. As he came down the opposite side the speed indicator on his mongoose changed from 40% to 50% as it registered the speed boost. He cranked the now higher throttle up to its maximum as he leveled out and raced to get ahead of the rovers.

He meandered through the crisscrossing, twisting roads that offered multiple avenues of advancement, but no straight line paths to the finish, until he met up with Jason as they hopped off course onto a large, parking lot-like median, on top of which were additional symbols.

Paul angled towards one that looked like unintelligible calligraphy and Jason swung in line behind him, picking up the timed power up a moment after Paul ran over and activated its two second timer…not nearly long enough for him to swing around and get it himself, but more than enough time for his trailing partner to snag it.

On the screen between Jason’s handlebars a yellow icon lit up, which he quickly highlighted and activated…decreasing enemy rover speed by 10%. It was one of the more valuable power ups on the course and gave the trainees additional time to get out ahead of the herd and throw obstacles in their way.

The two mongooses hopped back onto the roads and went off chasing additional power ups, some of which enhanced their speed, allowed them to throw or take down blocks, and even a few that altered the medians to change the layout of the course. Altogether, by the time the rovers hit the halfway point on the horse-shoe shaped course, the friendly rover had pulled into the lead and the pair spent the rest of their time and effort on slowing down and blocking the others, often sending them on longer adjuncts while the slower moving friendly rover took the shorter paths.

The point of passing the challenge was twofold…get the friendly rover to the finish first, and get it there with as big of a lead as possible, for the amount of the lead determined the points scored. When Paul and Jason’s friendly rover finally crossed the finish line all the power ups on the course disappeared, as did any items still in the mongoose display screen inventory, and the trainees had to drive back to the finish area and wait to see how long it would take the enemy rovers to get to the finish now that they were no longer able to interfere with them.

Paul maneuvered his mongoose back behind the line and parked it in one of the slots next to half a dozen others before sliding off and walking over to the score board, which displayed not only this challenge score, which was ticking upwards with every second that passed now that the friendly rover had finished, but also scoring data from every other challenge with the team and individual lists covering the interactive screens.

As their challenge score increased, he and Jason watched their team total ticking up at the same time, extending their lead over the 7s by small amounts, making it more and more evident that the 2s just about had the team title locked up. When the first of the enemy rovers finally arrived and stopped the clock, their team total registered a good 2,873 point lead over the 7s, and another 654 points back to the 6s, though those numbers could be deceiving, given that some of the teams hadn’t yet completed the same challenges, and this one scored a base 300 points just for completion, meaning that the 7s couldn’t be confident in their advantage over the 6s, but the 2s still had a comfortable margin on everyone else, and appeared to be padding their lead.

  Paul glanced over at the individual ranks as his score was also being updated there…only to notice that Morgan’s lead over him had grown by 143 points since the last time he’d checked. Frowning, he touched her name on the screen and brought up her challenge stats, discovering that she’d outscored him on three challenges by small amounts, and a not so small discrepancy on one of the obstacle courses…and since he’d already passed all those challenges, there wouldn’t be any monster point swings to be gained, meaning she really was pulling away from him again.

Paul backed up the screen and touched the third place trainee’s name, bringing up Travis’s stats and noting that he’d just passed a challenge that Paul hadn’t gotten to, yet he was still trailing Paul in points, which was a good sign. Ever since the naval challenges had concluded, he and Morgan had been the top pair by a comfortable margin, but his lead had been wobbling a bit since they’d entered the final phase of their training and he wasn’t sure if he was going to lose the 2nd spot or catch up with Morgan to claim first.

The Tandem challenges were unusual compared to everything that’d they’d gone through before, and as such they were hard to predict the outcome of. Most of the time he and Jason would outscore almost everyone else…but then again they, more often than not, had similar strengths and weaknesses, meaning when they teamed up in their weak areas they ended up with below average scores, but since they were required to mix and match with the pairings they usually found someone else to hook up with that offset their weaknesses.

Almost satisfied with his individual point total, Paul switched the screen over to the Tandem subcategory and saw that he and Jason were still at the top of the list for highest scoring pair across all disciplines…in fact, their recent run had bumped them up another 112 points ahead of Kerrie and Tom, who’d already been through the rover herding challenge at least once by now, meaning that gain was due to the time and not the mere completion.

“Try again or move on?” Paul asked.

“Move on,” Jason said, satisfied with their first attempt. “We can come back later if we need to.”

“You want to hit the relay next, or one of the sharpshooters?”

“Save the relay for last, it’s going to wear us out.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Paul said as they left the scoreboards and the other waiting trainees behind while walking out into the connective hallway between vehicular courses. “But everyone else will probably be thinking the same thing. Do we want to run it with them or pace on our own?”

“Hmmn…good question. Depends who’s there.”

“How about we duck in last thing and see, and if we don’t like the group we hit it again tomorrow morning?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jason said as they passed Megan and Rafa in the hallway, with an exchange of nods to both. Ever since the team phase had ended the trainees had been intermixing far more than they ever had before, which was odd considering they were still competing against each other for points. “Pistols, snipes, or grenades?”

“I hit the grenades this morning with Ivan and we sucked.”

Jason nodded. “Let’s work on that then. We can’t afford any weak scores for the team…and you need every point you can get if you’re going to catch Morgan.”

“Not so sure I will now.”

“You’re closer than anyone else…plus you’ve been holding off on those 5 naval challenges.”

That was true. Paul had been saving those for last, figuring he could make up some points there if he could only keep even or pull a little closer to Morgan on the rest. The trainees technically had an unlimited amount of time to get through the Tandem challenges, but they’d been tentatively scheduled to take two months for completion, and Paul had been using that timeframe to apportion his time, now that all trainer-scheduling was a thing of the past. He and the other trainees were free to train and test however and whenever they wanted.

“Yeah, but she’s been pulling away a bit. If she gets any further ahead I’m not sure I’ll be able to catch up.”

“All the more reason to trim up your weak areas,” Jason reminded him as they stepped into a lift terminal and summoned a ‘car’ with the press of a button. The doors to their left immediately opened, as one had already been waiting at one of the three stations.

“How are you with the grenades?” Paul asked.

“Fair…but I need some work too.”

“What’s fair?”

“56th,” Jason said, referring to the previous individual challenge that he’d completed months ago as they walked inside.

“Wow…we’re going to be at this all day. I was 48th.”

“It we have to, but I don’t think it will take that long. These Tandems are more about coordination of skills rather than specificity, and we’ve had plenty of practice at that.”

“Point,” Paul conceded as the doors closed and the elevator shot them off through the inside of Atlantis towards another of the restricted training areas that didn’t even show up on the civilian maps of the city.

2

Two weeks later…

Morgan held her end of the rope tight as it looped around a metal pole three times before extending down through an eyelet and angling off to the left where Zak was standing on the edge of a drop-off with the rope in hand. He walked back two steps and adjusting his grip upward before running forward and swinging downward off the ledge over a large red disqualification mat.

He passed within a meter of touching it, then swung back up to the far side, deftly getting a foot on the opposite ledge and stepping up onto it with a precarious balance.

Morgan smiled when she saw him catch it on the first try and toss the rope back behind him, then head off to a monkey bar catwalk that would take him over to the activation panel. Zak was one of the best climbers out of all the trainees and had an impeccable sense of balance and timing, which was why she’d requested that they team up for this ring-out challenge. As she loosened her grip on the rope and quickly unspun it from the pole she congratulated herself on another successful pick, then pulled the rope up through the eyelet as quickly as she could, looping it around her right elbow in a bundle.

As soon as she had it collected she turned around and ran down a small ramp, made a left turn through a short tunnel, then arrived on the platform opposite her destination…which was even now extending a long, thin balance beam over to her. Zak was standing next to the activation button one level down, just below the opposite platform, and remained there as Morgan began to walk across, keeping the button depressed.

With the rope bundle held in front of her as a counterbalance, Morgan smoothly walked across the beam, ignoring the two story drop-off below. When she got to the far platform she took three quick steps forward and jumped into a twisting slide that deposited her one story below next to where Zak had just been.

Morgan slid onto the balls of her feet coming off the slide and rolled into a jog as she stood up and took off down a rail-less sidewalk that led to a ladder, on top of which was a zip line. When she got to the top Morgan unslung the rope bundle from her elbow and carefully grasped either end of the thick loop, placing one half of it over the line. The cords were thick inside her tiny hands, but she managed a decent grip and kicked off from the platform, sliding down the angled zip line slowly.

With multiple strands to spread out her weight, the slight angle didn’t provide her with much speed but it was sufficient to get her to the other side. Morgan let go with her left hand when her feet passed over the destination platform and dropped a meter to the ground, still clinging to the rope bundle in her right as she faced off with a control panel containing four buttons.

She depressed the second one, opening a door elsewhere on the ‘ring out’ course where Zak was waiting. As soon as he was through Morgan took to the ladder leading both down from the platform and higher up to a cupola that overlooked the entire course. Pulling the rope bundle over her head and shoulder, she freed her right hand and swung around to the far side of the ladder and began climbing up the outside of the tower.

This was the 4th time she’d run through this course with Zak, and the 8th time overall, having hit it twice with both Hank and Kevin who were also excellent climbers, but Zak was proving to be the best of the lot, and both of them wanted to shave as much time off their run as possible on the highly erratic obstacle course.

Unlike most of the others they’d trained on, this ring out course had no set path to travel, but instead had multiple options that could be used to get to a finish platform where one of the trainees would have to ‘ring the bell’ so to speak. The problem was, traversing the multiple paths required cooperation and coordination between the pair, meaning one of them couldn’t run on ahead of the other to finish early.

Both trainees had been given a single rope, in addition to the use of their hands, feet, and brains to get through the course in as short a time as possible. Morgan had spent more than two hours of her challenge time watching others on the course, learning where the triggers were and mentally planning out the fastest route to the finish. The trick of it was, the quicker paths contained the greater hazards, and even one fall off the elevated platforms and walkways would disqualify the pair and they’d have to start over again.

The less difficult paths were long, winding, repetitive challenges designed to eat up time and make the trainees prove their balance when fatigued, and most of the pairs attempting this run to date had been forced into the easy or medium paths out of sheer necessity, for their climbing skills weren’t reliably up to par, and with so many Tandem challenges to get through, they weren’t willing to spend multiple days trying over and over again hoping for a lucky run.

Neither was Morgan, which was why she’d been planning her run out ahead of time, then selecting the trainees who she thought best fit the obstacles…which in this case meant the best climbers. She’d gotten no refusals when she requested pairings, for this challenge or the others, for it seemed all of the other trainees were eager to team up with the current #1 in order to up their own scores...though she didn’t figure that Paul would be so eager to pair up on the naval challenges, given that he was trying hard to catch her in points, so she hadn’t asked.

Instead, she’d chosen the next best candidate, Liam, and had worked with him on two of the 5 naval challenges so far with moderate success, hoping to negate as much of Paul’s advantage as possible when he eventually got around to his strong suit. He was apparently saving those challenges for last, to keep her from measuring up the points differential, no doubt, and figuring out how much of an advantage she needed in other areas for a counterbalance.

It was a good idea, she grudgingly had to admit, because it kept her in the dark as to what she actually needed to do, and Morgan worked best when she had a challenge to analyze and overcome. Still, she had come into the Tandems with a points lead and had been padding it ever since by doing her homework and matching up potential teammates’ skills with the various challenges, mixing and matching with specialists rather than finding one buddy to attack everything with…such as Paul and Jason were doing.

It was true that they were at the top of the Tandem ranks, but Morgan was scoring more points than they were…so far. Again, those pesky naval challenges were going to throw a skiffer into her plans when the dynamic duo got around to tackling them, not only because of Paul’s innate skill in that area, but because Jason also ranked in the naval top 10, making their pairing all the more potent in that subcategory.

Paul’s other pairings hadn’t given him much better results than he scored with Jason, though there were a few exceptions. It puzzled her why he wasn’t seeking out better partners to maximize his scores. He had to have seen her points lead over him growing…or was he just convinced that the naval challenges would put him over the edge in the end?

Or maybe he just wanted to maximize the team link that he and Jason already possessed. Morgan had found it easier to pair up with her 6s teammates than the others, obviously due to experiential familiarity, and it was said that Paul and Jason did almost everything together, even before the Tandem challenges had begun, so maybe they were onto something.

Morgan didn’t have the option of finding that out for herself…she’d always been more of a lone wolf, fully capable of working with her teammates but never establishing any favorites. She worked well with everyone, adjusting to the mission requirements accordingly, but had never seen the advantage of having a ‘best friend’ to team up with on everything. In her mind, she wanted the best available, and sticking with the same person would have been inefficient at times.

Apparently Paul didn’t think so, or else he simply hadn’t considered it. Either way, they were going to have a chance to test the various approaches over the next month…and so far, hers was proving to be superior.

She and Zak had already bested Paul and Jason’s top score on this course, and it didn’t look like they were going to be back for seconds, meaning that whatever points they could scrape up on this run would be pure bonus to both of them. Zak was currently 34th in individual points, with half a dozen other trainees in close proximity, so any significant point swings could propel him upwards in the ranks in short order, which was why he was busting his butt on this course, wanting to make the most out of this opportunity that Morgan had given him.

By the time she climbed up through the floor of the elevated cupola Zak was working his way across a pillar field, stepping carefully and repetitively with short hops as he approached the halfway point where the elevation and sizes of the pillars began to vary. As he made the transition Morgan had to give him credit on his agility. He slowed a bit, but maintained his rhythm, crossing the path far faster than Morgan could…assuming she didn’t fall off altogether. Her agility was above average, but Zak’s was downright incredible.

Inside the cupola was another slide, this one at less of an angle, much like a waterslide but dry as a bone and slippery shiny. Morgan had to go there next, but she had to wait for Zak to get to the end of the pillars because the trap door at the finish was triggered by the button on her left, allowing him to take a significant shortcut on the course.

As soon as he hopped off the last pillar Morgan hit the button, then dived feet first into the chute, trusting that Zak wouldn’t delay. The trap door was on a four second timer, and if he missed it he’d have to backtrack through the pillars and go around another way, because Morgan couldn’t get back to the cupola again from where she was going.

Her faith was well placed, and the moment that the door in the floor slid aside horizontally Zak knelt down and slithered through, hanging for a moment from the edge, then his hands disappeared a full 2 seconds before the panel began to slide back across.

He dropped down two meters onto a wobble-board, balancing on a center post and tipping sideways depending on where Zak put his weight, making it very hard to stay on his feet…and off the edges of the four meter wide square was open space, below which were more red disqualification pads.

Zak landed more or less in the center and dropped to a knee, using both his legs and hands to grip the surface. He spied the exit ladder at the tip of one of the corners of the square and maneuvered himself around to face it, then ran forward for two steps, feeling the floor drop out beneath him. He managed a half jump at the tip, enough to propel him out to the ladder, stepping onto it and snaking his arms through the rungs as one of his feet slipped. The wobble-board reset above him, revealing a second platform underneath it which Zak quickly climbed down to, hopping off the ladder at the very bottom in a back flip, landing on his face and chest hard, but safely on the platform.

He rolled up onto his feet and ran through a short tunnel into an empty room with high walls and no handholds to climb up…a dead end.

Off to his left a rope suddenly appeared, dropping down over the edge of the wall but with no one visibly holding it. Zak didn’t waste any time and walked up the wall, climbing hand over hand up the rope until he got to the top and saw Morgan standing behind another small pole with the rope looped around it multiple times as an anchor.

“Got it,” he said as soon as he got his footing at the top, with Morgan immediately letting go and running off down a narrow walkway with meters of open air on either side of her should she slip and fall off. She hopped over a gap as if it wasn’t even there and started climbing a tethered rope up to the top of a pole that had an extended eyelet on the opposite side.

Zak appeared beneath her with their own rope and waited for her to shimmy her way across the top bar until she was hanging underneath it with her hands inches away from the eyelet. Suddenly their own rope appeared in her vision as she stared up at the not so distant ceiling, with it crossing over her body and landing draped over both her and the pole thanks to Zak’s well aimed toss.

Hanging by her left hand and crossed legs, Morgan grabbed the opposite side of the rope and hefted it up in bursts, letting it slide through her fingers then gripping it tightly so it wouldn’t fall back through as she fought to find the end. When she did she poked it through the eyelet and fed it down until Zak could grab it.

“Clear,” he yelled, rapidly pulling the rope through to even up the strands.

Morgan waited until the rope stopped moving and drew taught before she wrapped her fingers around both cords at the same time and used the leverage to drop down off the pole and wrap her legs around the rope, as well as getting her second hand on it before she began sliding down.

The weight on the bottom of the rope suddenly dropped off, but Morgan had a firm grip on both strands so she didn’t fall as one slipped, but she did have to climb down more slowly.

When she moved past the platform the pole sprung from, she saw a solid wall for about a meter, then a second smaller platform underneath where Zak was standing. She swung over a bit and he grabbed a hold of her outstretched hand, pulling both her and the rope over to solid ground. As soon as she let go he began reeling in one strand of the rope, with the other shooting back up towards the eyelet.

Almost there, Morgan thought to herself as she began walking across a short balance beam to the underside of the finish platform, bypassing a huge wall that separated it from the easier access routes. When she made it across Zak was already two steps behind her with rope in hand and they spied the last obstacle.

There was a gap, too far to jump, underneath the floor of the finish platform that led to a ladder that would bring them up through a trap door three steps away from the ‘bell.’ On that side of the gap was a large hook, open side up, at approximately head level.

Zak tied a knotted loop at the end of the rope and handed it to Morgan…then grabbed her around the waist for support as she side-armed the loop towards the hook.

She missed low, reeled in the rope, and adjusted her aim. The second throw hit high and dropped down, barely catching the hook but it was enough. Morgan pulled the slack out of the rope as Zak let go of her and snaked the other end around the center mast that was supporting the platform above them.

Morgan and Zak pulled as hard as they could, making the rope taut and tying it off, but there was no eyelet on this end, and they knew that once they put their weight on it, it was likely to slide down…how much so was the question.

Zak stood underneath the knot on the rope and pressed his hands up against the loops around the pole, attempting to keep them secure as Morgan climbed up on the rope and began shimmying across.

Her weight dragged down the taut rope, but Zak kept the loss of height to a few inches until she made it across, only to have it lower half way down the mast when he climbed on, forcing him to slither uphill, which was why they’d decided for him to go second, as he was by far the better climber.

There wasn’t anything for Morgan to do but wait as she watched the rope dip lower and lower, with Zak now hanging below floor level, but as he approached he slowly gained altitude, having to wrench his body up along the rope until he was within reach of the platform. He let go of his legs and swung down, with Morgan pulling him away from the edge.

Leaving the rope behind, they walked over to the ladder and sidestepped to two small panels set on either side. As one, they pressed the dual activation buttons and the trap door above them opened.

Zak literally leapt up the ladder and disappeared, with the blue-lighting shift and finish tone sounding before Morgan could even get halfway up the ladder. When her head got past the floor she shot a glance at the clock, noting a 26 second improvement over their previous best, which also put them in 2nd place on the course record board, 2.3 seconds behind Mike and Taryn.

Zak offered her a fist bump when she finally got up the ladder, which she deftly returned.

“Nice working with you,” Zak said gratefully.

“My pleasure,” Morgan said with a smile, mentally adding the points gained to her lead over Paul.

3

Three days later…                 

Paul and Jason were ducked down behind a barricade in one of the ‘indoor’ paintball training chambers, one of their original training zones before transitioning into the parks more than a year ago. This one was a series of circles expanding out from the start area in the center of the room, with the finish pedestal located somewhere beyond the barricades on the outer ring, and it was never in the same position challenge to challenge.

The mission was to fight their way past the turret pillars to the outer ring and find the pedestal, all the while watching out for rovers and the occasional sniper hidden within the forest of pillars, as well as hidden bunkers in the outer walls.

Paul and Jason had progressed out to ring three in an easterly direction, deactivating the turrets in their path using their binary rifles…each contained the usual stingers, but Paul’s red paintballs and Jason’s purple contained additional energy signatures, and the turrets would only deactivate with sufficient stun energy applied plus each signature within a 1.5 second window, meaning not only did they have to fire several shots into each target sphere, they had to coordinate their final shots to arrive at almost the same time, else they’d just be wasting paint.

That was something they couldn’t afford to do, given their limited ammunition. Each rifle held hundreds of stingers, but there were far too many turrets present for them to take them all out, meaning the pair had to cut a path to the outer ring, then circle around the perimeter in search of the finish pedestal rather than mowing down every turret in sight…which fortunately stayed deactivated in this challenge, but progressing past the various barricade rings wouldn’t deactivate the others on the same ring, so each and every turret in their path had to be taken down.

Paul and Jason had little trouble with the turrets, however, and were progressing quickly through the pillars on their first attempt, firing with uncanny accuracy and coordination. The accuracy was due in part to having trained on this range and others like it, and they knew what angles they needed to make and how to distract the turrets so their teammate could target them, but normally they had 10 trainees on the field, not two, so the fact that this pair had entered the chamber with no noticeable adjustment period raised a few eyebrows from the trainers up in the control room.

But it was their coordination of fire that was the most unnerving. Even when separated and out of sight, they would fire on targets almost simultaneously, as if they were communicating through comm gear…though they had none. One of them would pop up out of cover, fire off two rounds, at different turrets, and duck back down just as the other one would add his shots to those two turrets plus three more, then the other one would come up and target the same turrets, though he hadn’t seen which ones his teammate had shot.

Other times they would both emerge from cover, running side to side between barricades and nail distant turrets in sync, often putting their stingers’ paint splatters one on top of the other so fast that the colors actually mixed…and by the time the turrets tracked their way they’d scurried off out of sight again.

By the time they made it to the 11th ring it was becoming clear that the only way to stop them was by using the rover and the snipers, hidden in the wall niches, but they had to wait until they got close enough, because the overlapping pillars cut off their view of the start area.

While they waited, the control room piloted the rover down through the rings towards the pair in an attempt to flush them out, with the nearby turrets all tracking the same direction, waiting for their prey to emerge. One of the snipers had a line of sight on the rover, with it passing in and out of view as it moved laterally across the 12th ring towards the spot where they’d last seen the trainees.

In the control room there were no overhead cameras, so as to not give the trainers any undue advantage, only viewscreens coming from the turrets’ and the rover’s onboard cameras…but there was a schematic of the course with the turret positions highlighted in blue, with a line of them gone dark where Paul and Jason had moved out through the rings. Just before the rover got to their position, several more turret icons went out, expanding a spherical dead zone around the endpoint of the line rather than extending it out into the 12th and 13th rings.

The rover also appeared on the schematic as a blue square, with two turrets just behind it going out in sequence, expanding the dead zone around it as the now heavily plated machine continued to move forward, but oddly not taking any hits. It had a target sphere, like the turrets, though it required a great deal more stun energy to take down, and in the past weeks the other trainee pairs had begun hitting it at range so as to accumulate enough stun to knock it out before it could get in a position to seriously curtail their advance.

Suddenly three of the turret screens showed a blur of white uniform jump out of cover then race off camera…only to show up on two more screens for a split second. Those turrets still on auto tracked in the direction of the movement, while the trainer controlled ones remained trained on the intercept point of the rover, unable to fire at the blur if they had wanted to.

“What the hell???” the trainer remote-controlling the rover said as his screen suddenly tilted down at an angle towards the floor. “They did something to my camera!”

The head trainer in the room, Franklin, shook his head as his eyes darted from one viewscreen to the next. “It’s not the camera,” he said, finally getting a good view. “One of them is under the rover! Shake it loose!”

The controller accelerated and reversed throttle several times, able to rock his view of the floor and nearby barricade that it was pinned up against, but the front wheels were the only ones contacting the floor and not enough to break it free of the trainee’s grasp, because the squeal of the tires was clearly audible with the video feed.

“I can’t get free!”

“Everyone, target the rover,” Franklin ordered to those in the control room and through the comms to the trainers deployed in the walls. “Try for splash damage.”

One of the snipers in the wall moved his sights off the dead zone of turrets and back to where the rover had stopped, seeing its back end sticking up over the barricade, wheels spinning uselessly. One of the punks must have slithered in behind it and lifted it up off its wheels…now he was hiding underneath the damn machine!

Between the ‘roof’ of the rover and the barricade beside him, the trainee had good cover from the sniper’s position, though he guessed one of the others would have a better shot at his open side, and if he popped his head up even a few inches he’d get nailed. From Jenkins’s position he could clearly see the top of the back left wheel spinning…which gave him an idea. If he could hit the moving wheel, it might spray a bit of the paint down on the trainee, numbing him a bit, maybe enough to cause him to drop the rover.

Figuring it was worth a shot, Jenkins fired three quick blue stingers at the distant wheel, with two missing a few inches high and the third hitting in the center hub and missing the rotating rubber. He cursed the design change they’d made from treads to wheels after the trainees had jammed one of their rifles into the treads to stop the thing…now the six wheels didn’t have enough individual power to pull the rover down off its hoist, whereas he figured the original treads might have.

Jenkins fired another two shots, with one of them marking the tire with a blue splash. He didn’t have time to see if it flicked any paint before two stingers hit the wall slit he was firing from, one bisecting on the edge and the other flying straight through and hitting him in the shoulder. He fell backwards out of his niche and hit the ground butt first in the tiny hallway that ringed the course, connecting all the bunker cubicles so the trainers could reposition at will.

“Damn it,” he swore in a whisper. The rover heist had been nothing more than a distraction!

Unable to feel his right arm at all, Jenkins threw his sniper rifle aside with his left and tried to sit up, but found his balance lacking with half his torso numb. He tried to roll over to his left side as a giant black hand reached down and grabbed him by the collar of his uniform and hauled him up into a sitting position against the back wall.

“Thanks,” Jenkins muttered as the Black Knight stepped over him and continued on down the hallway towards one of the hidden entrances.

Paul stood on his knees underneath the rover with his left shoulder tucked up against the barricade, trying to make his body as small as possible as the machine was continuously pelted with stingers, so much so that the paint was beginning to drip down off the sides. He held the rover aloft with a firm grip on the underside just behind the aft armored panel, placing his balled fists up into the gap and using the extended metallic plate like a bumper to hold it in place as the front tires spun back and forth trying to break his grip. The rover should have been seamlessly plated underneath as well…yet one more design flaw that Paul was happy to exploit.

He knew that as long as the paint was flying his way, Jason would be hunting the snipers in the walls, now that they were only four rings away. His partner couldn’t take down any of the turrets without his help, but once the snipers were out of the picture he could flip the rover over and leave them nothing but the predictable turrets to deal with…which would mean they’d be all but home free.

Then something he didn’t expect happened…the turrets and snipers stopped firing on the rover.

For a moment he thought they’d caught on to their gambit, but that didn’t explain why all the turrets had turned off him. Some still should have been hitting him, out of range to target Jason…then he realized by the lack of sound that they had stopped firing altogether…

He was facing the underside of the rover with his head pinned so that he couldn’t see anything but the floor when he heard footsteps behind him and a creepy sense of dread arced through his bones. A moment later the rover flew up and off him, flipping over and landing upside down as Paul reflexively rolled to the side and looked up at the armored giant behind him.

The Black Knight had no sword, but he quickly touched his wrists together with the distinctive crackle/pop of a stun charge all but echoing in the chamber.

Paul’s roll never stopped as he flipped over again and got to his feet, running a step and diving over the previous row of barricades, landing in a somersault and rolling up into a run, not even thinking about the turrets. He got four full length strides in before he felt something hard hit the small of his back and he blacked out…

Paul came to looking up into the face of a med tech as the denumbing injection spread throughout his blood stream and soaked up the lingering stun charge, leaving his back just a little bit tingly.

“Any injuries?” the medic asked.

“No,” Paul said, sitting up and shaking off the haze. Every time he woke up from getting stunned it felt like he was coming out of a deep, dreamy sleep leaving reality a bit fragmented. He blinked a few times and his head cleared. “Thanks,” he offered.

“Been a while,” the medic said chattily. “You guys used to keep us pretty busy, but now it’s mostly the other group. I thought the big guy only hit you during team challenges?”

“So did we,” Paul said, getting to his feet and walking over to where Jason was laying unconscious. The medic followed him over and quickly injected his teammate with the quick release dart-pen that seemed to never leave a mark. Jason jerked a moment later, snapping out of his stun-induced haze quicker than Paul had. He blinked away the grogginess then his gaze froze as he mentally backtracked through what had just happened.

He looked up at Paul as his teammate offered him a hand. “I really hate that son of a bitch.”

4

Twelve days later…

“Third wave incoming,” Paul said into his headset as he toggled the navigational controls in the simulation pod.

Jason looked at his radar screen, guessing as to the type of craft deploying against their single warship. A distant dot had appeared at the edge of the engagement zone then quickly began to expand into a cloud of smaller dots.

“Looks like drones,” he said, inputting new targeting parameters into fire control.

“Yep,” Paul answered, adjusting the line of their small warship to point directly into the approaching swarm. “Try and split them up.”

“Already on it,” Jason said, aligning the primary rail gun. He aimed in the center of the formation and fired off a pair of medium rounds in sequence.

Both missed the tiny attack cubes, nothing more than a casing, engine, and laser mount controlled by either the onboard computer or remote uplink. On cue, the drone swarm drifted away from the firing path, turning their sphere into a donut as they sped toward the warship.

Jason fired off several more rounds, counting on the predictable computer responses as the drones attempted to flank their opposition, allowing him to somewhat reposition their enemy before they came within effective laser range.

“Go,” he said, forgetting about the rail run and prepping their missiles racks…which for this challenge contained infinite ammunition.

Paul, controlling the helm, accelerated their warship to starboard and cut diagonally across the drones approach vector, causing them to shift course and effectively line up in chunks rather than being able to attack simultaneously. He would have preferred to accelerate away from them, further delaying their approach and making them easier to pick apart, but there was a range limit to the battlefield and passing through it would result in immediate disqualification.

So without the ability to stretch things out, Paul did the next best thing…he brought the ship to a full stop, allowed Jason to fire off another rail gun salvo, then accelerated hard towards the incoming swarm, making the time span of the upcoming pass by shorter.

One of the tiny dots on the radar winked out as the metallic slugs cored straight through the staggered clumps of drones, but it was little more than a lucky hit. In order to take them out they were going to have to go in close…and with an elapsed time bonus for the challenge at play, the enemy computer wasn’t going to give them time to set up and think about it.

“Belly first,” Paul said, finally cutting thrust and flipping the rectangular ship up on its tail as Jason pulled up the ventral mounted laser turrets while leaving the others on autofire, hopefully hitting some of the drones as they passed by.

A few insignificant hits registered on the warship’s armor…the drones firing outside effective range, with the beams losing cohesion and doing little more than warming a large area of the hull or being harmlessly deflected. Jason didn’t bother returning fire at this range, even with his medium lasers and their extended range it was going to be difficult to target the smaller ships, while their cutter stood out like a big fat target.

Instead he waited until the first of them crossed a perimeter line on his radar, then fired off a cluster of missiles towards the formation, already programmed to home in on any proximity targets after moving a pre-specified distance away from their own ship.

“Move,” Jason said, synching up three laser batteries into one targeting reticule.

Paul was already a split second away from hitting the throttle, and quickly sent the ship upwards, then used their thrusters to set it spinning slightly, but still belly down to the line of attack, given that the dorsal side of the ship had received damage during the second round, and the reflective panels covering the armor had been shattered.

The panels on the belly were as yet untouched, giving Paul and Jason their best chance at defense against an all laser attack, though there were still unprotected spots on the hull where the mirror-like panels didn’t cover. Those areas were still caked with thick armor, but the lasers would eat into them with successive hits, and with the point of this last naval challenge being to survive as long as possible, every action they took would affect the odds of their success.

Which was why Paul had begun slowly spinning the ship around its vertical axis, making it harder for the drones to target the non-reflective areas or weapons batteries. The damage on the opposite side of the ship had come from missile attacks, most of which had been shot down in transit thanks to Jason’s hot gunnery hand, but a few had gotten through and shattered most of the mirrors, opening up the top of the ship to laser attacks.

The reason Paul had split up the attackers was to keep the lot of them from surrounding the ship and attacking them on the weak side, as well as to hopefully target and kill a few before the others arrived, minimizing the number of laser strikes on them at any given moment.

Jason fired off a second group of missiles then waited patiently for them to shrink on his targeting screen. When they did, he began taking long range shots around the edges of the missiles as the first group hit pay dirt.

The missiles broke formation and tracked individual targets…some actually seeking the same ones, which worked out when the first would miss and the second could still down the target, but it was downright wasteful when one missile would explode on target and take out another at the same time.

Paul had requested a redesign months ago, interlinking the missiles through short range signals so they could each tag a target of their own that the others would ignore, but so far the Star Force weapons techs hadn’t been able to construct an actual system…which meant they couldn’t use one in the simulations. Everything the trainees had to work with had to be real, and the techs’ slowness in fabrication had become an annoyance to both Paul and several other navally-innovative trainees.

He’d requested a lot of other equipment changes and theoretical applications, but only a few had made their way back to them in the recent months, but what wore on Paul the most was his current inability to come up with a viable defense against the rail guns. He knew there had to be a way, and while he and the others had developed ways of defending against missiles, and to a lesser extent the lasers, the rail guns remained a problem.

Fortunately the first three waves of this challenge hadn’t deployed rail guns this time around. They were tailored for difficulty, but as far as weapons systems were concerned, it was random. This was Paul and Jason’s fifth and probably final attempt, having lightly attempted a run the first two times just to feel it out, then hitting it heavy the third time around and not getting the points they wanted. They’d trimmed things up the fourth time, but felt they’d gotten a bit unlucky so they’d scheduled this late night last attempt while most of their fellow trainees had already finished all of their Tandem challenges.

Morgan was still leading Paul by 354 points in the individual competition, and it was unlikely, but not impossible, for Paul to catch up if they really nailed this challenge, but more than that it was eluding the dynamic duo’s ease of success at the previous four naval Tandem challenges that had secured their top pair status by a huge margin and had brought Paul tediously close to Morgan after two and a half years of challenges…not to mention putting the icing on the cake for the team scores, which the 2s had realistically clenched a few weeks ago.

It was a matter of pride that brought the pair back for a 5th go around…and the fact that they were only the 2nd highest score on the challenge, a full 52 points behind Greg and Nevil, the latter of which was ranked 3rd in the naval subcategory and often provided Paul with a competitive challenge…but nothing that he hadn’t been able to overcome with sufficient prep time.

Paul watched on the viewscreen as blossoms of distant shrapnel exploded, taking many of the dots on the radar with them, leaving a few stragglers on the wings that managed to elude the second wave of missiles that passed between them. Jason immediately went after them, and took down all but two before the missiles detonated and similarly shook up the next clump of drones.

With the enemy thinned out, Jason’s three linked lasers took down each drone usually with one shot…he rarely missed, but with the ship spinning and the drones moving about erratically as they approached, the task was giving him all he could handle.

“Hang on,” Paul said, readying the helm controls again as he watched the positions alter on his navigational display. “We’re rolling up and over.”

“Copy that,” Jason said with an odd voice, having slipped into the ‘zone’ that most of the better gunners had seemed to develop. Paul’s scores didn’t quite put him in the elite ranks in that category, but knew how important maintaining one’s focus was when trying to track and target multiple moving targets.

Using a combination of engines and thrusters, Paul moved the ship up and began tilting forward, as if rounding a giant circle with the drones at the center, allowing the closest ones to pass underneath at a distance without getting a good shot at their aft and being able to immediately flank them…meaning a few more seconds of survival time, as well as an opportunity to down more of them before they got into the swarming frenzy that made the little machines so dangerous at close range.

Jason was intent on keeping that from happening and continued to thin the herd as the other clumps approached. They were too close now for the missiles on the proximity setting, and he didn’t have time to reset them, but even if he did he wouldn’t have wanted to take his hands off the joystick and trigger because he was in the middle of racking up an impressive kill score.

Paul flew a lazy course, not disrupting Jason’s firing any more than necessary but keeping the drones off balance as much as he could. His mind meanwhile was split between the simple maneuvering and the overall battle as he watched their ship take several armor hits along the edges of the reflective panels, some of which blew out pieces on the edge when the armor underneath superheated, thus diminishing the overall coverage of the mirrors.

It was minor damage, but it was gradually adding up…though it would have been catastrophic by now without the redirects the mirrors were causing. Neither Paul nor Jason could see the bounces, invisible as they were, but Paul did notice when two of the drones were hit by their own weapons…or rather those of their allies that erratically reflected off the cutter and turned into friendly fire.

Offhandedly Paul wondered about the possibility of creating mobile plates that could intentionally redirect larger, ship-fired laser shots towards enemy targets…then stuffed the idea into the back of his mind as he made another course correction.

“They’re getting behind us,” Paul noted through the comm to Jason, who was sitting in a simulation pod beside his.

“Don’t let them get our engines!” Jason said, yelling without realizing it. “I only need another minute.”

“Flipping forward,” Paul said as he lifted the aft of the ship up with thrusters, making it harder for the flankers to shoot into their engine vents, all the while bringing the dorsal laser turrets into range of the last arriving drones. The autofire setting immediately tracked those closest and fired off a few shots, half of which missed. Those that didn’t wounded several drones, but didn’t kill any of them right off, lacking the triple power of Jason’s linked guns.

Paul resisted the urge to kick the console in front of him. He could have easily flown and fired at the same time…not as effectively as a dedicated gunner, but enough to contribute to the fight. The rules of this challenge, however, specified one pilot and one gunner, without the ability to share duties. They had to trust each other to take care of their part of the operation, and while Paul definitely trusted Jason, he really wished he could help him out with fire control.

One of the aft batteries, a small laser mount on autofire, went dark on Paul’s display, meaning it had been hit and incapacitated, if not destroyed. That didn’t affect Jason at the moment, but it was yet one more wound their warship took that they wouldn’t be able to repair or replace. Paul tilted the ship aside slightly, trying to bring the other aft turret away from a direct line of fire, because the last thing they wanted was a dead zone in which an enemy could hide and attack them from with impunity.

But true to his word, Jason finished off the last of the drones with a bit of piloting magic from Paul, who rotated the ship around methodically so Jason could target the widely placed drones with his linked guns, some of which had already been wounded by the autofire batteries.

As soon as the last drone vanished from the radar screen, three new dots appeared at the edge of the engagement zone…three large dots.

“Wave four,” Paul noted, repositioning their wounded warship to display the minimum cross section as three rail gun rounds appeared, one from each ship, tracking their way at insanely high speed.

5

Knowing that the rounds were purely ballistic, Paul used the warship’s thrusters for a hard burn upwards, drifting the ship out of line from where it had been and allowing the rounds to pass perilously close by underneath. Fortunately none of them had missed high, otherwise they would have flown right into them.

“Get me a shot,” Jason said over the comlink, and Paul reluctantly cut out the thrusters after pointing the nose of the craft towards the middle ship, which was now accelerating towards them. A moment later a medium round shot out from the prow in the blink of an eye, soon joined by three more coming in from the enemy.

Paul didn’t wait to give Jason a second shot, he immediately hit the thrusters hard to starboard, hoping to pop the ship out of alignment again as he belatedly noticed their round hit the center ship. The computer projected damage had a large hole punched into the nose of the larger warship, taking out various weapon systems, including its primary rail gun, but it wasn’t a kill shot, leaving the ship still in the fight and now drifting closer to them with every second that passed.

One of the enemy’s rounds nicked the underside of their warship, tearing a computer simulated scratch down the hull but not hitting anything more than the armor…though most of the reflective panels were shattered by the impact, taking away most of their remaining anti-laser defense.

“Shoot when able,” Paul said, knowing they were cutting it too close as he kicked in the engines and turned them to starboard. With every second that passed the enemy was getting closer…meaning their rail gun rounds would have less travel time and more accuracy. Paul wouldn’t be able to dance the ship around to avoid them in time with the thrusters alone, so he had to get the ship pointed in a lateral direction so that he could use the main thrust for evasive maneuvers, which unfortunately took their rail gun battery out of alignment.

Unable to fire, Jason used the time to start reprogramming their missiles, or rather unprogramming them, into shipboard target lock as two of the warships jumped out ahead of the wounded third.

Sensing the opportunity immediately, Paul adjusted their course and swung them around so that they were actually traveling backwards at an angle, cutting across the path of the approaching ships even as they adjusted to match them, increasing the distance between themselves and the wounded ship while still flying a continually erratic course.

More rail gun rounds from the two ships continued to track towards and miss the trainees’ warship, due to the fact that the computer was calculating where their ship would be at the moment they fired, using their speed and trajectory to plot an intercept point, but by continually adding thrust in different directions the equations were changing constantly, and once fired the enemy had no way to adjust to Paul’s new heading.

That said, they weren’t missing by much. Their warship was small, but it was still a floating multi-ton hunk of metal and not exactly graceful. Moving it out of alignment required a massive amount of thrust, and thankfully for this challenge they were also afforded infinite fuel, because at the rate Paul was moving them around they would have run out within minutes.

As Paul continued to dance the ship around while trying to delay the closure of the approaching ships a barrage of tiny missiles shot out from port then vanished as he moved the ship again, but on radar he saw the swarm track towards the starboard enemy ship and begin to thin as its anti-missile defenses activated. He saw some wink out unpredictably…meaning laser hits, while others were met by fast moving anti-missile missiles.

The intercepts took out about a third as many as the lasers, but Jason had launched so many that some still got through and hammered the enemy ship. While Paul continued to fly evasively, Jason pulled up a closer diagram of the radar image and confirmed that at least some of the ship’s weapons batteries had been destroyed. They didn’t have a status diagram of the enemy as they did their own ship, but some of the obvious protrusions on the hull had disappeared.

“Nice shot,” Paul said approvingly.

“Just keep us moving,” Jason reminded him as he prepped the short range rail guns. “One lucky hit and we’re toast.”

“Believe me, I know,” Paul said, wrenching the flying controls as he tried to eek every bit of maneuverability he had out of the warship as the enemy continued to close…but fortunately, while that made their rail guns all the more dangerous, it also took them out of alignment, because as far as angular transition was concerned, Paul could fly across their firing arcs much faster at closer range, and since the rail guns had very little of their firing arc to ‘aim’ with, as long as Paul kept them off the enemy’s forward bowline they wouldn’t be able to hit them.

And given that they were in a smaller, more maneuverable ship that made the task somewhat doable.

The trick was crossing the medium distance gap which was, in their case, the worst of both worlds, so Paul tried to fly in something approximating a flanking circle while still being somewhat unpredictable, yet he did manage to get the firing line of the port ship to cross the other, at which point Jason fired off the small rail guns in their direction.

The Gatling guns were designed for short range and notoriously inaccurate at distance, used primarily as an anti-missile defense or for point blank carnage, but with both enemy ships in approximately the same position Jason took a wild shot and spat out over 300 rounds with one slow pull of the trigger. The elongated cloud of metallic shards expanded until it was wider than both ships combined with the closer one taking a few dozen hits, while the partially blocked one took only four impacts.

No major systems went down, but each round did chew up a bit of armor, as well as break the anti-laser reflective panels, opening up firing opportunities for Jason’s lasers if and when they ever got close enough…which was going to happen soon because the engagement zone boundary was beginning to creep up on them, though Paul was doing a good job trying to laterally skirt around it.

By the time the ships did come within range, Paul had their trajectory totally reversed and heading back towards the opposite end of the spherical zone where the enemy had first appeared, causing the intercept to happen to port, meaning their rail gun was woefully out of play. The enemy ships, however, kept firing off rounds and missing until both ships blossomed with missile plumes that arced toward Paul and Jason’s ship like a fireworks display on the 4th of July.

Paul immediately kicked the engines into full throttle and adjusted their trajectory so the missiles were more or less coming at them from the aft. Jason only had one turret back there to work with, but he knew he had to negate some of their incoming speed or else they’d overwhelm their ship’s defenses.

Jason launched a wave of their own intercepts, then used the laser turret to start sniping at the approaching missiles which didn’t appear to move much at all when flying at them straight on…the trick was to hit them all before they could cross the gap.

“I need more than this,” Jason said, firing frantically.

“Five seconds,” Paul said, wanting to eke out a bit more speed…then he cut engines and used thrusters to flip the ship up on its side, bringing the bulk of their weaponry into play.

Jason’s targeting display immediately linked another laser battery to his current one, as well as linking another two which he controlled with the second joystick, while the rest went on autofire mode, as did the small rail guns that began spewing thousands of rounds in the general direction of the approaching missiles, hoping for a lucky hit.

While Paul couldn’t see it from his pod, Jason was masterfully using two targeting reticules at the same time to shoot down the approaching missiles, which was one of several reasons why he was the better gunner of the pair. Two hands, two joysticks, and one mind that had previously learned how to multitask in a target-rich environment had two little icons dancing around the screen firing at the approaching missiles and downing them with incredible speed…and with Paul’s hasty course correction effectively slowing down their approach, Jason and the ship’s computer managed to take all of them out.

That left them tracking back towards the damaged enemy warship with the other two now in pursuit.

Paul maneuvered them directly on the line connecting the enemy ships…which caused all rail gun fire to suddenly stop.

“Sweet,” Jason commented as he grasped the tactic. The enemy was afraid of friendly fire and had to reposition before risking another shot. They, however, didn’t have that problem and Jason toggled their own rail gun controls. “Target the rear ships,” he suggested.

Smiling at the suggestion, Paul flipped them over, swapping nose for tail, then began making micro-corrections as the enemy ships tried to slip out of line, but he kept them blocking the view of their sister ship up until they finally got the idea to split up, making it impossible for Paul to block both lines.

But it was too late. Jason had already fired off four rounds, three of which hit the rightmost ship and took it out of the fight…leaving a cratered and broken hull surrounded by a halo of debris.

With it out of the equation, Paul had little trouble staying on the targeting line with the second ship, which Jason also destroyed with more of their infinite rail gun slugs. One advantage they had was that the enemy ships had ammo limits and they did not…but then again, the enemy had unlimited ships, so all in all, they were still screwed.

Before Paul could flip the ship back over, the wounded enemy fired off a missile barrage. Jason barely got to it in time, given that their speed was actually adding to that of the missiles, and one managed to slip through…blasting a huge hole in the upper starboard armor, but failing to penetrate the hull, thankfully. Dying of simulated decompression while your weapons and engines were still intact was just plain annoying.

Paul noted several damage spots popping up on the hull, meaning laser impacts. The medium grade lasers the enemy was using were identical to the ones on their cutter, and given enough opportunity could cut through their unshielded armor within a minute if continuously targeting the same spot on the hull.

But the medium lasers were pea shooters compared to the rail guns, so when Paul got the ship aligned with the target Jason quickly finished it off with an accurately placed 3-round salvo down the centerline of the ship.

Immediately one large dot appeared on the edge of the engagement zone behind them.

“Wave five,” Paul noted with a measure of relief. They’d never gotten this far before.

Suddenly the large dot started spewing tiny dots that lined up into V-like formations.

“Oh crap,” Paul said to himself, realizing that the huge ship was in fact a carrier.

Jason realized the trouble they were in as soon as Paul did. “Go for the big one,” he urged.

“Right,” Paul agreed, seeing his teammate’s wisdom. If they were going for maximum points, go for the big target that can’t dance around and evade their rail guns…question was if they could even get close enough to it.

By the time Paul had the ship turned around and headed for the carrier the 24 fighters were already a third of the distance to them, armed with enough missiles to take them out on a single pass as well as a pair of small lasers for utility work if the explosives weren’t enough to do the job.

Seeing that they weren’t going to even get close, Jason started firing off rail gun slugs as fast as he could, aiming at and around the target, hoping for a lucky long range hit. Even if they did some damage to the ship it would increase their point total, though it would probably take at least a dozen shots to kill it, if not more.

Needing to keep a straight line to the carrier for Jason to target, Paul couldn’t so much as touch a thruster without throwing off his aim, so he sat helplessly and watched to see how this challenge would finish out…

6

Morgan sat in the trainees’ lounge along with most of the others enjoying some rare downtime as they waited for the last challenges to be completed, having nothing else to do today since she’d officially turned in her ‘finish’ notice to the trainers, indicating that she wasn’t going to attempt any more retries to up her score. While part of her didn’t like quitting early, she knew that technically there was no end to it all, and she could continue to work and improve her scores from now till infinity.

Given that she and the others had passed all the required challenges a week ago, and most of the trainees had finished immediately rather than try and go back again for what, at this point, would have been useless gains as far as the rankings were concerned. Only a few of them were close enough in the individual lists to realistically overtake one another, and the team gaps were even wider, though the 6s were perilously close to the 7s for second place, but without a new challenge to earn more points in there was no way they were going to scrape up enough on redos to catch up in the next few weeks, and all of the trainees wanted to move on to what the trainers had called ‘The Final Challenge.’

It wasn’t for points…individual, team, or tandem, but they hadn’t been given any other information about it. They were supposed to enter it blind and, if they passed, graduate at the completion. Morgan was more than interested in tackling what was due to be probably the toughest hurdle the trainers had thrown at them yet, but she was still focused on winning the individual title, and while watching a movie on one of the big screen displays in the lounge kept checking a small data pad in her lap for the updated challenge scores.

When Paul and Jason’s naval score was updated, she half smiled/half cringed. They’d succeeded in attaining the high score on the challenge and Paul had cut her point lead over him by more than half…down to a mere 134 points. That was still a solid lead though, but not altogether impossible to overcome, especially not with Paul’s skills, but she was beginning to sense that he wasn’t going to be able to catch up, given that their score was now on par with their other four naval challenges, as far as the point differential over their competitors was concerned.

If Paul was going to catch her, they were going to have to redo this one again and do it far better or redo all five with modest improvements. She didn’t think that was likely, but a part of her didn’t feel right ruling it out either. They’d been accumulating points for two and a half years, and with only 134 between them now…well, if it had been the other way around Morgan definitely would have been going back for more redos, at least for an extra week, maybe two.

That wasn’t going to happen, however, because less than a minute after their score was posted the individual rankings suddenly crystallized…meaning they changed over to glossy blue numbers, signifying that the competition was over. So did the Tandem and team scores.

Morgan blew out a slow breath, realizing that not only Paul and Jason had entered their finish notices, but the rest of the trainees had too…and she had officially just become sole owner of the individual #1 ranking.

She giggled to herself quietly, not really sure what to think, then just forced herself to relax and enjoy the moment. Mission accomplished.

That lasted all of five seconds, before her mind put it aside, as she did all her successes, and focused on the next step ahead. Morgan leaned back in her cushy chair a bit farther, settled in and watched the movie without paying much attention as her mind leapt ahead to the possible scenarios the trainers might have planned for them. The fact that they weren’t telling them anything made her all the more curious, and she found herself getting more anxious by the moment to find out exactly what this Final Challenge was going to be.

Paul and Jason returned to their quarters after an abnormally large Halo tournament in the lounge which lasted a good five hours and saw the 4s come out on tops, but that hadn’t really been the point. They were all making the transition out of the training cycle they’d been enduring for what seemed like the past 10 centuries…high school felt like another life to Paul, which technically it was, given how much he’d learned and developed since then. His body was far fitter and his mind far sharper than he’d ever imagined possible, but it still seemed odd that if he had gone ahead to college he’d only have been a second semester junior by now…that just seemed all kinds of wrong.

He’d kept in touch with his family and a few of his friends via video messaging and a few chats when he had the time…he was, after all, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and several time zones off from Indiana, so downtime for him was sleep time for his parents, but his sister, who was now a college freshman, had a bit more liberal schedule, or lack thereof, and had been available for a few 4 am chats.

They all seemed the same, whereas he had drastically changed, and they’d noticed it too. His old friends were chummy enough, but he found himself disliking their mindsets and habits…belatedly realizing that he’d been the same way prior to joining Star Force, which didn’t sit well with him. They had no sense of purpose, no mission, no nothing…their lives revolved around jokes, partying, and basically nothing all wrapped up in what they thought was a very hilarious and entertaining existence.

It now seemed petty, boring, and disgusting to Paul, though he never let it show. They were his old friends after all, and he was still loyal to them, but he knew that they wouldn’t be hanging out if and when he ever got back home. His family too seemed…dull. He was fond of them, especially his sister, but the truth was he had outgrown them, and that wasn’t something he had expected to have happen.

He didn’t regret it…not at all. He loved what he was doing and the growth he had attained, but oddly he felt sorry for them. As if their lives were empty, hollow…or maybe shallow was the word. He knew in an instant that he could never go back to that lifestyle, yet they seemed quite content with it, even happy.

Happy now seemed like a foreign concept to Paul. Everything revolved around what needed to be done, and ‘happy’ didn’t have parameters which could be studied or defined. It was abstract, and the one thing Star Force didn’t deal with was the abstract. They made a point of taking concepts that appeared abstract and breaking them down into tangible components. Everything had a reason, a function, a place in the universe. What was confusing, simply had yet to be understood. There were no paradoxes, simply a lack of sufficient logic. Mysteries were to be unraveled, questions were to be answered. The sheer idea of asking a question without wanting to know the answer now baffled Paul, whereas in the past it hadn’t.

As he thought through this and other things laying on his bed back in his quarters that night, one question above all kept popping into mind, hilariously so.

What’s your favorite color???

It was such a simple question, but one without an answer. In the past he would have said ‘clear’ just to be a smart ass, but to be honest he never really had a favorite color, or food, or music…everything had its own value, some better for some circumstances and not so much in others. That simplistic viewpoint that he seemed to have been born with had been honed into an analytical weapon by Star Force, so much so that the question now bothered him. What was a ‘favorite’ anyway? How do you define a ‘favorite?’

It was a nonsensical term, as many others were in mainstream society. ‘Opinion’ was another. What the hell was it, really? If it’s not rooted in facts, what’s the point? Like a favorite color, a person can have an opinion on anything with no reason at all…and if there is no reason behind it, isn’t it then, by definition, pointless?

Then again, Paul did have ‘favorites’ but those always had an underlying reason. His favorite weapon, favorite shirt, favorite shoes, favorite game…each of which he could describe the functional benefits of and how they were better than the other options, but the idea of having a ‘favorite’ with no rhyme or reason just annoyed the hell out of him.

By the end of the night he had traced the annoyance back to its source…with it being how much of Human society were liars, and how that deceit had infected virtually everything it touched. Politics, education, religion, sports, science…most of it was based on lies, dressed up as ‘opinion’ in one form or another, which led to…absolutely nothing. It angered Paul the most to realize that all the problems with society and his country that he’d grown up with being labeled ‘unfixable’ actually had simplistic solutions. People simply didn’t want to solve the problems, because it meant taking a long hard look in the mirror and seeing the truth for what it was…because only once you had the truth could you break down the problem and start to work the angles.

Paul also began to see, for the first time, how different Star Force was from the rest of the planet. Davis had created it from scratch and accomplished things that everyone else had declared impossible, whether it be economically, financially, or politically…and he’d proved them wrong time and again simply by studying the problem, breaking it down, and addressing each piece of the puzzle.

Which is what everyone else should have been doing…but they didn’t, and now that Paul could see that, it galled him how pathetic Earth really was. They were fighting an impossible fight, just hoping to be able to survive against an enemy that could wipe them out in the blink of an eye if they so chose, and Earth society was so inept that they were bickering over imaginary problems that could never be solved…but ones that an open minded 3 year old could see through.

People seemed to not only be the victims of liars and cheats, but complicit in the corruption at some level. It was like they knew, subconsciously at least, that what they were espousing wasn’t true because they deliberately avoided situations where their assertions would be busted…but in order to avoid them they had to know they existed, and if they knew they existed why hadn’t they junked their obviously erroneous notions?

Paul had to conclude that people wanted the lies because it allowed them to gain power, leverage, or self-delusion of some kind which they found advantageous.

His own family wasn’t excluded from it either. His mom especially, who more often than not would complain about her weight and how bad sugar-rich foods were messing up her body…then she’d go out and eat more of them, only to complain again later. If they were bad for you, then why would you eat them at all?

Once Paul had begun to learn a lot more about training and how the body actually worked he broached the subject with his mom during one of their video chats when she offhandedly complained about how chocolate was a hideous creation that was making her current diet a nightmare. Paul quickly broke down the problem for her, explaining how the food wasn’t important, but rather the metabolic balance had to be corrected before the excess weight would come off. He went on to tell her how much sugar-rich foods he consumed per day, citing that if that was really the problem he would be the size of a house by now.

The response he got was depressing. His mom totally blew off his comments, recited some quips about him understanding when he got older, then changed the subject, which really annoyed Paul, almost to the point of anger. If she really felt there was a problem worth talking about, why wasn’t she seeking a solution? He’d just given it to her on a silver platter and she’d rejected it as foolishness…no, worse than that, she’d completely dodged. If she thought he was wrong she would have argued the point, but by dodging it meant she knew that she was wrong, yet still stuck to the position that chocolate was evil and causing all her problems.

Looking back on things, Paul realized she had always been that way, he’d just never thought it all the way through before…and that saddened him. He could feel a wide gap between himself and his family forming, and in a way it felt like he was losing them, but there was no way to go back and unlearn what he had learned, nor did he want to. He wanted to help them, share his new skills and knowledge, but they didn’t really want it.

On some level he accepted that it was their choice and their lives to live out the way they wanted, but he was also loyal to them and didn’t want to stand by and watch them come to harm. After all, he was training to fight a war to save the planet…why should he potentially lose his mom to a heart attack over the villainization of chocolate?

 She wasn’t really fat, though. She just liked to complain, so there wasn’t any immediate health problems, but if she and his dad and sister, let alone all his other relatives, weren’t training and instead leading stagnant lives it would kill them eventually…so logically Paul should be able to solve the problem by teaching them how to train.

Problem was, they seemed to like things as they were, and even though this whole conversation was mainly between Paul and himself, he knew that they wouldn’t listen to him even if he flew back to Indiana and gave each and every one of them a thorough lecture on the realities of life and how they needed to change things ASAP.

How do you save someone who sabotages themself? Because then they are their own enemy, and you can’t destroy that which you are trying to save.

That question was one that had been gnawing at Paul for some time, and only now really crystallized in his mind. It sickened him that he had at least some of the answers to the problems that the people he cared about needed…but they didn’t want to hear them.

He figured it was the same basic problem that Star Force faced when dealing with the various nations on the planet…they had the ability to help them solve a number of problems, both in space and on the surface, but politics always seemed to get in the way, and he wondered if the various countries really wanted to solve the problems their populations faced, or if they were only interested in paying lip service to garner…whatever. He didn’t care about learning the ways of the corrupt, he was a problem solver, and while one needed to acknowledge that stupidity existed, trying to find a logical reason for it was the ultimate paradox.

But then again, paradoxes could be solved, so a part of him could never quite give up on stupid people.

He was realizing, as he lay in bed starting to drift off to sleep, that his biological family was no longer his real family. He had become part of Star Force, more than just signing a contract and working a ‘job.’ They were united in the quest to save the planet, and his teammates had shown themselves to be more like Paul than his own parents and sister were, and while he would never completely give up on them, he was grateful to have found his real family and his real peers.

And for that, he owed Davis big time.

7

When Paul woke up the next day he got in a morning run, showered, ate breakfast, then met up with the rest of the trainees in the same amphitheater that they’d met up in their first day in Atlantis, when Davis had explained the threat of the V’kit’no’sat and how they were to be the tip of the spear in Earth’s resistance, and hopefully survival, against the implacable enemy. Now they were assembled again, but it wasn’t Davis that was at the podium, it was Wilson.

The head trainer stood alone, which was odd. During previous briefings he was almost always accompanied by two or three other trainers.

“Today you begin your final challenge, but unlike all the others, this one will not be scored…it will not be retried…you have one and only one opportunity to succeed.”

That immediately set the trainees on edge. Everything they had been put through prior to now had been based off a learning model, where failure was expected multiple times as one adapted to the challenge at hand. A zero-tolerance approach was something completely different for them, and it worried Paul immediately.

What would happen if they didn’t pass? Would they wash out after two and a half years of work, all because of one challenge? That didn’t feel right at all.

“You begin now,” Wilson said, surprising everyone as he tapped a key on the podium and a hidden half door opened beneath the viewscreens behind him, sliding aside to review a one meter high dimly lit interior room or tunnel, Paul couldn’t be sure which.

“Battle can come at any time, any place, under any circumstances. You must be ready and able to improvise on the spot if you are to survive, and now is no exception. Form a line on the stage, you must go through individually.”

Paul exchanged glances with Jason as they stood. Neither of them understood what this was all about, but they did as instructed and filed up on stage behind eight of the others while the rest waited in the seats for room to clear.

Yori was the first in line, but Wilson held up a hand to stop him as he began to stoop down to crawl through the opening.

“Your mission is to get to the finish. If and when you do, your graduation from this program will be instantaneous. Good luck,” the Olympic gold medalist said, stepping aside to let Yori through.

Paul watched as he disappeared inside and the door closed behind him…a moment later it opened again and Wilson nodded to Tom to proceed.

“Spacing?” Jason wondered.

“I think they’re splitting us up,” Paul whispered back. “A few seconds stagger isn’t worth closing a door for.”

“Whatever it is, keep your eyes open.”

“You think our friend is going to show up?”

“I don’t know…they’re sending us in unequipped,” Jason commented as they moved up the quickly diminishing line wearing only their casual blue striped white uniforms. For challenges they almost always wore skintight bodysuits designed for maximum agility and high durability. Granted, their casual clothes were functional enough but the shoes they wore were little more than enclosed sandals, good enough to lounge around and travel in, but not designed for anything more than that.

“They always want to keep us guessing,” Paul said as he was suddenly third back in line. “And I’m totally drawing a blank on this one.”

“Same here,” Jason said from behind him.

“See you on the other side.”

“Live long and kick ass,” Jason whispered the amended Vulcan farewell as Emily disappeared inside, leaving Paul next in line.

The door slid closed behind her and Paul walked up next to Wilson, eyeing him closely but the man’s expression was stone. Whatever was going on, he wasn’t giving away any hints. When the door slid into the wall again, revealing what Paul now saw as a small tunnel, he stepped down onto his knees and crawled inside, leaving behind the brightly lit amphitheater for the octagonal tunnel with tiny orange running lights.

When the door closed behind him the lights seemed to brighten and he saw that the tunnel dead ended a few meters up. He crawled ahead to a rectangular slab ringed with a solid orange glowing trim. Once his body was completely inside the outline he fell onto his shoulder as the panel abruptly lifted up from the tunnel.

Paul glanced down at his feet and realized that the ceiling had actually been the top of a cubicle, identical in dimension to the tunnel, which was now traveling at high speed to somewhere else in the city. He felt his momentum shift again, this time going laterally as he was knocked against the side of the coffin-like chamber, then after a few more seconds of travel he came to rest with the panel in front of him sliding up to reveal another adjunct to the tunnel.

This one was about the same size as his ‘car’ but inside it on the floor was an opening with an active water pool that dipped down into a sharply descending, enclosed waterslide that led to who knows where.

Paul groaned. “Why did it have to be water?” he mumbled as he twisted about in the narrow tunnel and brought his legs out in front of him, then crab crawled forward into the pool, soaking his shoes and uniform. The water tried to pull him forward, but he kept a firm grasp on the side lips until he was situated, with his calves hanging off into the downspout of the dark tube. The orange running lights in the tunnel were not present in the waterslide.

Paul let go of the sides and was immediately pulled forward. Before he felt himself drop off the edge he leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest with his right hand coming up and pinching close his nose…then he fell down through wet blackness.

He felt several twists and turns, losing his mental placement and having no idea which direction he was traveling…then all of a sudden his butt lost contact with the waterslide and he went air born for a split second before falling feet first into a pool of water.

His head went under, but his feet quickly hit the bottom and he stood up, pushing his head back up above the waterline which ran about even with his armpits. The edge of the pool was outlined in the glowing orange bands that stood out in stark contrast to the otherwise pitch black environment, reminding him a bit of Tron as he pulled himself out of the pool and climbed up onto dry ground, dripping streams of water out of his soaked uniform as he looked around.

His eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, but it still took him a while to define the edges of a circular room with the pool set dead center. No doors or lights were present, and the only illumination in the chamber was the single thread of orange light outlining the water.

The only sound audible was the water spilling out of the waterslide exit in the low ceiling. Paul reached up and touched it less than half a meter above his head. It was smooth and cold to the touch, having no texture or definition of any kind. He let his fingers linger there as he walked forward and found the wall, where the ceiling curved down through the transition without any seam.

Paul walked around the circumference of the room once, hand on the wall the entire time but coming into contact with nothing…not a door, window, switch, ridge, or bump. The room was entirely smooth, with no apparent way out. He made two more circuits, feeling low then high, but still came up with nothing.

Then he eyed the pool of water.

Figuring that was the only place left to look, Paul walked over to the edge and laid down on his stomach, bringing his eyes directly over the illumination strip which now seemed painfully bright only a few inches away.  He felt beneath the waterline along the inside of the wall until he noticed a tiny bright spot underneath the falling water. At first he thought it was just a reflection from the edge lights, but after a moment of scrutiny decided it was too constant to be from the churning water and gave it a closer look.

Paul slid around the side of the pool, trying to get some parallax on the source and quickly confirmed it wasn’t a random reflection, but rather a small light on the bottom of the pool hidden underneath the waterfall coming down from the ceiling. Too far to reach down from the edge, Paul hopped back into the pool and, holding his nose, ducked underneath the falling water and felt around the bottom of the pool.

Where the light was he felt a bump…a soft bump. He pressed down on it and felt a click through the rubbery coating…then a ring of light lit up the wall of the pool a meter away as a hidden panel retracted, revealing an underwater passage.

Paul looked down it for a few seconds then returned to the surface, caught another breath of air, then ducked back under and began swimming down the tunnel towards a bright light at the end.

He emerged on the other side in another pool, this one just as shallow but surrounded by bright white ceiling lights, causing him to blink away the excessive light as he coughed some water out of his airways. Paul stood in the pool for a moment to get his bearings, noticing a different geometry to the room.

It was square rather than round, and fortunately had a standard door at the far end of the rectangle, but otherwise it was completely barren.

Paul climbed out of the water and dripped his way over to the door, first listening for any activity on the other side. When he heard nothing he cautiously pulled open the latch and peeked through.

There was nothing to see. Opposite his position was a meter and a half of air then a flat wall.

Paul poked his head outside and glanced left and right, seeing a narrow hallway in each direction, dead ending in what looked like turns.

“Hmmn,” he mumbled, stepping into the hall and exploring to the left. Where the hall ended it actually branched out to the right. He backtracked the other direction and found a T-junction leading to other small hallways which also dead ended.

“Get to the finish,” Paul repeated Wilson’s final instruction. “I’m in a maze,” he deduced, glancing up at the bright white lights in the ceiling. “At least it’s a lighted one.”

As he stood a small pool of water was beginning to form at his feet, which annoyed him. Why in the world had they needed to dunk him in water to navigate a…

Paul did a double take at the water near his feet...and the trail of beads heading back to the pool room.

“Genius,” he declared, heading off through the branching hallways.

8

It took Paul over an hour to initially navigate the maze, and to make matters worse the ‘exit’ was actually a locked door that required keycard access. He was lucky enough to have stumbled across the red and yellow keycards during his wanderings, but the door had slots for five cards…meaning he’d had to go back into the claustrophobic labyrinth to hunt down the others.

The odd thing was, he’d accidentally stumbled across a 6th green keycard stashed in a hidden panel just above eye level. It stood out because of the small grooves, hardly noticeable save for the fact that the rest of the walls were perfectly smooth. The other keycards he had found lying on the ground in obscure dead ends.

On his way back out he got lost twice, but came across enough of his strategically placed puddles to find his way again and ended up back at the metallic door with a pocketful of keycards which he placed into their color coded slots next to the red and yellow. Once he had all five in place…nothing happened.

Mildly frustrated Paul glanced around, looking for a slot for the green card, but couldn’t find any…and he really hoped it wasn’t somewhere back in the maze.

Paul checked his watch…he was already 3 hours into this challenge, making it the longest by far, and if he had to go back looking again it was going to take a lot longer…and he was starting to develop a need to pee.

He looked back at the five keycard slots placed in a circle, or more accurately a pentagonal ring in the center of the door. Each slot was colored and he’d matched them all up correctly, so what was the problem?

Experimenting for a moment rather than start wandering the maze again searching for a possibly phantom green slot, Paul pulled out the red and inserted the green in its slot. Still, nothing happened.

He repeated the process with the other four, then started mixing and matching colors, hoping maybe they were decoys…but then he tossed that thought away quickly enough. The colors were there for a reason. He pulled them all out and stared at the door and slots for several minutes before making another attempt.

“Sequencing?” he wondered aloud, starting with the top red and working clockwise around to finish with the blue.

No luck, so he tried counterclockwise, also without success.

“Think, Paul. There’s some puzzle here. Figure it out,” he lectured himself as his frustration grew. He stared down at the green keycard in his hand, not knowing what to make of it. Maybe one of the colors was a red herring.

“Alphabetical,” he said, starting to try every random thing that popped into his head. He was starting to feel like he was in a video game, stuck on a level he couldn’t understand…but he didn’t have the option of restarting another day with a fresh head. He had to solve this now or be stuck in here for…however long this took. Now he understood why Wilson had said they only get one shot at this. It was one shot that they couldn’t back out of if they tried, and failure meant it continued on instead of ending.

A bit cruel, but at least Paul didn’t have to worry about failing anymore. If he didn’t succeed his present situation would remain the same, so technically there was nowhere to go except up…though his bladder did add another element to the equation, and he really didn’t want to have to pee on the floor, though that was a last ditch option if all else failed.

Starting with the blue keycard, he inserted each one in sequence until he ended with the yellow, but nothing happened, so he revered the order, not expecting any different results. He wasn’t disappointed.

Should he have inserted the green somewhere? That stupid card was making this whole thing a lot harder.

The next idea he had was inserting them by spectral alignment, starting with red and working up to purple, but that didn’t work either. He tried the reverse just to eliminate possibilities at this point and was shocked when the door suddenly retracted up into the ceiling.

Paul let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding and looked inside. There was a small room with another three doors at opposite sides of the rectangle that looked like the inside of an ice cube. The walls were hazy clear and rough, as if they had been hewn from a glacier, with a slight bluish/green hint to the otherwise pure white coloration.

Palming the green keycard Paul walked inside and looked to see which door or doors it fitted into when the large door behind him dropped back down from the ceiling and closed off his access to the maze. He walked back up to it to see if it was motion sensitive, but the door didn’t budge and there were no keycard slots on this side to open it with.

“Forward it is,” he said, walking up to the door on his right. There was no keycard slot on this one either, but there was a small button cleverly hidden in the rough ‘ice’ of the wall. It opened the door without any mental wrangling to reveal a small pantry containing water bottles, ration bars, and some basic equipment all displayed on tiny hooks and hoists. At the bottom was a waist-high cabinet that contained various sized uniform pouches and a selection of matching shoes.

Paul couldn’t help but smile. “That’s better, but it looks like I’m going to be in here for a while.”

Before he stripped out of his soggy clothes he checked the other doors. To his immediate right was a small circular staircase leading upward, which he didn’t follow, afraid of the doors locking behind him again. When he checked the third door he found a small restroom.

“Yeah, this is going to be a long challenge,” he said, gratefully relieving himself before grabbing one of the uniform pouches and pulling the tiny sheet of flexible fabric out. It took him two minutes to wiggle into the thing, but he was used to the process by now and got all the seams and pads settled into place in short order. Once on him, the material felt like a second skin, made to seem all the more comfortable by the soggy clothes he was ditching.

He rung out his socks thoroughly, but like his underwear the synthetic material dissipated the water quickly enough to be mostly dry after a minute’s work. He slipped back on the ankle cuppers then selected his shoe size from those available. Glad to be free of the casual wear, Paul stood up and stretched out his muscles and joints, flipping through a back bend that he’d worked a year to master and landed on his feet, feeling ready for whatever lay ahead…which was probably some form of combat.

Though there were no weapons present in the pantry, there was a utility belt and an assortment of gadgets, including a dart-pen, safety glasses, and several vials marked as F-02. From the coding he knew that they held the destunning serum that they used on a regular basis…which definitely signaled combat.

Then again, he could hardly destun himself, could he? Did that meant there were others in here with him, or could he avoid stun shots by injecting himself prior to getting hit? Regardless, he pocketed all the vials along with a couple of extra ration bars and the green keycard that he was still carrying. He downed a bottle of water and two bars then hit the staircase, running up it quickly but quietly, unsure of what waited for him at the top.

9

The staircase led up three or four stories, tightly confined within a tube-like shaft until it ended on a small platform about the size of an elevator car with a narrow doorway leading out into an urban cityscape.

He was still indoors, obviously, but there was a raised walkway that the staircase exit opened onto that ran a great distance both left and right, with the immediate area obscured by large concrete buckets rising up in tiers, the top of which held potted trees several meters over his head, but there was no ceiling to the walkway, it expanded up into a vast open air chamber reminiscent of a gigantic amusement park or mall, both by the futuristic design aesthetic as well as the sounds of running water from either a fountain or waterfall somewhere in the area.

Paul opted to head to his right and quickly came to a roundabout on the walkway with a large statue rising up from the center, the base of which was so tall that it formed a wall of its own that obscured the view of the other side.

In between the statue and his entrance point were two ‘shops’ along the outside of the walkway. Before continuing on he doubled back and checked to see what was inside, finding one locked and one open. Cautiously he pulled open the door and walked inside, with the interior lighting immediately flicking on.

It looked like a retail store, but with no merchandise present. The front side of the shop was wall to wall glass windows, double thick with space for highlighted displays. Now that the lights were on he could see that one of them was actually a floor to ceiling aquarium, but without any fish in it.

Most of the shop was empty floor space, but there was a solid counter and what looked like a back room, both of which Paul checked. He found nothing in the counter’s many drawers, but did find a hidden staircase in the back room, identical to the one he can came up on, suggesting that he might not be alone here after all.

Suddenly Paul dropped to the ground out of reflex, turning about to face the entryway as he heard the distinctive sound of a paintball turret firing repeatedly.

He eased back up from his crouch as he realized it was quite distant, but up until now he hadn’t heard a single sound other than water since he began the final challenge so the abrupt change momentarily spooked him.

Slipping into combat mode, Paul backtracked to the doorway and listened intently, trying to determine which direction the sound was coming from. He guessed somewhere off to his left just before it cut out, so he headed in that direction, passing by several more shops until the walkway ended in a T-junction. To the right and down into the valley-like center of the massive room were a wide set of stairs, while off to the left the hallway extended back at a right angle. In the middle of it all was an open courtyard with blue paint splatters against the shop windows on the opposite side of the ‘T.’

Sensing danger, Paul pushed himself up against the shop windows on his left and slowly approached the intersection, getting a better look at what was down the stairs. In the distance he spied a turret, but it was set at the wrong position to shoot him, more likely to target the lower walkway once one got down the stairs. Still, he doubted the stairs themselves would be completely uncovered, so he shied back along the shop, deciding not to explore in that direction just yet.

Paul crossed over to the concrete retaining wall and began to creep back towards the intersection so he could get a sweeping look the other way, and when he did he spotted a pair of feet just around the bend. As he moved up to the corner he saw it was one of his fellow trainees lying on the ground splattered with paint.

He couldn’t see any turrets in the vicinity, but that didn’t mean they weren’t concealed, so he had to be sneaky about this.

Popping his head out for a split second he glanced down the stairs, happy to see no turrets sprouting from the wall or hear any shots coming his way. He repeated the process, this time looking up and finding none nearby. He chanced a step out and back behind cover, hoping to draw fire from wherever the turret was, but there wasn’t so much as a whisper whine of servos in response. Confused but determined, Paul worked his way around the corner, hugging the windows tightly until he was less than two meters away from his downed teammate and still there were no stingers flying his way.

In a low crouch Paul tried the door handle of the closest shop, finding it was unlocked. For the moment he left the body where it was and scouted out the inside. Same empty look, but a different counter and no back room. Satisfied, Paul headed back out the door and cautiously crawled out into the middle of the hallway until he got to the body.

Rolling the crumpled form over on its back he saw that it was Rex, and he had at least four blue stinger hits on his chest.

Paul grabbed an arm and dragged him off the street, not worrying about touching any of the still wet paint. The stun charge would have already bled out of it by now, remaining no more than a second or two after impact...enough to splatter and ricochet, but not enough to booby-trap a body or scenery after the fact.

Once he got Rex inside the shop he pulled him back behind the counter for some cover. He opened one of the compartments on his utility belt and pulled out the dart pen as he noticed something on a rack inside the counter. Curious he stepped over his unconscious friend and pulled out a small box, inside of which was a small paintball pistol and two clips.

“Finally,” he said with relief, inserting the first clip so the stingers could begin charging. He slipped the second into a specialized expandable pouch on the back of his belt that made it handy for quick reloads. Altogether he had probably 40 shots, guessing at the size of the clip. It was smaller than they normally used, as was the pistol, but at least it would give him a way to deactivate the turrets if he came across one he couldn’t sneak around.

Turning his attention back to Rex, he loaded up the dart pen with an F-02 vial and gave him the first of the six injections it carried, then stashed it back into its pouch as Rex shook himself awake, more than a bit disoriented.

“Relax, you’re safe,” Paul said quickly, placing a hand on his chest to steady him.

“Is it over?” he asked, half sitting up.

“Hardly. Looks like we’re in this until we win. What got you?”

“Rover,” Rex said, blinking away the last bits of grogginess. “New model. Whisper quiet, concealed treads. I turned around and it was right behind me.” He spied the pistol in Paul’s hand. “Any more of those lying around?”

“Hope so, this is the first I’ve found,” he said, offering his hand and pulling Rex to his feet.

“Have you found any of the others?”

“You’re the first I’ve come across, but I did hear sounds of a firefight a moment ago, so there’s definitely someone else out there,” he said as a slight whirring sound prompted them both to stop talking and scoot down behind the counter just as a rover passed into view through the windows.

Paul noted the design changes. Now basically a geometric shape, the treads or wheels were completely covered by the side panels with less than half an inch gap at the bottom. Furthermore, the top turret was now concealed instead the cupola, which was slanted upward like a thick pyramid with the flat cap being able to swivel about.

But most important of all…there was no target sphere on top for them to deactivate it with, meaning it was impervious to their stingers.

“Now that’s just cheating,” Paul said as it drove on past.

“How much do you want to bet they made them heavier too so we can’t flip them?”

Paul considered that. “But, they do now have a blind spot on top.”

Rex cracked a smile. “You want to ride one?”

“Not really, but if they’d been smart they would have gave it a spherical top with a 180 degree dorsal rotation.”

“If the stingers won’t take them out, why give us the weapons?” Rex asked.

“I saw a stationary turret down past those stairs,” he said, pointing through the wall on their right, “and it had a target sphere on top. Must just be the rovers that they made immune.”

“Temporary?”

“Haven’t found out yet. Didn’t find this until I dragged you in here,” he told him, hefting the pistol in his left hand for emphasis.

“How long have I been out?”

“Don’t know, I just got here a few minutes ago. How much of the area did you scout?”

“Down there,” Rex said, pointing to the left, “is a courtyard ringed by shops. It’s a dead end but large enough to hold a football game in. I came up a stairwell at the base of the fountain…they have water here, by the way.”

“Guess the kid gloves are coming off for this one,” Paul said, wary of getting stunned and drowning in a stupid pool of water. He wondered if they’d stop or postpone the challenge if someone did go in face down…or if they were truly on their own for this one.

“Looks that way. The courtyard has plenty of stuff in the center for cover, so I looked around a bit then headed down this hall. Never got a chance to check the shops, the stupid rover came up from behind me, meaning it was hiding somewhere in the courtyard or emerged through a hidden entrance. I really don’t see how I could have missed it, but there it was and down I went.”

“Alright, let’s head back there and go through the shops. Hopefully we can pick up a few more weapons.”

Rex nodded and leapt up over the counter effortlessly and walked up to the windows. Paul opted to round the corner and stay on the floor as he followed him up in a flanking position on the right side, pistol held at ready for whatever they might encounter.

Rex popped his head outside, looked both ways, then took off to his left at a jog, with Paul following a few steps behind. They backtracked down the hallway, ducking into every store along the way that was unlocked, of which they only found two, both of which were empty. When they got into the courtyard they stayed together to watch each other’s backs and began searching room by room, finding that two thirds were locked.

It took them twenty minutes to search the entire area, dodging four rovers in the process, which seemed to be circulating on a predictable pattern. One of them was actually a pair following a few meters apart, which was another innovation the trainees hadn’t encountered before. Disabling one had always been a challenge, but with a second present it was going to be ten times as difficult.

Fortunately the things weren’t very bright, and at the moment at least appeared to be operating on computer control rather than by remote, making them easy to dodge moving from one obstruction to another or just hiding out in stores. By the time Paul and Rex left the courtyard they’d collected two more pistols and a shield, which Paul now carried. Rex had passed on it in favor of dual wielding.

They both stopped short of the stairs and took a knee as they scanned the long hallway to the right that Paul had come from, making sure it was clear of rovers, then ascertained what they could from their vantage point down into the artificial valley that seemed to run parallel to the concrete retaining wall.

They spotted not one, but six turrets within vision range, all propped up on short pillars to give them excellent lines of fire in what looked like a commons area with benches and vegetation, along with an artificial creek flowing down from a waterfall and passing out of view. Several walkways crisscrossed over it on small bridges while others seemed to run parallel, all connecting to more shops, some of which appeared to be open air booths in the center.

Rex spied what looked like the barrel of a sniper rifle in one of the booths, but the approach was impossible to get past the turrets…at least with the two of them and their limited ammunition. Furthermore, there was no way they could get past the stairs more than a few meters before they ran into the crisscrossing fire from the turrets in view, not to mention how many more could be concealed to the right.

The left end of the valley seemed to be capped where the waterfall emerged, meaning all the ruckus would be to the right, which was probably where Paul had heard the weapons fire from. Unable to scout it directly, the only available option was to head back the way Paul had come and check out what lay on the other side of the statue.

With a quick hand signal Paul motioned for them to leave, with Rex falling into a staggered line formation behind him yet slightly to his right to maintain his line of fire forward while close enough that he could duck behind his shield carrying partner on a moments’ notice. They made it all the way down to the statue when another round of weapons fire broke out somewhere on the other side of the concrete retaining wall.

Suddenly Rex yanked Paul to the right, circling behind the statue just as he noticed a faint whine coming from the left. He caught just a glimpse of the front end of the silver plates covering the rover before Rex had leveraged him away. He threw his friend a quick ‘thank you’ nod as they backtracked around the base of the statue the opposite direction so as to stay out of sight.

Paul kept watch on the rover while Rex ran a few steps ahead and scouted out the opposite side. Like clockwork, the rover moved down the hallway/street back towards the courtyard like the others had.

Rex reappeared behind Paul and threw him two quick hand signals, prompting him to frown and follow. The other side of the statue ended with a 90 degree arc of stairs that lead down to the ‘valley’ which spread out in a dog leg to the right. From their elevated vantage point they could see acres of cityscape filled with streets, shops, and many, many turrets mixed into a multitude of cover.

Rex pointed down at the stairs, then back at the rover, making Paul realize that the stupid device must be able to climb stairs now too. Then off in the distance they spotted motion and heard the firing of more than one turret, but they couldn’t see exactly which ones.

A waving hand half immersed in vegetation caught Paul’s eye and he returned the gesture, then received a series of signals informing them where to go.

“Did you catch that?” Paul whispered beside Rex.

“Most of it. You lead and I’ll watch our flank.”

Paul nodded and rushed down the stairs, dropping into cover behind a low wall that ran parallel to the hall they’d just emerged from. After that it was a delicate matter of running, jumping, and rolling from cover to cover in a precise path to avoid the overlooking turrets and meandering rovers until they crossed the trainees’ skirmish line and into ‘friendly’ territory.

Mark met them just past the line and led them back into an impromptu command center in a shop at the back of a small courtyard that had improvised barricades erected to block any incoming rovers should they penetrate the lines.

“Rex, Paul,” Greg said as they walked through the door. “Good, you’re already armed. Don’t suppose either of you picked up a keycard?”

Rex shook his head, but Paul dug into his utility belt and held up the green keycard that he’d found back in the labyrinth.

“Finally,” Sara said with obvious relief, standing behind the windows so she could receive/send hand signals from trainees stationed in line of sight relay points throughout their territory.

“What’s it open?” Paul asked, tossing it to Greg.

“Armories, one per card. We’ve accessed two so far, but that’s not enough to fully equip an assault force.”

“Well, I just spent a good number of minutes stunned unconscious and he just arrived,” Rex said to his 7s team leader, “so fill us in on what’s happening.”

“Over here,” Greg said, walking back to the counter that all the shops seemed to have at least one of. On top of it was a crude map drawn up in blue paint, apparently scavenged from enemy stinger rounds. “This place is huge. We’ve discovered five zones thus far. We’re here in zone 3 and have control up to this line,” he said, pointing at a jagged blue arc nibbling into zone 2. “Where did you guys come from?”

“Here,” Rex said, dipping his finger in a glob of paint and drawing the courtyard add on to zone 1. “It’s a dead end and we cleaned out all the weapons we could find.

Greg nodded, happy to have a bit more of the map filled in.

“Have you found the finish area that Wilson mentioned?” Paul asked.

“We suspect it’s somewhere past zone 5, that’s the most heavily defended. Right now what we have of teams 3 and 4 is consolidated with our heavy weapons and are working on pacifying zone 4, here,” he said, pointing to the area on the opposite end of the long valley. “We think there are at least two more armories there, plus an assortment of other weapons scattered in random locations.”

“We spied what might have been a sniper rifle here,” Rex said pointing to zone 1. “Stuck right in the middle of turret city.”

“Out in the open?” Greg asked, curious.

“Hard to tell without a scope, but I think so.”

“How are you taking out the turrets?” Paul asked.

“The hard way,” Greg said, almost grumbling. “They’re temporary, so we’re having to physically disassemble them one at a time to secure an area, and we’re running low on ammo, which is why we need the keycards so bad.”

“What are you using to take them apart?”

“Bare hands at first, then we started to improvise some tools from the salvage.”

That explained where the blue paint for the map had come from.

Paul nodded his understanding. They were making progress, but the trainers had designed this challenge to be as difficult as possible. “Where do you want us?”

“With you two we’re up to 37, so we’ve still got a lot of people missing. Finding and linking up with them is our first priority. Rex, I want you to replace Jason on the skirmish line so he and Paul can do some scouting for us.”

“Which direction?”

“The back end of zone 1,” he said, pointing to the valley on the opposite side of the staircase coming down from Rex’s courtyard. “We think there might be another zone past it, maybe one past 4 too, but we can’t assault both at once. You think you can get some eyes over there?”

“We’ll find a way,” he said confidently. “Any more 2s around?”

“Just Megan. She’s high point on the relay line.”

“Where’s Jason?”

“Somewhere near here, last I knew,” Greg said, glancing at Sara.

She took the cue and sent a query through their improvised communications grid. A response came back in under a minute detailing his approximate location.         

Eyes still on the window, Sara stepped over and pointed her finger at the map, swinging it around in a tight circle in zone 2.

“Got it,” Paul said, heading for the door with Rex. “Any sign of our best friend yet?”

“Not yet,” Sara answered. “But we’re keeping a close watch.”

“Say hi for me if you find him,” Greg said, tossing Paul a paintball grenade.

Paul nodded then headed off for the skirmish line to find Jason.

10

It took Paul and Jason more than an hour to sneak their way to the other side of zone 1, but when they did they were able to hook up with 15 other trainees that were pinned down in their own makeshift bunker, slowly working their way through the heavy defenses in zone 6. None of them had access to any keycards, so they were having to make do with what weapons and ammo they could scrounge from the immediate area, though they had managed to take out one of the rovers and were in the process of prying off its panels to use as improvised shields.

Jason helped Jax and Martin tear out the paintball turret and reconfigure it into a crude handheld version that required two people to operate, but once they got the basic operations worked out it provided the necessary firepower to subdue the nearby turrets and allow the trainees to expand their holdings while punching a line through the zone for Paul and Jason to move on through into another new zone, which they labeled as 7.

They eventually met up there with the assault force that had driven through zone 4, and with their help secured a pathway back into zone 6 so they could exfiltrate the trainees there and incorporate them into the overall command structure, arming them with some of the heavy weapons recovered and reconstituting the original teams a bit more as they pushed their lines out wider and further into the turret fields.

After nearly 10 hours of fighting a total of 8 zones had been pacified, leaving only the heavily defended zone 5 before them…plus whatever lay on the other side. So far they hadn’t even been able to get eyes on what was past that narrow chokehold, but they knew that was the way they had to go simply because they had exhausted all other options.

Twelve of the trainees were still unaccounted for, but the 88 that were assembled had begun napping in shifts in preparation for what was going to be the largest assault yet on zone 5, all the while keeping a lookout for ambushes from rovers or the Black Knight, who had as of yet not been seen.

Thanks to the still accessible restrooms and food and water stores, the trainees had been able to rest and refuel to some extent as they concocted their plan for breaching zone 5, which began with sniper suppression on the leading turrets through the choke point, barely more than four meters wide.

Paul, Jason, and the rest of the 2s minus Emily and Dan, who were still unaccounted for, waited patiently in zone three for the snipers to do their work, then followed the complete teams of 4s and 6s into the breach armed with handmade tools.

As the twenty trainees in front of them cleared a foothold of turrets, it was the 2s responsibility to start physically disassembling them, so Paul and Jason leapt up on the third one they passed and began prying off the armor plates to get at the wires and connecting tubes coming from the ammo stores up to the quad barrels. After several previous hours of practice they’d gotten the mechanics down to a quick rhythm, but there were so many overlapping turrets that even with 20 trainees covering for them it was difficult to keep all those in range suppressed so the 2s weren’t target practice when they climbed up on top.

When they succeeded in permanently disabling the first four turrets that eliminated the chokehold point and let the trainees begin fanning out on the other side. Teams 1 and 9 came through next to assist with the suppression effort while 8s came in to assist the 2s with dismantling.

As Paul climbed up their second temporarily disabled, paint splattered turret he caught a glance at the whole of zone 5. It was a large, flat open area with what looked like tree trunks sprouting everywhere, except they were turret pillars. There was little other cover, though the base of each pillar was wide enough to hide a person each. Paul thought he saw a pair of exits past the forest but couldn’t spend any time observing. He and Jason needed to get this turret deactivated before it could come back to life, in which case they’d have to drop to the ground, allow it to be shot again, then climb back up and repeat.

If they were quick, and lucky, they could get the job done in the first 20+ second window they had, but the danger also came from the fact that when up on top they were in a direct line of fire from the surrounding turrets. It was their teammates’ responsibility to keep those quiet, and even as they worked Paul could see paint being added to those already deactivated, depositing more stun charge to keep them quiet.

 It was hard work, made all the harder when three rovers appeared, meandering through the ‘trees.’ They’d had to drop down off their perches and deal with them before returning to work, which wasted a lot of valuable ammunition in the process. In the end, the rovers were upended and the ‘tree cutting’ work continued until they had cleared out the entire zone, opening up access to two additional areas.

As the trainees advanced, another tool bearing team began disassembling the rovers and appropriating their armor plating. As the assault teams secured the exits the team leaders did an ammo count, finding their supplies dangerously low. Worse yet was the fact that this zone had no pickups of any kind. It was just a kill zone, plain and simple.

“What have we got?” Paul asked as he stepped up behind Morgan as her 6s probed the side exit.

“More like before,” she whispered, signaling ahead to her scouts. “Hopefully with the others and some weapons.”

Jason caught the last few signs relayed back and frowned. “Something new?”

“Ceiling turrets…and a lot of paint on the ground.”

Someone tapped Paul on the shoulder. When he turned around it was Brian.

“Get to the other door, they found something.”

Paul and Jason exchanged glances and headed off, leaving the exploring of this new zone to Morgan and her team. They met up with Greg, Sara, and Rafa at the far end of the turret forest where they were stationed just inside a median doorway, with the other side obscured by three finger-like walls interlaced so that one had to walk right/left/right to get to the other side.

“Found it,” Sara reported as the pair caught up to the informal command group. “And guess who’s guarding the door…”

“Figures,” Jason muttered. “What have we got?”

“Large open area,” Greg reported. “Far end has a pair of columns that bracket the finish line, along with four flanking turrets. Out in front of them is the Black Knight, pacing back and forth just waiting for us. Between here and there we’ve got nothing to hide behind.”

“What about backside turrets?” Paul asked.

“We haven’t checked yet,” Sara told him. “We don’t want to spook our friend until we’re ready.”

“We still haven’t found the others yet, either,” Rafa pointed out.

“The other door leads to a zone filled with ceiling turrets,” Paul told them. “Let’s put up a barricade here and focus our attention on the other room. Maybe one of the others is still holding onto a keycard.”

Greg nodded. “We’ll bring the rover husks up and block this off. Go find the rest of us,” he told Paul and Jason.

“Let us know if the bastard gets squirrely,” Jason said as they headed off.

The last zone had vertical cover in the way of arched walkways and covered pavilions to run between, making it a doable navigation challenge, but not an area that they could lock down like the others. They found two bodies out in the open, which they retrieved using some of the rover plates as overhead shields, and the other 10 trainees holed up in a back ring promenade with a concrete retaining wall that blocked the firing lines of the central-mounted turrets.

After reviving Andy and Brad they had a quick inventory session, finding that this group had already accessed a local armory and had been conserving their ammo since they had nowhere to go. Emily said they’d scouted as far as the outskirts of zone 5, but had suffered a few casualties trying to fight their way past the turret field. After they’d retrieved the unconscious and retreated back to their safety ring they’d been forced to stay put and brainstorm ways of circumventing the defenses.

They’d failed, and had been stuck fuming long enough that they’d tried to get at the ceiling turrets by flinging pieces of shrapnel up at them, resulting in Andy going down in the middle of the open where he couldn’t be easily retrieved. Their subsequent rescue attempt had stranded Brad there as well.

What they did have were three extra keycards, so as soon as Paul and Jason got their missing teammates back to friendly territory they immediately went on a treasure hunt back into the other zones to unlock more of the hidden armories and resupply their small army.

After getting everyone equipped, Paul and Jason returned to the group leaders’ council with a few extras in attendance. They’d always represented the 2s as a pair, which no one had ever complained about, but several of the stranded trainees were milling about, eager to get involved in the action.

“Are you sure?” Morgan asked Jason.

He nodded confidently. “We can handle it with fire support. We’ve certainly had plenty of practice.”

“And when he knocks you unconscious?” Kerrie prompted.

“Not the plan, but if it happens distract him long enough to pull me out.”

“He knows we’re going to try and take him down,” Paul explained. “Best thing to do is the opposite. Stall him long enough to get everyone past. We’ve done it before, we can do it again.”

“Just two of you?” Rafa asked.

“We need to stay mobile. More bodies means more to trip over when people start going down, and he’s used that tactic against us before,” Jason argued. “If one of us goes down, by all means send someone else to fill in.”

“I’ll handle that,” Morgan volunteered.

“Backup plan?” Ian asked.

“Make like a lemming,” Greg half joked.

“He’s right,” Sam agreed. “If we can get to the pillars we’ll be out of range of the flanking turrets. Once there we can provide fire support.”

“How do we actually finish?” Ben asked.

“Pass through the pillars,” Greg said, shrugging. “Beyond that it’s anyone’s guess. Wilson just said get there.”

“And what if there’s another chamber on the other side?”

“Then Paul and Jason have their work cut out for them,” Greg answered tongue in cheek.

“The walls past the columns are covered in blue lights, so I think we can safely assume that’s the end,” Sara pointed out.

“Alright, let’s do this,” Steve said, holding out his fist towards the center of the group. The others stepped in and added their hands on top. “We get to those columns we graduate…just make sure we don’t leave anyone behind.”

“We won’t,” Morgan agreed.

Paul raised an eyebrow at Greg, who returned his gaze.

“I don’t do chants anymore,” he said deadpan, then cracked a smile. “Let’s kick some ass.”

A couple of scouts poked out of cover first, confirming the existence of back wall turrets, and were quickly followed by what looked like an old school Roman phalanx hidden beneath sections of rover armor supplemented by personal shields. As soon as the Black Knight saw the trainees appear he immediately rushed them, but before he could cross the wide open area the formation split in two…one half staying near the corner entrance and the other traveling along the back wall turrets, taking them out with stun sticks as they walked up to them at point blank range.

Several snipers poked out of cover and began shooting at the Black Knight, but as Jason and Paul walked up behind them ready to spring into diversionary action a wall rose up on the far end of the chamber until it was two meters high and obscuring the distant turrets from view…then dozens of panels on the side walls opened up to reveal concealed turrets.

“Go!” Greg yelled from behind the armored plug covering the door, realizing that they needed to act fast. The ‘turtle’ broke up with small three man teams running forward behind a single shield, heading down the line of turrets nearest them while others angled across the room to the far side, hiding behind rover armor as they ran as fast as they could.

A horde of trainees followed them, with a few going down immediately as the turrets opened fire en mass.

Jason and Paul hesitated a moment, letting the others draw fire from the turrets, then they joined the in with the flow, breaking off at the last moment to run towards the center where the Black Knight was just catching up to the armor carrying leaders. He took down two of the trainees within a second, then bounced a third back with a kick to his shield before Paul got to him.

Armed with nothing more than a stun stick…even having forgone his utility belt for maximum agility…Paul swung at the Black Knight’s right flank, prompting him to swat his way with his extremely long sword and momentarily take his attention away from the others. Paul ducked and back stepped, readying himself for a flurry of parries, and the Black Knight didn’t disappoint.

Completely ignoring the turrets, he focused entirely on the black armored giant, swinging his short stun stick around defensively, deflecting a jab then a wicked vertical roundhouse swing that cracked hard against the floor a few inches away from his foot. The Black Knight was still considerably stronger than he was, and even with his improved sparring proficiency Paul had to work hard to keep from being completely dominated on each crossing of blades.

Fortunately Jason got to them a moment later and circled around, putting the Black Knight between them where they began a yoyo distracting game with him, as they had done before. Sensing their tactic, the Black Knight literally ran through Paul, knocking him bodily aside and swatted at Mark as he ran by.

Mark barely saw it coming, his attention was so focused on the turrets. He went down with a strike to his chest as the snipers, still placed at the doorway, added a few more green splatters to the Knight’s armor, then held fire as Morgan came flying across into view, jump kicking into the Knight’s lower back and sending him tumbling to the floor.

Wise enough not to press the issue, she retreated and let Jason and Paul deal with him as he swung his sword around in a wide arc while still on the floor, catching Kerrie in the foot. The other trainees parted like a school of fish away from a shark, leaving the immediate area open as Paul slashed at the Knight’s right leg as he stood up in an adrenaline fueled flash.

Jason ducked under his response to Paul and jabbed him in the midsection, delivering their first stun stick hit. It didn’t take him down, but added several sniper rounds’ worth of energy into the resistant black armor as Jason wisely backtracked and rolled out of reach, but unnecessarily. Rather than be distracted back and forth, the Knight had decided to ignore Jason and focus exclusively on Paul.

Morgan sensed the move before it even happened, and ran to help Paul while Jason was still out of range. She ducked down and slid underneath his shoulder height and jabbed into his right thigh. When he ignored it and wacked Paul from overhead, knocking him off balance and falling backward, Morgan dropped her stick and wrapped her arms and legs around the Black Knight’s ankles, trying to squeeze them together and tip him over.

She succeeded when Jason rammed him in the back and the three of them toppled to the ground. The Black Knight’s sword discharged on the floor, but he swung the hilt back and hit Morgan in the head. Unconscious or disoriented, Paul couldn’t tell which, her grip immediately let go and the Black Knight kicked her body aside.

Meanwhile Jason rolled away, giving the snipers a brief shot, which they took, adding two more splotches of paint to the plate on his back before Paul slashed at his helmet as he climbed to his knees.

The stick never got that far, easily slapped aside by a twirling sword that Paul knelt down to redirect over his head, then he stepped forward and poked the Knight in the faceplate, only to quickly retreat backwards, literally running several steps away.

The Knight followed him, with Jason trailing a step behind, hopping over Morgan’s prone body, which Oni quickly approached and hefted over her shoulders, carrying her down the course and away from the Knight as the pair of 2s continued to battle him. Everywhere else in the chamber the turrets had gone down and the trainees were running towards the far wall which was providing their last hazard, for they had to climb up and over it to get to the finish columns…with the last four turrets sitting ready to shoot them as they came over.

Greg took charge of the suppression effort at the wall, organizing shooters at the corners to distract the turrets and coat them in pain while others formed two-man catapults, interlocking hands to boost lighter trainees up and over the wall in one smooth, quick motion. A half dozen of them landed on the other side with stun sticks and rushed the turrets. Four of them went down immediately, but more continued to launch over and the numbers game played out in their favor.

With the last turrets disabled, Greg let the others carry their unconscious teammates across the finish area while he and the snipers turned back to assist Paul and Jason…just in time to see Paul go down.

“Fall back!” Greg yelled.

Jason heard the call and ran backwards as fast as he could, but his line took him laterally instead of towards the finish…by design. His doing so opened up the firing lines for the snipers and others stationed on or near the wall who started firing on the Black Knight for the two seconds it took him to get to Jason.

Not waiting for a better opportunity, Greg dropped his rifle and sprinted towards where Paul was laying and scooped him up as Jason literally danced around the Black Knight, constantly evading him and not even trying to land a blow, knowing he only had a few seconds before he went down too.

Greg didn’t waste the opening he was providing and got Paul back to the wall and into the hands of the others, then grabbed his rifle from the floor and joined the others in providing suppressive fire, bringing the Knight to a knee for a moment, giving Jason a chance to run for the wall.

“Over!” Greg yelled, firing one last shot then tossing his weapon aside and climbing. Some of the snipers were now sitting on top and continued to fire at the Black Knight as he got to his feet and slowly ran towards the wall, for his usual super speed was now diminished to just a hair slower than Jason’s adrenaline powered stride.

“Here!” Emily and Brian yelled, sitting on top and reaching their hands down for Jason to grab. With their leverage he actually walked up the wall and rolled over head first along with the last of the stragglers.

He fell hard on the other side, actually pulling Emily and Brian down with him, nailing his funny bone on the floor…but it didn’t matter. He was only steps away from graduating, and with a firm grasp on his wrist Tom pulled Jason up and across the line into a long hallway that was now open on the far side.

Jason had been the last across, with the Black Knight not following them over the wall. Standing in the blue lighted ‘victory corridor’ he saw Paul get an injection from Sara and blink his way back to consciousness while the others filed their way out the brightly lit exit at the other end.

“We did it,” Jason told him as Sara hauled Paul to his feet wobbily. The Black Knight’s sword carried the largest stun charge of any weapon in their arsenal.

“Did we get everyone?” he asked, looking around.

“Yep,” Sara answered, slapping him on the butt. “Nice decoy work. You make for a good piñata.”

Paul laughed and walked with her and Jason down the hallway following the others out of the challenge ‘city.’ “What now?”

“Good question,” Jason echoed. “They never said what we’d be doing after graduation.”

“I think he’s going to tell,” Sara said, spotting Wilson and several other trainers waiting for them at the exit. When they got there and the doors sealed the training area behind them in one final gesture of completion as the head trainer looked around at all 100 trainees surrounding him in a tight group, filling the long hallway that connected back to the prep areas and park courses a half mile away through the city’s interior.

Before they headed back, Wilson raised a hand to get their attention and the chit chat cut out immediately.

“Congratulations,” he said loudly to make sure all could hear. “Your basic training is over. Now on to the hard stuff…”

Ambrosia

1

April 7, 2045

Paul kicked his door open with the heel of his foot as he carried the last box inside his new quarters on the far side of Atlantis, backing through the doorway into the easily double-sized accommodations compared to his ‘trainee’ quarters, which would eventually be recycled to hold another class. He and the other 99 trailblazers had been promoted to ‘Adept’ level, but what that actually meant Paul didn’t know yet. Aside from their normal workouts, moving quarters is all they’d been assigned to do the past few days since the Final Challenge.

Putting the box down on his bed next to four others, Paul left the light amount of unpacking for later and walked out into the hallway where several cargo sleds were parked with uniform boxes stacked up on top. None of the trainees had many belongings to move and the quarters were fully furnished, so it didn’t take long for them to clear the sleds, but some of the adepts had to walk further than others so Paul grabbed one of Emily’s boxes and walked with her down to her quarters at the end of the hall.

“Thanks,” she said as he put the box on her bed. “Looks like we got a decent upgrade.”

“The porch is new,” Paul said, referring to the balcony that looked out into a central courtyard filled with vegetation. They were several stories above it, but the open air environment within the city gave their quarters something of a view, whereas their trainee quarters didn’t have so much as a window.

“Almost reminds me of a flat,” she said, looking around. There were three rooms in total. A bathroom, bedroom, and large living area that connected to the porch and contained a couch, two chairs, and a very large video screen…and by large Emily meant in excess of 2 meters wide. Say what you want about Star Force’s spartan design aesthetics, but they certainly didn’t scrimp when it came to technology.

“I’m just glad they didn’t split us up,” Paul said, testing the cushions on the couch. “I don’t really want anyone else as neighbors.”

“We’re still a secret, so I wouldn’t worry about that,” she said, watching him bounce up and down twice. “Meet with your approval?”

“Yep…do we have a lounge?”

“Uh…I think someone said so, but I’m not sure where. Hope there’s a cafeteria nearby,” she said, sitting down next to him and examining the video screen remote built into the couch’s armrest. A palm-size portable remote was also plugged into the panel and popped out at the touch of a button.

“We’re supposed to have dedicated training areas too,” Paul noted, looking around the quarters that matched the dimensions of his own exactly. “Wonder how far away they are.”

“We’re going to have to share the courses with the trainees, right?” Emily said, turning the screen on and flipping through the channels…they appeared to be the same ones they had access to before.

“Wilson said something about that…I wasn’t sure if he meant just the parks or everything else, but I know we get a track of our own.”

“And pool,” she added with a smirk.

Paul glared at her for a microsecond. “Have they told you what else we’re doing today?”

“Nope,” she said, turning off the screen and returning the remote to its holster as she got up. “But there’s bound to be something. We’ve never had this much downtime before.”

Paul followed her out into the hall where the rest of the newly minted adepts were finishing the unload.

“Down there,” Paul guessed, looking to their right.

“Lead on.”

Weaving their way between the beehive of activity, Paul and Emily reached the end of the hall where it cut right, running around the perimeter of the courtyard in a massive rectangle. At the turn was a stairway that led both up and down, but on the other side of it was another room that caught their eye. When they worked their way around the extra wide staircase and pulled open the door their faces were hit with a warm mist from the three hot tubs inside.

“Now there’s an upgrade,” Emily noted.

“Oh, I’m liking this arrangement better already,” Paul said, closing the door and heading downstairs where another group was unpacking as well. They’d been assigned quarters on five consecutive levels, with Paul and Emily’s being on level 2 of their subsection. Where the stairs should have continued on down was a sealed hatch, cutting off access to the other residential levels to give the adepts some additional privacy.

“Hey,” Sara greeted them from the hallway as they came down the stairs.

“Have you seen a lounge anywhere?” Paul asked.

“Down there…door is just around the corner on the outside wall.”

“Thanks,” Emily said as they walked past. When they got down to the corner of the level 1 square they saw a row of interior doors that marked the apartments on the courtyard side, but only one door on the opposite wall, with the entrance situated in center and made of double-wide glass panels.

“Whoa,” Emily commented as they walked inside. “This is huge.”

“You have no idea,” Greg commented across the wide gap to the far wall where he and several others were setting up the gaming equipment for their Halo tournaments and other non-sanctioned games. “Look up there.”

Paul followed Greg’s finger across the theatre-like commons area centered on a massive screen rising twice Greg’s height until he saw a small, tight circling staircase leading up to the next level.

Intrigued, Paul and Emily quickly walked across the plush carpet and climbed up the stairs, which they found continued up more than one level. They stopped on level two and poked their heads inside what looked like a command center, with rows of standing terminals arrayed on table-like workstations with comfortable chairs and stools sprinkled throughout the rectangular room, equal in size to the lounge beneath.

“What’s this?” Emily asked.

“Information and design center,” Paul said with confidence as he walked over to the nearest flat-topped table. “And I think this is a touch screen.”

“Cool,” Emily said as she got a database prompt at her location when her hand touched the white tabletop. “This definitely beats a data pad.”

“Looks like they’re going to be giving us a bit of homework,” Paul said, looking at the size of the room, obviously designed to accommodate dozens of people simultaneously.

“Wonder what they’ve got upstairs,” Emily said, walking back to the staircase. Paul followed, noticing the access door that opened onto their level.

“They really didn’t hold back anything,” Emily commented as she walked into the third level ‘lounge’ which appeared to be a giant snack room. “At least we won’t have to be running down to the cafeteria in the middle of the night anymore.”

“No kidding,” Paul said, his jaw slightly agape at the amount of foodstuffs lining the walls and racks that surrounded the central ‘pit’ that contained chairs, tables, and a few viewscreens, reminding him of a breakfast nook Star Force style. “That is an awful lot of calories, even for us.”

“And that’s saying something,” Emily agreed. “Now I’m really starting to wonder what they’ve got in store for us.”

“Me too,” he said as they backtracked to the stairs and walked up to the next level.

“That’s new,” Paul said as they walked into what looked like a train station. There were several pod-like cars sitting on a half-pipe railway track that looked vaguely reminiscent of a roller coaster. The long line of cars ran the length of the track, nestled into niches just off the side to keep the main way clear. On either end the track curved and disappeared into the wall, with one side being the entrance and the other an exit.

“Secure transit system,” Rafa guessed aloud from further down the way.

“To where?” Emily asked as they walked up.

“Been trying to figure that out. The carts have a navigation board that lists 36 locations within the city, all untagged. I’m tempted to hop in and do some exploring, but I figured we should wait to give them a chance to tell us what’s going on.”

“I’m all ears,” Emily said, ducking her head inside one of the cars.

“What’s above us?” Paul asked.

“Equipment room, along with our new uniforms. It seems Adept rates a red stripe as opposed to the Trainee blue. They’ve also got some new stuff up there that we haven’t seen before.”

“Changing rooms?”

“Yes, it’s fully loaded…more so than the ones we’ve been using to prep for challenges.”

“I get the feeling someone wants us off the grid,” Emily surmised. “All this screams ‘secret’ to me…even more than normal.”

“Yeah, something is definitely up,” Paul agreed as Ivan walked in from the main entrance, looked around at the half dozen adepts milling about until his eyes landed on Paul.

“There you are,” he said, walking over. “Wilson wants you, Jason, and Morgan. He didn’t say why.”

“Where is he?”

“Third level near the elevators.”

“Maybe it’s time for some answers,” Emily guessed aloud.

Rafa nodded. “Take notes.”

“I will,” Paul said, walking back towards the staircase and leaving the others to continue exploring their new digs. He hopped down the stairs one level and walked around the block until he got to the elevator foyer, where Jason and Wilson were waiting.

“024,” Wilson greeted him. “Davis wants to speak with you, 025,” he said, motioning with his head towards Jason, “and 063. As soon as she arrives…ah, there she is now,” he amended as Morgan came around the corner at the end of the hallway, walking quickly with her typically precise gait undisturbed by her haste. Apparently she was eager to get some answers as well.

“063,” Wilson said as she arrived. “Davis wants to speak with you three,” he said, thumbing the call button behind him.

“Is this about our next mission?” she asked as the elevator doors opened and they walked inside.

“Yes,” Wilson admitted, “but save your questions. We have a lot to discuss and I don’t want to begin this conversation without Davis. I hate having to repeat myself.”

Morgan nodded once in agreement, then remained silent for the rest of the long trip through the city and up to Davis’s office. Likewise both Paul and Jason kept quiet, never being in a chatty mood around the head trainer anyway, as they both sensed that something big was about to go down. Rarely did they ever get to meet with Davis, and when they did he always came down to them. None of them had ever been summoned before.

Paul exchanged eye contact with Morgan, and with a brief glance confirmed that she was thinking the same. Out of view of Wilson they exchanged a few hand signals before leaving the elevator and walking through the undercity until they came to the tower where Davis’s office resided. After a quick pass through security they took a traditional elevator up to the top level, then walked up the simple staircase that led into his office, ready to get some answers about what they were going to be doing next.

2

When they got to the top of the stairs Davis was standing with his back to them looking out the window at the sunlit cityscape, with his desk and four auxiliary chairs waiting for them.

“Ah, good,” he said, turning around. “Please…have a seat. We have a lot to discuss.”

Morgan, Paul, and Jason took the rightmost three chairs while Wilson pulled the fourth off to the side, sitting at the far edge of Davis’s desk and separate from the adepts.

“Let’s start out with your questions,” Davis prompted. “I assume you have several.”

“That we do,” Jason confirmed. “First of which is what are we going to be doing now that our training is over?”

“Second is what’s with the new accommodations,” Paul added.

Davis glanced at Wilson. “I take it they’ve just moved in?”

“Just,” the head trainer confirmed.

“As you have probably surmised,” Davis began, “the two questions are linked. Your accommodations have been designed to give you the resources necessary to accomplish two separate, but vital tasks I am giving you. As I have referenced before, your class will be the trailblazers in Star Force’s militarization, and to date I have been holding back production of weapon systems until you were ready to take on that burden. Now that you’ve finished with your basic training, that time has come.”

“The design room,” Paul noted.

Davis nodded. “Understand that I need more from you than ship designs and tactics. I need you to design the entire military from scratch. You are the leaders, as will be those classes that follow you, but the training program you have gone through will not train the rest of the military. It is too hard, and there are too few viable candidates. You will have to design the training programs for the others and we will offer you any assistance we can provide,” he said, glancing at Wilson who nodded in agreement, “but if we wanted a copy of current military structure, we would already have it.”

“You want something new,” Morgan finished for him. “Something more functional and mission specific to defending the planet.”

“Indeed…but there’s another aspect to consider. As of now Star Force is independent of any nation’s control or influence due to the fact that we are valuable enough to be left alone. Our technological advantage has bought us time to build but eventually our independence will be tested. In order to secure our immediate future we have to control space militarily. Right now no one has any warships or viable means of space combat, but in the coming years that is going to change…and when it does we have to be ready to defend ourselves.”

“Furthermore, we need to be in a position of dominance in order to suppress fighting between other parties. We cannot afford to let Earth orbit become a war zone, and while I can accomplish a significant amount of that goal through diplomacy, I need the means for Star Force to seize control of everything in orbit on a whim. If that option is on the table, I can forestall most conflicts.”

Paul considered that for a moment, then when Davis remained silent he finally spoke.

“What exactly do you want the fleet to do?”

“Rescue operations, non lethal interdiction and intercepts, boarding and seizure, static and active defense of Star Force and allied installations, and the ability to make all out war if need be,” Davis said as if reciting a list.

Paul didn’t so much as blink in surprise at the tall order. “War solely in space, or on Earth as well?”

“Space only…save for the defense of our surface facilities and Atlantis.”

“How long do we have?”

“As long as it takes,” Davis said forcefully. “What you begin building now will set the groundwork for the future, so don’t rush. I don’t know how to advise you more than that, but based on how you handled the naval challenges, I’ve come to trust in your collective ingenuity.”

“How many people have you assembled for this?” Jason asked.

“None…other than you. We’ll start recruiting when you tell me what you need.”

“We have free reign then?” Morgan asked.

“Completely,” Davis said without hesitation. “Organize yourselves as you like.”

“Is this a secret military buildup, or will the public know?” Jason asked, suspecting the former.

“If we reveal our aim before we’re equipped, we’ll be inviting a takeover,” Davis said. “We have to do this off the radar for now.”

“So we need a low personnel option to begin with?” Morgan surmised. “You won’t be able to recruit large numbers until it goes public, I assume.”

“We can manage a decent amount, but yes, large scale recruitment won’t be an immediate option.”

“Until we get training programs established numbers will be pointless anyway,” Paul pointed out, then looked over at Wilson. “If we design the training programs, will you be able to run them?”

“In the long term yes, but you need to understand that it also takes time to assemble and train the staff before you can send the first recruit through.”

“Do we even have facilities for training a military?” Jason asked.

“No,” Davis answered, “but then again, we didn’t know what to build for, and won’t until you tell us.”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “This really is all from scratch then?”

Davis raised his hands in a shrugging motion. “We’re entering new territory and I didn’t want to limit your creativity by making prior decisions. Tell me what you need and you’ll have it.”

“What’s the command structure?” Morgan asked.

“That’s up to you too…and by ‘you’ I mean all 100 of you. I thought about having this conversation in the lecture hall, but that doesn’t really afford a good opportunity to discuss the matter at length, so I chose you three as my emissaries.”

“I think what she means is, do we answer to you or your subordinates?” Jason explained.

Davis chewed on his lower lip slightly as he thought. “I don’t have a good answer to that. As far as for my subordinates, no, they don’t outrank you. As for me being in charge…let’s just say we’re equals. My expertise lies in the non-military side of Star Force, though once established the two halves will necessarily have to cooperate so a certain amount of power sharing will be required. For the time being do whatever you want, just keep me in the loop.”

“Generous of you,” Paul commented.

Davis smirked. “If we can’t trust each other, then we’re already doomed to failure.”

“Symbolic of Earth,” Jason quipped.

“Quite right,” he said as his mood turned more dire. “We can’t rely on any other nation or corporation…they’re rife with corruption, greed, and stupidity. Not only is Star Force to be a shield for Earth, it’s to be an example of the right way to do things. I want that first and foremost on your minds when you’re designing the military.”

Paul nodded. “Jedi, not Sith.”

“You could put it that way, yes. Which is another reason why we can’t replicate any of Earth’s current or previous militaries.”

“Including the V’kit’no’sat?” Morgan asked.

Davis eyed her for a moment, suspecting where that question was arising from. “I realize my holding back information from you can be frustrating at times, but I don’t want to suppress your creativity by giving you too much knowledge of the enemy. We need to establish our own identity, our own procedures and philosophies rather than becoming the anti-V’kit’no’sat. The information will be made available to you in time, but for now we need to focus on base building.”

“And,” Wilson interjected, “with our technological inferiority, our best weapon against them could be a tactic that they’ve never developed, and if we copy their battle strategies we lose out on discovering anything truly original.”

“Point taken,” Paul agreed.

“Still,” Morgan persisted. “A trip to the pyramid wouldn’t seem out of order at some point.”

Davis suppressed a laugh. “There are exactly 42 people that have been allowed inside, me being one of them. All but two of them are still there, working to backwards engineer the technology inside while maintaining the secrecy of the site, which is paramount. If word of its existence leaked out, everything would change…how exactly I’m not sure, but most likely we would lose possession. In order to avoid that eventuality the pyramid was reburied and a small service tunnel was constructed underground linking to a relatively nearby Pegasus outpost, which I’ve quietly been expanding.”

“That research outpost is the front that allows technology and data to flow back to Atlantis for our people here to work on. Any unnecessary shipments of personnel to Antarctica could draw unwanted attention, and for that reason the pyramid has to remain off limits to everyone. Even I haven’t been back down there in more than a decade.”

“Why not establish a Star Force presence…build directly over the site even?” Jason asked.

“Political turf wars,” Davis said with obvious irreverence in his voice. “While no one has official claim to the continent, there are zones under the supervision of various nations. Pegasus’s outpost exists with the permission of the US and Australian governments. If we were to establish a Star Force base it could get legally tricky, and the last thing we would want is to build and then be forced out. Better to let people think we have no interests down there and protect the site through anonymity.”

“Risky,” Morgan commented.

“It is, but until we have a better option we’re going to keep whistling in the dark.”

“Excuse me?” she asked, not understanding the reference.

“Hoping nothing goes wrong,” Davis clarified for the Aussie.

“We’ll have to secure it eventually,” Paul said, agreeing with Jason.

“Yet another reason why we need a military,” Wilson pointed out.

“We have no leverage at the moment…at least, nothing more than a bluff,” Davis explained. “Economic pressure only goes so far. If one nation wanted to push the issue and seize what we have now, we couldn’t stop them. Other nations could and probably would, given how profitable we are to them, but until we can stand on our own we don’t dare touch Antarctica with any Star Force personnel.”

“So we need to get our asses in gear before the whole charade falls on its face,” Jason summed up.

“It’s not quite that bad,” Davis said, “but there is a sleeping threat. So long as it stays sleeping I can deal with it through conventional means, but we won’t truly be safe until we can take physical control over our assets, both on the surface and in space.”

“Are any of our stations currently armed?” Paul asked.

“Not yet. Star Force doesn’t do business with any military ventures, and until we can reveal the presence of our own military we can’t visibly be arming anything.”

“But you are doing weapons research and development somewhere?” Morgan asked.

“Quietly so, but we haven’t fielded any of the equipment yet. They’re all still listed as prototypes.”

“Do we have a team of engineers to work with?” Paul asked.

“You have direct access through the comm gear in your design room. You can conference with an engineering team, even have direct access to the people doing the weapons research. Your quarters and auxiliary facilities are designed to allow you to work as efficiently and effectively as possible, with remote access to all Star Force installations and ships.”

“Speaking of which,” Paul said, slightly changing subjects. “What’s with the train station in the lounge?”

Davis exchanged a glance with Wilson. “That is a secret transit system that operates independent of the primary network of elevators. It links your quarters to other secure locations within Atlantis, allowing you more rapid transportation and thereby decreasing wasted time in transit.”

“It also keeps you away from everyone else,” Wilson added. “You’re going to need the privacy.”

“For what?” Morgan asked suspiciously.

“You said there were two reasons you brought us here,” Jason added. “What’s the second one?”

Davis reached across his desk to a small box and opened the top by entering a three digit access code. From inside he pulled out a tiny vial, the size of half his index finger, and set it down on the clear panel that was his desk in between himself and the three adepts.

“This,” he said, leaving the red liquid in the sunlight so that it cast an eerie colored shadow that seemed to pulse with energy.

“What is it?” Jason asked, leaning forward slightly.

“A secret from Antarctica,” Davis said stoically.

Wilson looked at Jason with a bemused smile on his face. “Buckle your seatbelt, Dorothy, cause Kansas is going bye bye.”

3

“Meaning what, exactly?” Jason demanded.

A strange look crossed over Morgan’s face. “The Black Knight,” she whispered, looking at Davis for confirmation.

Paul and Jason exchanged glances as Davis smiled slowly. “Well deduced.”

“He’s on drugs?” Jason asked, slightly aghast.

“No,” Davis said, then wavered after a glare from Wilson. “Well, sort of. Vermaire is a complicated situation.”

“Do tell,” Paul insisted.

Davis leaned back in his chair and blew out a long breath. “Andre Vermaire was formerly a stuntman working in Hollywood as well as a skilled martial artist. We originally recruited him to help build and oversee our hand to hand combat regimen, both for you and our other Star Force personnel, with an emphasis towards our security forces. He spent two years doing just that until I brought him fully into the fold on the A7 project along with a handful of other people, including Wilson.”

Davis pointed to the vial standing poetically still on his desk. “This is a mixture of synthetic molecules…synthetic because they do not appear to originate from any organic structure, ostensibly created and manufactured by the V’kit’no’sat, though the original source is unknown to us. They have no name for the compound, only a serial number. We call it Ambrosia.”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “Nectar of the Gods?”

“Yes, we thought it was as fitting a name as any. We discovered barrels of the stuff in Antarctica, and later found the corresponding files in the database. It is what you would call a nutritional supplement that was given to their Human slaves.”

“Along with others,” Wilson added.

“I’m getting there,” Davis admonished him. “According to the database the ambrosia had the potential to strengthen the Humans, and was in fact designed specifically for them. The Dinosaurs had their own mixture…actually several, we think, possibly one for each of their races but we haven’t yet been able to confirm that. Our understanding of their language is functional at best, and our access into their computer systems is limited. We believe we have genetic access to some of the files that their slaves would have had, and have been trying to hack into the rest for years with minimal results.”

“They made their slaves stronger?” Morgan asked, not fully understanding.

Davis nodded appreciatively. He’d been down this line of thought many times before. “Try not to think of them as the slaves you’re familiar with from history, such as the Egyptians who built the pyramids with expendable manual labor. The role of a slave can be many things, but the basic definition is that they do not possess their own freedom, and have someone or something as their master or owner. In the case of the V’kit’no’sat Empire, Humans were subservient to the Dinosaurs and their primary slave race, though there have been reference to others.”

“Even still, within the social structure of the Dinosaurs there appeared to be divisions. What they are or how deep they ran we do not know, but it is possible that some of the races were in fact slaves to the others, just as Humans were slaves to them. That’s a theory, but keep in mind that the stronger each race became, the stronger the overall V’kit’no’sat collective became. Weak slaves were of no use to them.”

“Add in the fact,” Wilson said, “that even augmented, the Humans were still vastly weaker than even the smallest Dinosaurs, so strengthening them didn’t pose a security risk.”

“Are the Humans counted as V’kit’no’sat?” Morgan asked. “I thought that was just another name for Dinosaur?”

A smirk found its way to Davis’s face. “Again, we’re not completely sure. We know that the Empire was called V’kit’no’sat, but so were the Dinosaurs within the social structure from the Humans’ point of view. How many races that included…we have no clue. Were there races of Dinosaur that existed outside the Empire? We know of one that rebelled and left, the Rit’ko’sor, but were there others? At this point it’s still speculation. The pyramid database is massive, and we’ve barely been able to scratch the surface…and that’s of the parts that we know are there. If there are in fact genetic locks, then there could be a lot more in the system than we know of.”

“We know they used Humans as troops,” Wilson explained. “Often in a special forces role where their small size was useful. Those teams were well trained, efficient, and large in number. The Dinosaurs didn’t seem to care about losing Humans, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t equip them to win. They had both advanced technology and physical augmentation, including the ambrosia.”

“What exactly does it do?” Paul asked. “You make it sound like a super vitamin.”

Davis deferred to Wilson with a glance.

“Let me ask you this,” he said, looking directly at Jason who was nearest to him. “What would happen if you continued training as you have been and we decided to take away all sugar out of your diet?”

Jason’s face scrunched up in horror. “I don’t even want to think about that.”

“Try,” Wilson insisted.

Jason’s face blanked as he thought. “I’m pretty sure our workouts would tank, but beyond that and being constantly hungry I’m not sure what would happen.”

“Our metabolism would slow,” Morgan answered. “We’d have to eat a greater volume of food to get the same calories, and there would be an absorption lag. Sugar gets digested faster than anything else.”

“You’re saying this is food?” Paul asked Davis, gesturing to the vial of ambrosia.

“It has some caloric value, but not enough to live off of. This is the amount that I ingest over the span of a month.”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “You’re on it?”

Davis nodded. “Minimal amounts for the past five years.”

“So you could kick our asses right now if you wanted to?” Paul asked.

Davis laughed. “No, no…not even close.”

Wilson mock glared at them. “Come now, what are you expecting from a 70-year old?”

Morgan, Paul, and Jason all frowned in sync and stared at Davis.

“You don’t look a day over 50,” Morgan said.

“72 actually,” Davis clarified. “Though I was a bit older before I started taking the ambrosia…and training,” he added before Wilson could say anything.

“It makes you younger?” Jason asked. That didn’t sound right to him.

Again, Davis deferred to Wilson.

“You’ve been told from the day that you were born that you were going to grow old and die and there was nothing you could do about it…if you were lucky enough to live that long. Have you ever wondered why that is?”

Morgan answered for the trio. “Attrition.”

Wilson nodded once. “Then why aren’t you dead already?”

“We’re barely adults. There hasn’t been time.”

Wilson shook his head. “You’re assuming that children are immune to attrition. Why?”

“Because they’re in a state of flux while they’re growing,” Morgan lightly argued. “When that cycle ends is when the attrition begins to take place.”

“Hasn’t that ever bothered you?” Davis asked.

“Yes,” Paul answered honestly.

“How so?”

“Why does it shut off? Why do kids heal faster than adults? We should get stronger over time, not weaker. It’s backwards.”

“It is backwards,” Wilson confirmed, “because it’s not true. You’ve been lied to your entire life.”

“How?” Morgan asked, repositioning her seat so she could get a better angle past Paul’s head. She was intently curious, even more so than the others.

“What’s the purpose of inoculating kids against diseases?”

Paul answered this time. “To keep them from getting sick later by using a dead or weak version of the virus for the body to adapt to.”

“How does that adaptation occur?”

“The immune system leaves behind virus-specific antibodies so it can more quickly recognize the infection next time.”

“It does far more than that,” Wilson said with mild disgust. “That’s looking at it from a scientist’s perspective, and they know very little. They’re observers, and there’s only so much they can learn looking from the outside in. It’s like a 20-year Nascar fan thinking they know how to drive because they’ve studied the sport from every angle possible…but put them in the car in a race at speed, and odds are they’ll hit the wall before making a full lap. Biology, and life in general, is too complex to scientifically disassemble. You can’t isolate a single variable when you have thousands at play simultaneously…which is why you should never listen to a scientist or doctor when it comes to training.”

“He has a bit of a pet peeve with doctors,” Davis noted.

“And for good reason,” Wilson reinforced. “They have a body of their own that they could study using the biofeedback that only they can access, but that would mean getting their fat asses out of their lab coats and onto the track. They don’t, because they’re lazy and messed up in the head. Because of that, they will never understand certain concepts…one being adaptation through adversity.”

“Back up from the specifics of the immune system that you learned about in school and look at it from a user standpoint. Your body engages in battle against a virus or other illness and learns from it, if it survives. It adapts and becomes stronger against that particular illness, making it less likely to occur again, quicker in duration, and/or milder in case. This is why children are inoculated with a weak ‘opponent,’ so their bodies can learn from it without actually making them sick. A bit of a cheat, but somewhat useful, though not nearly as effective as surviving the actual illness.”

“That means adults should be more immune to disease than they were as children…getting back to your point about everything seeming backwards,” he said, referring to Paul. “Why would your body be getting stronger in one aspect and going backwards in another?”

“That does sound a bit conflicted,” Jason admitted.

“Because it technically doesn’t,” Wilson shared with them like it was the greatest secret the world had ever known.

“Ok, I’ll play Captain Obvious and point out the fact that billions of people around the planet are growing old and dying,” Paul said for the benefit of the conversation, though he too was very interested in where Wilson was going with this. “If they’re not getting weaker, what’s going on?”

“No, they are getting weaker,” Wilson said, letting that hang in the air for a moment. “The real question is why. People generally don’t want to know because they think it’s inevitable anyway, but have you ever thought about what causes a ‘natural’ death? People are labeled of dying of natural causes all the time, but what really happened to them? Or the more pertinent question would be ‘what broke?’ because something always breaks, whether it be the heart, lungs, kidney, liver, brain…something always fails to cause death.”

“But we’re back to attrition again,” Morgan pointed out.

Wilson pointed at her. “But why does it take so long?”

Morgan’s eyes narrowed. “You’re saying we’re fighting it?”

Wilson smiled. “Of course we are, otherwise we’d be dead inside of 5 years. We’d never even make it to adulthood.”

Jason inclined his head slightly as an insight came to him. “You’re saying old age is an accumulation of damage that is accruing faster than we can heal it?”

Wilson nodded. “And that is something that the medical and scientific communities will not accept, because…”

“Because if it’s damage,” Morgan interrupted him, “then that damage has to come from a source, and with knowledge of the source it’s variable. Get the amount of daily attrition below your daily healing level and you can stop the aging process, maybe even reverse it?”

“Exactly,” Wilson said, glad that she could make the logical progression. “Which means if someone is growing old it’s at least partially their fault…and lazy people do not want to hear that. They’d rather believe it’s inevitable and carry on with their stagnant lifestyle than face the facts. But in order to maintain their delusion everyone has to grow old without exception, which is why in society you have taboos around anything relating to living forever. Children are told that growing up and growing old is just a natural part of life, that it’s supposed to be that way. You even have entertainment written to make people believe that a normal, stagnant life is better than having superpowers and living forever. It’s sick when you begin to see how deep the social corruption goes.”

“Come to think of it,” Jason said, “that does seem to be the general superhero motif, and if someone does try to become immortal it’s always the villain.”

Paul glanced over at him. “Do you remember an old movie called Hancock?”

Jason’s eyes widened. “We watched it during downtime like a year ago? Will Smith’s character lost his powers when he was in proximity to his chick?”

“Do you know the reason why?”

“So they could fall in love,” Jason said, remembering, “grow old, and die…to live normal lives.”

“Power Rangers,” Morgan said, glancing at the floor. “Why would you want to give up your powers to go to college? They said it was the next stage of their lives, which is code for growing old.”

Paul and Jason both stared at her.

“What?” she asked defensively. “It may be a cheap kids show, but it’s been on the air for 50 years for a reason.”

Paul and Jason exchanged curious looks and burst out laughing.

4

“I was actually thinking of thinking of Wolverine,” Jason said, pushing the giggles away. “He supposedly could live forever because of his advanced healing ability.”

“That’s not really a negative example,” Morgan pointed out.

“Except for him being a chronic loner,” Paul added.

“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” Jason said, leaving behind the last traces of mirth. “You’re saying our bodies really work like that, minus the extremeness of it?”

“That’s actually a good example,” Wilson credited him. “Except for us it has to be earned through training.”

“Or by reducing the attrition,” Davis interjected. “People are living twice as long today than they did centuries ago for reasons as simple as access to clean drinking water. Primitive cultures, some of which even exist to this day, sad as that is, rarely live to see 30. Nowadays in mainstream society you’re hard pressed to tell the difference from a 15 year old model and a 40 year old one, but then again you have some people beginning to show signs of age at 20. Civilization offers people options, whether you make use of them or not is up to the individual.”

“I get the feeling that’s one of your pet peeves,” Morgan deftly noticed.

“It is,” Davis confirmed. “If and when Star Force is in a position to do so, we’re going to rescue the primitive populations on our planet from their naturalistic existence. No one gets to choose where they are born, and no one should be forced to live a degenerate lifestyle for the sake of cultural protection. There are proponents that are actively fighting to keep aid workers away from jungle tribes in order to keep them from contaminating them with our culture…all the while those people are leading miserable, disease-infested, pathetically short lives.”

“The activists don’t care about those people. They’re tools they use to wage a social war. As far as I’m concerned they’re our brothers and sisters, no matter what language they speak or what culture they’re born into and they deserve access to what we have. Civilization isn’t a disease, it’s a cure, and if it kills some cultures good riddance. Sacrificing an individual’s future to preserve a culture is an abomination that I will never tolerate.”

“Agreed,” Jason said, coming back to the subject at hand, “which begs the question, can the attrition be lowered enough to eliminate all aging?”

“Trick question there,” Wilson answered, “because the attrition rate isn’t the only variable. Your healing rate also changes, up or down. So what is sufficient to overcome the environmental attrition one day might not be so a year later.”

Morgan frowned. “If your body learns from illness and grows stronger, shouldn’t the healing rate either stay the same or increase? Why would it go down?”

“Adaptation,” Wilson answered succinctly.

“How is getting weaker a part of adaptation?”

“That’s the gem of it all. Paul, when you’re in the pool, do you sink or float?”

He grimaced unconsciously. “Barely float if I’m on my back and gently kicking my legs. If I’m motionless I sink.”

“Why?”

“Muscle is heavier than water.”

“And your muscle is built primary from what training, swimming?” Wilson asked mockingly.

“Ah, no, most of it would be running and sparring.”

Now Wilson looked at Morgan. “What if he wanted to convert primarily to swimming? How would his leg muscles adapt?”

She thought about it for a moment then had an epiphany. “They’d gradually diminish in size until they met the demands of the swimming kick he was using, which is far less active than running…therefore making his legs weaker.”

“Weaker in one dimension, but more appropriately balanced for another,” Wilson pointed out. “Adaptation isn’t simply a matter of gaining greater strength, but of customization. If you didn’t have the ability to deconstruct tissue and grow weaker, you couldn’t change your customization. You couldn’t adapt to new circumstance and new requirements, which Darwin would have said was a quick route to extinction.”

“A more drastic example would be a swimmer and a weight lifter. One customizes through putting on a massive amount of muscle in their legs and upper body for quick, powerful, short lifts…the other adds a significant amount of muscle in the upper body with very little added in the legs, all of which is designed for light, repetitive, precise motions. The body adapts the muscle tissue to the task at hand, as well as the joints and other parts based on what you are doing currently.”

“Stagnation kills,” Paul thought aloud, “because your body deconstructs the strengths that you’re not using until you have just enough strength to carry out your daily efforts…and if that’s sitting on a couch and watching TV, your body is going to get very, very weak waiting for you to decide which direction you want to go for your next customization.”

“Then when you’re put in another situation,” Jason followed, “that is more difficult, your attrition skyrockets because you no longer have the strength or adaptation that you used to have. The more attrition you take, the weaker you get from wear and tear and then it snowballs.”

“Or you overload,” Morgan finished, “and die of a heart attack or other organ failure,” she said, laughing ironically. “And what are old people expected to do after they finish working?”

“Retire,” Paul answered. “Meaning less activity, which causes a further loss of strength. They claim they’re too old to do what they once did, but by stopping the activity they are in fact making themselves weaker. It’s completely ass-backward,” he said, face palming his forehead in realization.

“Add in systemic damage,” Wilson carried on, “and you have your answer for why someone grows old. The way to reverse the damage is to raise your healing rate above your attrition rate. If you can do that, time becomes your ally, but in order to raise your healing rate and keep it up, you have to train and keep training. Activity isn’t enough, it has to be targeted training, which most people have no clue how to do.”

Paul’s mind suddenly flashed back to his family and their resistance to training or any kind of self improvement…and he realized they were doomed to grow old and die if they didn’t change their ways, and soon.

“I take it this works the same for all races and species?” Morgan asked.

“That’s another social taboo to face,” Davis said, anger evident in his voice. “What constitutes a person? Humans have held that ‘animals’ were less than Human and therefore not people, but again, have you ever thought about what the actual difference is?”

Paul blinked in mild surprise. “With the news of super-intelligent Dinosaurs out there ready to enslave or kill us…yeah, the concept has crossed my mind.”

“I suppose it would,” Davis admitted. “But think of it the other way. How is a dog different from a Human infant? Many dogs are more intelligent and more capable, but society still labels the child a person and the dog as an animal.”

“I’m starting to lose the connection here,” Jason admitted.

Davis steepled his fingers in front of his face, thinking. “What defines a person? What defines a machine? The difference is simple, and can be compared to Wilson’s race car. The car is a machine, but a person is a car with a driver inside. You,” he said, pointing to Paul, “are inside your body. Your pet dog also has a driver inside its body, so does a bird, a chipmunk, a rat, a Dinosaur. How small can you get before there is no driver and only a machine?”

“Can a single celled organism be a person? Is there room enough in there for a driver? I doubt it, but then again since I don’t know for sure what a driver actually is made of, I can’t tell you where the dividing line is or how to physically measure it, but there is a distinct difference. It’s not biological, because a plant is ‘alive’ but there’s no driver onboard, which makes just a very complicated machine…a biological machine, but not a person.”

“I can see that,” Paul said, “but I’m not making the connection either.”

“What is the difference between a dog and a child that has never learned to speak? Neither can communicate with words, but can through other means. Both can learn, both can grow, both can adapt.”

“Training,” Morgan said, almost to herself.

“Exactly,” Davis confirmed.

“Still lost,” Jason said.

“Same here,” Paul added.

“Every race will grow old,” Morgan explained, “unless they can comprehend the concept of training. That’s why animals don’t live forever, barring the whole food chain thing. They don’t know how to train, but if they did, physiologically speaking, they could adapt and customize like we do.”

“Interesting point, but I’m still lacking here,” Jason said.

“A race’s…scratch that, an individual’s intelligence capability has to be sufficient enough to understand and implement the principles of training in order to raise their healing rate high enough to overcome the attrition. Otherwise they ‘grow old’ and die,” she turned to look at Davis. “Unless they can lower the attrition level to match the healing rate, if that’s even possible?”

“Which is a point of interest for me, personally,” Davis admitted. “I don’t know if it’s possible or not, for Humans or other races, but it’s something worth looking into. Even if we can lower the environmental attrition, it would bring marginal individuals into the fold.”

“I see where you’re going,” Paul said, catching on. “Nature isn’t life, it’s death. Civilization is what brings hope, or more pointedly, knowledge does.”

Davis smiled widely. “Well said. I would also add ‘power,’ both for the protection and advancement of oneself, and that of others.”

“Your manifesto for Star Force?” Jason asked.

“Yes, if you take my full meaning…”

Morgan smiled. “For all the races of Earth, not just Humans.”

“You can leave out the Earth bit,” Davis amended, “but correct none the less.”

“Defenders of life throughout the universe?” Paul offered a bit tongue in cheek.

“That’s better,” Davis responded in kind.

“Hold on a second,” Jason said, raising a hand for emphasis. “Does this lead to talking dogs somehow?”

Paul looked over his shoulder at him. “We already have talking dogs. Check YouTube.”

“Not what I meant,” Jason said, glaring at him.

“It is a fair question to ask,” Davis said, obviously having tread this course before. “We know Humans didn’t originate on this planet, but our origin is still a mystery. And while evolving from a single celled organism is quite ridiculous, our recorded history is too short to determine if significant amounts of macroscopic evolution are taking place. Can an entire race advance to our level? Can our race advance to higher levels?”

“Are the V’kit’no’sat at a higher level?” Paul almost interrupted to add.

Davis nodded solemnly. “A scary question that, but one we have to broach none the less.”

“Kind of makes you look at things differently when we’re not at the top of the food chain,” Jason commented.

“The food chain is a function of nature, of the jungle,” Davis said. “It is the antithesis of civilization. We should protect and aid the lesser races, not exploit them.”

Morgan frowned almost sarcastically. “I don’t disagree, but you sound like a conflicted naturalist. Protect nature by destroying it with civilization.”

“Once you start seeing lesser races rather than animals, ‘destruction’ becomes ‘aid’… but then you realize how little you truly can change, and have to console yourselves in doing no harm while helping out where you can. Nature has a wonderful side to it, but in truth it is mostly a horrific, chaotic nightmare that we have to fight against as individuals and as a collective. Civilization and nature will always be at war. Like our bodies, civilization also suffers from attrition and must heal the damage, else it will consume and destroy it.”

“The jungle consumes everything,” Morgan quoted.

“Wait a second,” Jason interrupted again. “You’re not just referring to wildlife preserves when you refer to the jungle and nature…you’re talking inside our own society too.”

“Quite right. Roads and buildings don’t hold back the chaos of nature. Look at an out of control soccer game that turns into a deadly riot, or a crime spree that ensues when a city’s power gets knocked out. Good people don’t do such things, but most people are not good. Most are not evil either, but most are followers and will go with the flow, which is why civilization is a means to save people, whereas nature will lead back to their destruction.”

“But back to training,” Jason deferred. “The stupid ones won’t make it, just as sure as the lazy ones won’t unless, as Morgan stated, the attrition levels can be reduced.”

“In this case knowledge is life, and lies kill,” Davis said, coming full circle. “How many people simply give up on their bodies and grow old because they were taught there was nothing they could do about it?”

“Healing rates and attrition levels, check,” Paul said, leaning forward and pointing to the ambrosia. “So how does this change all that?”

5

“And turn us into ass-kicking machines?” Jason added.

“Two ways,” Wilson said, returning to the conversation. “The lesser is by reducing attrition. The synthetic molecules, once ingested, are used by your body to strengthen your tissues. In comparison, you are weak from nutrient deprivation when contrasted with Davis or Vermaire, but healthy when compared to one of his primitive Amazonians. It’s a matter of perspective, but the ambrosia allows your body access to nutrients it’s never had before. In turn you build stronger tissues that are more resistant to damage, thus lowering your attrition levels a moderate amount.”

“Super vitamins,” Paul repeated.

“In this function, yes,” Davis said, “which is where I get most of the benefit. At Wilson’s nagging insistence I’ve also begun training for an hour each morning, mostly running, to take advantage of the second and more powerful attribute.”

“Back to the sugar metaphor,” Wilson continued. “As of right now, your bodies have never had sugar…and that is Dino sugar.”

“An energy boost?” Morgan asked.

“An everything boost,” Wilson said, not exaggerating. “The V’kit’no’sat specifically designed it for multiple functions. Not one thing in the liquid is ambrosia, the total mixture is and each piece is designed to aid your body in a specific way. Some parts act like super sugar molecules for additional energy, others aid in recovery, but most we don’t actually know the function of, but we have seen the results.”

“The Black Knight,” Paul repeated, not yet comfortable with him having a name.

“It took our molecular engineers more than a decade to discover the painstaking process to replicate the substance,” Davis said, “and even today we can’t produce very large quantities. It is extremely potent, so we don’t require much, plus we still have significant stores of the original in Antarctica, but large scale distribution is out of the question in the foreseeable future.”

“It’s also extremely expensive,” Wilson added.

“That doesn’t matter,” Davis said, visibly waving away the cost with a flick of his hand. “We have more than enough for experimental purposes, and have increased our production to cover what we expect you to require, though exactly what that will be has been a topic of discussion.”

“You want us to use it then?” Morgan asked, not completely comfortable with the idea.

“No, I’m only making it available to you,” Davis clarified. “If there is to be an advantage found in it, I know you’ll make the most of it. We know very little past what is in the database, save for Vermaire’s experiences.”

“He’s been on the ambrosia for seven years now,” Wilson said, “and has yet to show any side effects, and he’s been more aggressive with its use than anyone else.”

“Aggressive how?” Paul inquired.

“The body will tolerate very little without overloading,” Wilson said uncomfortably. “Vermaire discovered that early on, painfully, but he’s succeeded in upping his dosage gradually in response to intensive training.”

“Sugar rush?” Jason quipped.

“Essentially yes,” Wilson confirmed. “Though much more extreme. Whereas Davis takes this amount every month, Vermaire would consume that in two or three days.”

“Addiction?” Morgan asked.

Wilson shook his head. “No more than the sugar you eat, though you do notice an uncomfortable difference when you deprive yourself of it as your body adjusts downward.”

“So the more you can tolerate the stronger you get?” Paul asked.

“No, not at all,” Wilson said, almost relieved. “It allows you to train harder and longer, with almost no recovery time. That training is what upgrades your body. Vermaire has gotten as strong and fast as he is because he spends virtually every hour of his time either training or kicking your asses in challenges. He’s earned those skills, the ambrosia just gives him an advantage in workouts.”

“Wilson is not on the ambrosia,” Davis pointed out.

“It’s an advantage, not a requirement,” he said defensively. “Much like sugar isn’t necessary in your diet, but provides a significant advantage. I should be able to boost my healing rate high enough with unaugmented training to achieve self-sufficiency, and we need to know what that will take rather than just sticking everyone on ambrosia and hoping it will be enough.”

“Self-sufficiency?” Morgan asked.

“The point at which your healing rate equals or exceeds your attrition rate,” Wilson defined. “It’s impossible to scientifically measure, but it exists none the less. I expect I’m borderline, but I don’t truly know. Davis is there now, thanks to his training, because his body has begun to ‘de-age’ slightly.”

“And us?” Paul asked.

“Probably the same as me, perhaps a bit better. Impossible to know unless things start to go wrong, though if you have a high differential between the two in the positive, you’ll be able to shrug off a lot of attrition damage whereas others can’t.”

“That’s why you’re able to recover faster on the ambrosia?” Paul asked. “You can probably get by on less sleep too?”

“No,” Wilson said, slightly shaking his head. “The ambrosia does that part on its own. What I’m talking about is separate. Let’s say your healing rate is running .1% higher than your attrition rate…again, pointless numbers since we can’t measure them, but useful for explanation none the less. If it’s running higher, by any amount, any attrition damage incurred during the day will be fully healed. That’s not counting injuries, just the microscopic and systematic damage that typically goes unnoticed.”

“But the difference between a positive .1% and a negative .1% is that in one case time is your ally and the other it’s your enemy because with every day that goes by you lose a little ground. Self-sufficiency is being out of the negative numbers, so running even technically counts because you’re healing as fast as you’re being damaged.”

“Now, the problem is that your rates change more than day to day, they change minute to minute, so if you’re running .1% to the good in the morning, you may be negative .3% by the afternoon. Everything you do or don’t do during the day effects your attrition levels, so you can see some really big swings.”

“Stress levels?” Morgan asked.

Wilson nodded. “That’s part of the attrition.”

“Guess a bad day really is a bad day,” Paul commented.

“Which is why to be truly self-sufficient you need a larger positive trend that can survive the rate swings,” Wilson continued. “If you can get your healing ability up high enough to have a positive 5.0% differential, then you’re not going to dip below the threshold during the course of a day, plus you’re going to heal a lot faster. In that way you can recover from workouts faster, because even though they are beneficial to the body, workouts dump a lot of attrition on you through microscopic muscle tears, joint damage, stress, etc.”

“So having a big differential eats it up faster,” Jason surmised.

Paul nodded. “Like extra RAM on a computer, it can process the backlog faster.”

“And when you recover faster,” Wilson pointed out, “your workouts can be more frequent and more intense, which in the long run will upgrade you and your healing ability even more.”

“Snowball effect,” Davis commented.

“Do all workouts increase your healing ability?” Morgan asked, trying to wrap her head around the concept.

“More or less,” Wilson answered. “Think of the attrition dump on your systems that occurs from a workout as a learning experience for your body. With the downtime in between workouts to recover and recharge, your body adapts to be able to handle the attrition better. In doing so for the large dumps, it also makes it better at handling the lower level attrition that accumulates around the clock.”

“Like how running makes walking easy,” Paul pointed out.

“I see the connection,” Morgan said. “So what happens if you’re not able to rest and recover?”

“Problems,” Wilson said pointedly. “When you’re fit enough to do workouts, you can take an attrition dump in stride because you have a lot of strength reserves. If you’re taking large amounts of attrition continuously and are unable to get your moment to moment trend back in the positive, you’re essentially grinding your gears and causing a lot of damage. Sometimes we do this on purpose to generate a greater training effect, but when that’s the case we have the option of stopping whenever we want. It’s when the attrition isn’t caused by training that a negative snowball effect can occur.”

“Again, with the numbers, assume a hard workout puts your current trend at negative 5.0% for twenty minutes. Once you stop that goes back up to, say, positive 1.0% and your body starts to process through the accumulated attrition. If you can’t get into recovery mode because of environmental factors, like say from excessive heat that you have no control over, you’ll be riding a negative trend for an extended period of time and losing ground constantly.”

“It can also happen when someone overtrains. While they do have some recovery time in between workouts, their backlog becomes so overwhelming that they can’t truly rest anymore. It’s similar to being out of breath after a hard run. How long it takes you to get your breathing back to normal varies, but as a metaphor, the overtraining person never gets his breathing down to normal levels before the next workout.”

“Full body intervals,” Paul noted, using a running metaphor.

“Which never end,” Wilson agreed. “So you’re constantly grinding yourself down. Before long you start to experience systemic damage and that’s the kind that becomes visible on the surface as old age.”

“So bottom line,” Jason said, trying to sum it up in simpler terms, “we get some benefit just from taking the stuff, but in order to go superhuman we have to train our asses off while on it?”

“Basically,” Wilson confirmed.

“So where does the super growth come in?” Morgan asked. “Or was he always that tall?”

Davis and Wilson exchanged glances, but it was Davis that spoke. “That’s where Vermaire gets complicated. Ambrosia wasn’t the only substance we discovered in Antarctica, though it was by far the largest in quantity. The V’kit’no’sat had a wide range of supplements and drugs that they used to augment their slaves, as well as themselves. Vermaire requested permission to use some of them, which I initially refused but eventually relented on. One of them was a growth serum.”

“Ah, exactly how big were the Human slaves?” Paul asked, feeling even more uneasy about potentially fighting them, let alone the Dinosaurs.

“6 foot 7 inches on average,” Davis said matter of fact. “We couldn’t find an image of anyone even under 6 feet, male or female.”

“And the taller ones?” Jason asked.

“Nothing above 8 feet, that we found anyway…which is still rather small compared to the Dinosaurs,” Davis reminded them.

“Great,” Paul said, imagining an army of Black Knights with a T-Rex as backup.

“Did he take something to make him resistant to stun energy?” Morgan asked.

“No, that’s his armor,” Wilson admitted. “It absorbs stun energy, and will even draw it out of the user’s body so long as it doesn’t become saturated.”

Jason frowned hard. “Really wish we’d known that earlier.”

“Ditto,” Paul agreed.

“What else did he take?” Morgan pressed.

“He took a reduction drug when his growth rate exceeded expectation. He was a good 6 inches taller than he is now. Fortunately the V’kit’no’sat had created a way to fine tune body size using a combination of the two drugs, otherwise I don’t know how much bigger he would have grown before the drug wore off.”

“Wait, they actually have a drug that makes you smaller?” Jason asked. “How does that even work? The loss of body mass would have to be uniform across all tissues.”

“It is,” Davis confirmed. “I was as surprised as you, but the V’kit’no’sat apparently did their homework, and it does function without apparent side effect, though Vermaire is only one of three subjects to have experimented with it, and the other two were to combat growth deficiencies rather than for augmentation, so their data is questionable at best.”

“He also took a sensory enhancement serum,” Wilson added with obvious dissatisfaction. “His eyesight and hearing increased significantly, as did taste and smell, but not touch or the internal senses.”

“Are you making these available to us as well?” Morgan asked.

Davis visibly stiffened. “I hadn’t planned to, we have very little data to work with other than Vermaire and I’m still not completely convinced there aren’t unforeseen side effects. The ambrosia I’m fairly certain of, but the rest is too dangerous in my opinion. If in time you feel otherwise we’ll discuss the matter, but for now I don’t want anyone using the other substances.”

Paul looked at Wilson. “His physical strength and speed….drugs or training?”

“Training, boosted with ambrosia,” the former Olympic decathlete confirmed, his distaste for drugs evident in his defensive tone.

“Do the other drugs increase fighting ability?”

“Theoretically yes,” Davis answered when Wilson hesitated.

“Do you have any information on how badass the Human troops were? Do we have any idea what they were capable of?”

“And how long they lived?” Morgan added.

“A little,” Davis answered. “And several hundred, if not thousands of years…assuming they survived that long. The V’kit’no’sat used Humans as expendable resources, though it seems they didn’t waste them. Some entries even indicate that they were perturbed at having to retrain new Humans when some of their veterans were lost.”

“How long do they live?” Jason asked.

“You’ve seen video images of them?” Wilson asked.

“Some,” Paul answered.

“Different than the movies?”

“Yes,” Paul answered as Jason’s eyes lit up.

“More wiry,” he said. “More agile and fit.”

Wilson nodded. “With their own version of ambrosia and their understanding of training, their lifespans appear to be unlimited, though there were references to some losses.”

“Whether it be due to combat or some sort of internal social conflict or selection program,” Davis added, “there did appear to be an age hierarchy, with those more powerful individuals having lived for thousands of years, at least.”

“Do we know how many of them there were?” Morgan asked.

Davis shook his head. “No, but rough guestimates easily exceed the population of Earth. They had, or perhaps still have, an interstellar Empire spanning thousands of star systems. We’ve only been able to pull a partial map from the database, and it’s little more than navigational tags with no population references.”

“What about the Humans?” Jason asked.

“No firm numbers, but they appear to have been bred in far greater numbers given their smaller size and expendability.”

“So we’re not only outgunned, outnumbered, and outclassed, but we’re also newbs on the experience front too. Oh yeah, this is going to be a piece of cake.”

Davis half smiled. “One advantage we have is the vastness of space. Survival isn’t always about fighting and winning. I’m convinced we’re alive today because the V’kit’no’sat don’t know we’re here. According to the records they went to great lengths to track down and destroy any rogue slave populations.”

“Either that or they’re dead,” Paul pointed out.

“Wishful thinking, but a possibility none the less,” Davis admitted. “We need to spread out off of Earth so we can’t all be taken out in one assault, but before we can do that we have to get the home front stabilized, which means establishing a military so we can guard against our own planet’s stupidity. I don’t know the full implications of the ambrosia,” he said, motioning again to the vial, “but I trust you’ll figure out how to make the most of it.”

Paul nodded.

“Do you have more files available on the Human slaves?” Morgan asked. “It would help if we could study how they used it.”

“All applicable files have been transferred to your personal database under the keyword “Ambrosia.” In addition, I’ve unlocked more auxiliary files on the V’kit’no’sat and their technology. It’s not everything we’ve collected to date, but it’s more than you were given access to during your basic training.”

“Are the Dino drugs included in that?” Paul asked.

“Yes, along with a full profile on Vermaire and what we’ve learned from him.”

Jason turned to face Wilson. “I think you were right. We haven’t got to the hard part yet.”

The head trainer raised an eyebrow. “Told you so.”

Their conversation lasted another two hours before the adepts returned to their new accommodations and found most of the others in the lounge playing games, including a mammoth 16-player Mario Kart race taking place on the big screen.

“What did they want?” Emily asked, walking up beside them as they watched the others from behind.

“Oh nothing,” Paul said deadpan. “They just gave us full control of the military, chatted a bit about the V’kit’no’sat, and revealed the origins of the Black Knight.”

A dozen nearby heads suddenly spun around, including two that were wielding controllers.

“What?” Kevin asked as his Yoshi ran off course into a pond.

“Pause it,” Morgan ordered. “We have a lot to discuss.”

6

 June 17, 2045

Paul walked into the sparsely filled data lab and took a standing position at one of the flat workstation tables, using the touch screen surface to pull up the warship schematics he’d been working on for the past month and a half. He’d just gotten finished with his second run of the day but found he still had plenty of energy and didn’t feel the need to drag up a stool to sit on.

As their dedicated computer system pulled up all the auxiliary files and spread them out across the virtual tabletop like paper documents in exactly the same positions he’d left them this morning, Paul rubbed his forehead and tried to blink away some of the pain from his lunch-induced headache. He’d just upped his ambrosia dosage for the second time, and the resulting ‘sugar-rush’ headache was no joke. He’d taken his most recent dose at lunch in the form of a tiny cookie wafer, which had only spiked the effect further.

Over the past few weeks all of the 100 adepts had gone on the ambrosia, starting out at 3 ‘decis’ as they measured them. Davis, it turned out, was taking 2 decis per day, which were 1/10 of a ‘dose’ each, measuring in volume little more than a grain of sand. Due to the small size, they were usually incorporated into food or added to water, as was Davis’s preferred method of ingestion, carefully measured through a tiny automated device. Paul and the others weren’t patient enough for that approach and given their propensity for consuming snacks day round had found the ambrosia wafers an easy fit.

They could be eaten at any time of the day, simultaneously or spread out, with Paul choosing the later, taking some with each meal, otherwise the adjustment headaches would be more severe. His body was still getting used to the super potent substance, but he was now able to triple his running workouts per day, getting his accustomed 10k in thrice…early morning, noon, and early evening, and he was running a good 15 seconds per mile faster than he had been before. Not quite superhuman level, but he knew that the additional mileage at a consistent speed would pay dividends a few months down the line, so he was content to put in his 75 laps a day and wait it out.

The rest of his day was split between martial arts and the design work he was doing, both on the warship prototype and the overall military structure. He, Jason, Morgan, Greg, Sara, and Sam had been selected to handle the latter duties, while the others focused solely on physical training, spending more than 10 hours a day every day pushing their bodies to make as rapid improvement as possible, as well as to increase the dosage that their bodies could handle. Paul would have been doing the same thing, but his progression would have to occur at a slower rate, for he had a more immediate priority.

Liam and Roger were also taking a couple hours out of their day to help with the warship design, but Paul had the lead and the responsibility to make it work, in addition to the design of the military structure. Part of him would rather have been training nonstop, but he knew how important getting this early foundation right was.

But then again, that was the good part about having 100 adepts. They were all skilled enough that they could split up the duties and share the load, so while Paul was very interested in seeing how far the ambrosia could take his abilities, he knew the others would push the limits and experiment, then share their experience with him later that he could then use to more selectively plan out his own training and avoid the early pitfalls. The first ones to do something new were always having a rough go at it as they learned the ropes, and Paul’s current task was no exception.

Between the ‘leaders’ and input from the others they’d unofficially decided to split their military into specialized divisions while they and the other classes that followed would be trained as multitaskers and trailblazers…those who spearheaded the drive into the unexplored, unfamiliar, or unexpected. The specialization for the others was meant for them to be able to focus all their efforts and training on one skill, both to push it as high as possible and to be able to keep up with them, given that they were the elite of the elite and could train in multiple skill sets simultaneously to great effect.

Between Paul and Jason they’d mutually decided that they wanted one of these divisions to be made up of Black Knight copies…or as close as they could get to them. They didn’t know how to go about that yet, and the drugs that Vermaire had taken were still an undecided issue, but however they went about it they knew firsthand the effectiveness of their nemesis and had no problem with copycatting a good thing…after they advanced their own skills to the point where they could kick his ass.

Which was why Paul had selected sword training as his secondary training emphasis. They’d all mutually agreed to pick three training areas to specialize in…a primary and two secondaries for at least the next year, if not considerably longer, with the idea being to focus more on specialization than they had done in their basic training, which had been quite varied, with more than 50 subcategories. Now, with the addition of the ambrosia, they knew they had to really grind out their training and changing types regularly would diminish the adaption effect.

All of the adepts had chosen running as one of their three choices, given that it was a staple of physical training, with them spreading out their other choices amongst swimming, gymnastics, various martial arts areas, agility/reflex, and an experimental ‘targeting’ subcategory that Taryn and a few others were creating, with the idea being to see if ambrosia + training could increase marksmanship in a superhuman way, inspired by Legolas, Dead Pool, Zero, and others.

 All the rest of their previous training subcategories had put been put on hold, to be revisited someday in the future once they had the basics of ambrosia training worked out and a structure established for the Adept level and beyond. Their training and future activities were in their own hands now and they were having to make all this up as they went.

A challenge in and of itself, but it was one that Paul was throwing himself into fully. With unanimous and almost unnecessary agreement, the need for a naval division of the military was a no-brainer and of the utmost importance, but designing one was posing several problems.

First of which was the lack of adequate defense. Paul was not going to put pilots or crews into ships that were likely to be destroyed in an orbital chess match. Their fate needed to be tied to their skills, and so far that seemed unfeasible with the technology and strategies they’d been working with.

Simulations were fine for experimentation, but constructing actual ships with real crews wasn’t something that Paul was going to take chances with, so in the first few weeks he and some of the others had co-oped and designed a new type of drone that could be attached to stations or ships and flown as a remote weapons platform in singles or clusters, giving Davis something he could begin producing now and get into field testing ASAP.

Paul knew they couldn’t start arming their infrastructure yet, but it was something to get the ball rolling none the less. Now was the harder part…designing both a warship and the military structure in which it would fit.

 The primary schematic laying out before Paul on the touch screen was an experiment resulting from several weeks of limited inspiration. Knowing that artificial gravity was essential to space flight, Paul started off designing an AG section, ultimately opting to go with a disc unit that, ironically, ended up resembling the saucer section of the Enterprise or other Star Trek ships.

With that basic piece in place he’d been playing around with add-ons and feeding the designs into the simulators, supremely unhappy with all versions. The basic problem he was having was not in constructing a suitable ship, but that he didn’t know for sure what he needed it to do.

That was why it was necessary to develop a structure, or call it a philosophy, for space combat around which the naval division would be molded, and they were having to create it all from scratch…or, mostly, it was Paul that was having to do it, given that he seemed to have an edge over all the others in this area, though the others were more than willing to chip in where they could.

So far they hadn’t come up with anything. They’d floated around several ideas, went back through historical records of water naval conflict, even land conflicts, to try and glimpse some insight, but nothing really worked. Paul didn’t know what they were missing, but he couldn’t feel the mojo on this. There was something else, literally on the tip of his mind, but he just couldn’t make the connection…like he’d seen it before but couldn’t remember.

It was really beginning to annoy him, as was their lack of progress. They couldn’t move forward without getting this first piece of the puzzle in place and Paul hated the feeling of going nowhere fast, brainstorming for hours upon hours and having nothing to show for it.

Looking down at the schematics and auxiliary files Paul finally just said ‘to hell with it’ and swiped it all into a side folder, clearing the virtual tabletop and leaning against the edge, taking a long breath and staring down at the blank white workstation.

“Think, Paul, think. What are you missing?”

7

July 2, 2045

Jason whipped his rod-like training sword around his head at eye level, impacting two slightly askew targets with the single stroke, then reversing the sword’s momentum and rolling the blade over his head and slamming it down on a target just off the floor. Each time he hit one of the suspended, baseball-sized spheres a faint chime would sound, signaling a successful hit even as the targets swung aside on their swivel arms, allowing Jason to strike through his targets.

He stepped to his left and back a meter, swiped at one far over his head, then ran forward three steps and slashed twice in an up and down ‘V,’ taking three more down. Each of the target’s swivel arms had a resistance setting that could be customized, requiring a specified amount of force to be inflicted in order to collapse them and score a hit…meaning Jason had to be precise in his sword’s movements in order to score successful, repetitive hits.

The sparring room he was in was a clone of the one they’d used in their basic training, but this one was located well away from the trainees in one of many areas reserved for the adepts’ ambrosia-enhanced training. Jason wondered exactly how many training facilities Davis had hidden away inside Atlantis, because they had access to a great deal of locations that he didn’t even know existed a few months ago.

The sparring complex held this and many other chambers for practice, but lately the adepts had been requesting upgrades as they began to explore their capabilities and discovered that the existing training apparatuses were insufficient to the task. Thankfully Davis had anticipated this problem and left many chambers empty so that new facilities could be constructed as needed, but even when designing the new equipment and courses themselves, it was taking the engineers and construction crews far too long for the fabrication.

Sparring in particular was tricky, since it was a man-on-man skill and creating solo training routines required a considerable amount of creativity. This ‘ball chopping’ exercise had been one of their training staples, forcing them to learn to maneuver the sword about quickly and unpredictably, as there was no preferred path to take in downing the targets. The circular room was filled with them, with the idea being to hit as many as possible in the specified time limit, with the downed targets resetting after a few seconds, but slow enough that someone couldn’t camp out in the same location and essentially take batting practice.

Which meant that Jason had to stay on the move, bouncing back and forth across the training field creating a crescendo of chimes that informed him of his rate of success by the intervals. When he was really humming through the course the slightly lingering chimes would overlap, creating a continuous sound. Jason’s goal was to extend that audible chain as long as possible, and to recreate it whenever it flagged.

Normally the time duration was 30 seconds to 2 minutes, but after a few months of ambrosia enhanced training Wilson had been forced to have the system reprogrammed to accept a longer duration, with Jason already working up to 15 minute sessions. As a result he had noticed a considerable strengthening of his arms, adding a bit of muscle in the process but making him feel lighter and more at ease than ever before.

Jason had been spending four hours a day on this and other training drills now that his strength, speed, and skill had equaled or surpassed that of the martial arts instructors that’d been splitting their time between the adepts and the trainees. Now that he was able to best them in sparring matches, his time was best spent pushing his limits where he could until a superior opponent arrived, if ever.

What little actual sparring he did now was against his teammates, which was useful from a skill standpoint, but in order to increase their raw abilities repetition was required…the type that had to come from individual drills against machines that didn’t alter their dynamics as a fatigued sparring partner would.

 Which was why Jason and several others who’d focused on sword fighting had been designing an automated sparring machine that they could actually exchange blows with. They’d sent in the basic design parameters over a month ago, but it wasn’t even close to completion, which aggravated Jason. He understood it would take time to develop prototype training equipment, but ever since he’d began ambrosia-enhanced around the clock training, time seemed to have expanded, with him living a month’s worth of experience inside a single day, making the speedy engineering crews seem painfully slow from his point of view.

He didn’t fully realize this and often felt like he was wasting precious hours without the new equipment. Making do with what he had was the next best thing, and he was pleased with his progress on this training drill, having not only extended his time span before his arms would fatigue to the point of sloppiness, but increasing the resistance up to level 10, a good 4 levels above his trainee best.

With the course maximum being 12, they’d already requested an upgrade, knowing they’d need higher settings within a few months at the rate they were progressing. Jason was up to 6 decis of ambrosia per day, and seriously wondering how he had ever survived without the stuff. It wasn’t a replacement for sugar, his consumption of that had been continuously increasing as well, but it was definitely better. He was surprised by how such a small amount affected him, but Jason couldn’t argue with the results.

His body was much hardier with the ambrosia in his system, which would linger for days in the bloodstream until the body’s tissues fully absorbed what it needed, meaning that the perceived ‘effect’ wouldn’t wear off in a predictable amount of time like a sugar rush. It would persist until a need couldn’t be satisfied, resulting in a thirsty feeling, felt not in his mouth but in the rest of his body, especially his arm muscles, given how much sword training he was doing.

Jason wanted to monitor his depletion, so he was taking 5 decis in the morning with breakfast to make sure his system was super-flooded with the ambrosia for reinforcement during the day’s training, much like how a marathoner would carry various gels and concentrated liquids on their person for refueling, but since the ambrosia could be ‘carried’ in the bloodstream he didn’t have to think about it after his initial dose.

After that point he trained hard and long, with part of his purpose being to deplete his reserves as soon as possible. Most days it never occurred, but on occasion he’d start to feel the ‘thirst’ during the last hour of training, which he’d take care of with his 6th deci at supper so his body could use it to recharge during the night. When his training intensified and his body began to deplete itself early on a regular basis was when Jason knew it was time to add another deci, which was something that he worked hard to achieve, because it meant he was advancing up to another ability level in order to require more of the ambrosia.

This current training drill certainly depleted the strength in his arms, and to a some extent his torso, but as far as an overall body drain it didn’t rank very high, so his ambrosia usage was actually lagging behind those adepts focusing on running, with Morgan, Kevin, and Jace all having reached 10 decis, or a full dose, by now. That miffed him a bit, but the sword training was important to him, not only because of the ass kicking the Black Knight had given him and the others, but with the creation of the stun implements martial arts was going to play a more prominent role in warfare and Jason wanted to be as much of a badass in that department as possible.

The one good thing about the sword training was that he was getting to use an actual sword now…no more short stun sticks. Whereas the equipment was limited for the trainees, now that they’d advanced to adepts they had access to whatever they wanted, and Jason had fallen in love with the stun sword the moment he picked one up. Unlike the Black Knight’s super long version, the one he held in his hand now seemed to be the perfect length, a combination of reach and leverage that he could employ single handed or two handed with ease, with him splitting his training time evenly between wielding one blade and two.

Jason started to notice a little fatigue creeping into his arms just before the 15 minute end tone sounded, startling him as he wouldn’t have guessed that much time had expired. He glanced up at the hit counter and the new personal record of 1054, then flexed his arms experimentally as if the score was no big deal. He didn’t feel any soreness creeping in, which meant he was probably good for another round.

He walked outside the training room into the large gymnasium-like open area that housed several sparring rings and open air training zones and linked all the sparring chambers together. Several trainees were working with each other on the mats with hand to hand drills, also waiting on new equipment to be installed for that discipline. Four more were sparring with swords and stun sticks, working on developing hard to hold, awkward blocks by strengthening their muscles through hundreds of repetitions of the same move…very boring, but it was required to trigger the body’s adaptation.

Variation might burn calories and be ‘entertaining,’ but it killed adaptation when the muscles were required to adapt in conflicting ways, which was why many of the running-focused adepts were eschewing swimming. Those focusing on swimming still ran for cross training purposes, but the runners had discovered during their basic training that swimming workouts left them feeling out of sorts when running until their bodies readjusted…so in order to push their running skills farther and faster, they needed to keep their muscle ‘memory’ focused on the task at hand.

Jason was a decent swimmer, but he hadn’t chosen to develop those skills at the moment, choosing instead running and agility to focus on, and combined with his sparring the threesome of activities seemed to complement each other. He kept his runs short and hard, which helped with the quickness motif that they all shared, whereas others were running high mileage and eating up the laps hour after hour.

“Finished?” Erin asked from behind him, working on a resistance machine that had a bungee-tethered sword with six variable positions.

“I think I may get one more in today,” he said, trading spots with her. “My arms aren’t feeling it yet.”

“I’ll be one more and done,” she promised, heading inside.

“No rush,” he assured her, placing his feet on the appropriate markings on the mat and picking up the sword. He swung it forward on his right side, feeling the resistance mount as the tethers stretched until a tone sounded. He released pressure and swung backwards effortlessly, tapping a reset counter then swinging forward again smoothly and pushing into the bungees rather than using momentum to reach the required distance.

He got through four minutes of the form strengthening drills until he noticed someone coming in through the main doors hefting a giant duffel over his right shoulder.

Jason stopped immediately, almost dropping his sword. The man was clearly not any of the adepts, and given the fact that these areas were reserved for them and them alone made his presence immediately noticeable. All the others in the main yard stopped what they were doing and watched as the 7 foot giant walked toward them.

Jason knew it was the Black Knight from the data file they’d been given, but they’d never seen him outside his armor and hadn’t bumped into him at all since the Final Challenge several months ago. All of a sudden a creepy feeling began to make its way up his spine.

The feeling intensified when Vermaire’s eyes landed on him and the man headed towards him.

Jason held his ground but dropped the sword, stepping a few feet away from the device just in case he needed to run or dodge. All of their previous meetings had been for the purpose of kicking their asses, and he couldn’t shake the sensation that it was about to happen again.

When the armorless Black Knight got within ten meters of Jason he stopped and pointed his long arm directly at him, then thrust his finger towards the sparring rings.

Jason studied him for a moment then wordless walked over to where he had pointed and grabbed one of the sparring swords from the nearby rack. It was a duplicate of the actual stun swords, but without the stunning mechanism, balanced with the same weight distribution for training purposes.

The giant slung his duffel off his shoulder and dropped it to the floor with a loud metallic ‘thunk’ then walked over and grabbed his own sword from the rack, making it look pathetically short in his hands compared to the long sword he normally used. Without a word he set himself back on his left foot and pointed the tip of the blade towards Jason…and waited.

Swinging his sword about lazily, Jason started to circle him, wondering what this was about but glad he finally had a chance to face him outside of his armor and without having to defend against a one hit disabling stroke. He was also keen to see how much his skills had advanced…before he could hardly last ten seconds against the man.

Deciding to leave caution behind he suddenly stepped forward and swung forward with an overhead stroke, then cut it short and redirected into an upright block anticipating a return swing from his opponent.

He guessed right, but the blow came so fast and hard that his sword got bounced to the side and he almost lost his grip…but to his surprise the Black Knight didn’t press his advance. Instead he held his ground and waited for Jason to try again.

So that’s how it is…

Up for the challenge, Jason jumped back towards him and exchanged three quick blows, but had his sword knocked down and out of his hands, landing at his feet as the silent giant waited for him to pick it up again.

By now all the other adepts in sight had gathered around the circular ring, watching intently as Jason tried a third time, lasting five blade crossings before his sword got knocked aside and flew towards Mark, who deftly caught it by the hilt and tossed it back to Jason, who instantly began walking a circle around his opponent, looking for a weakness to exploit.

Vermaire slowly rotated to face him, exposing the back side of his pure white trainer’s uniform to the others, who had to reign in their urge to strike at the opening. He’d gotten in their heads so much over the past two years that they had instantly gone into combat mode the moment he walked into the training area.

Jason stepped forward, slashed once, then went on defense, backing up quickly and not trying to strike the larger man. He focused solely on blocking or diverting the return strikes, finding that he could successfully block a few, whereas in the past his strength had never been up to the task.

What horrified him, though, was the speed at which the man was moving his blade. Jason had expected the speed gap to have decreased with the ambrosia-enhanced training he’d done, but the reverse was happening. He could barely see the man’s sword move, let alone get his guard up in time. Even playing hard to get, backing up and moving around the ring defensively, Jason only lasted 20 seconds at best, trying multiple times before the Black Knight had had enough and held up his hand, palm first, indicating that they were done, then he walked back over to his duffel and opened it.

He pulled out another sword, identical in size and coloration, then replaced the other into the rack, then took up a guard position and motioned for Jason to try again.

Jason rubbed his tongue against the inside of his teeth distractedly, unsure what he was up to, then tentatively struck at him again, backing up instantly to cover himself…but the return strike came slower, enough to be clearly visible, and Jason deflected the powerful blow to his left successfully.

The next few blows came quickly, but Jason was able to keep up…barely. The round lasted a good 45 seconds before an intricate wrist flip knocked the hilt out of Jason’s hand and the Black Knight won again, flipping his new sword around in a flourish and reversing his grip on the hilt so that he held it blade down, then readied himself again as Lens tossed Jason’s sword back to him.

Fighting an inverted blade was different, but not something that Jason was completely unaccustomed with. His experience lasted him 20, 15, and 25 seconds in the next three truncated sparring matches before the Black Knight raised his hand again, signaling him to stop.

Then, unexpectedly, Vermaire twisted the sword in his hand until it was level with his midsection and grabbed the end of the blade with his other hand and offered it to Jason, bowing forward a bit in the process as he stared the adept in the eye.

“Train with these if you want to increase your speed,” he said, handing Jason the sword and walking away.

Jason nearly dropped the thing, surprised by both him speaking and by the mass of the sword. It was more than twice the weight of the originals and put an uncomfortable amount of pressure on his wrist when he took it in a one handed grip, watching the Black Knight leave them be…this time without rendering them unconscious.

“That…was odd,” Andy said, stepping up beside Jason as he watched the giant leave, not taking his eyes off him until he was out the doors.

“His sword is heavy…and he was still faster than me,” Jason said, handing him the sword.

“Wow,” Andy exclaimed, verifying his assessment.

“And here I thought we might stand a chance against him,” Erin said, having joined the spectators late.

“He left his bag,” Lens noted, opening it wide to reveal several other swords.

“Pull them out,” Jason ordered, wondering what else he’d left them.

“Eight swords, two stun sticks,” Lens counted, “and four…what are these?”

“I think they screw together,” Erin said, seeing the subtle corkscrew ridges on the end of two of the long handled swords.

“Double-bladed,” Jason said even before Lens got the first two assembled into one very long rod with the hilts combining at the center.

“These’ll definitely make the arms burn,” Andy said, swinging one of the singles around experimentally.

“I think that’s the point,” Jason said, glancing at the door where he had left through. “Has he been watching us?”

“Well, he knew you were the best one here,” Erin pointed out.

“Yeah,” Jason agreed sheepishly. “Means we’ve still got a lot of work to do.”

“That,” Lens said slowly, “was painfully obvious.”

8

July 14, 2045

When Paul got to the last lap of his 3rd 10k of the day he didn’t speed up, but merely followed the green 7:10 pace marker to the completion of his run, happy to finish off his long day of workouts but still peeved about his inability to solve the naval riddle. The drone schematics that they’d sent on to Davis would keep the engineers and shipyards busy for a long time, so the perceived time crunch was gone, but he didn’t appreciate the ongoing failure…especially when the answer seemed to be hovering just out of reach in the recesses of his mind.

It gnawed on him, and took the fun out of his training. He’d accepted holding back his workouts so he could spend time on the naval problem, but as he watched his fellow runners starting to move past his ability level he couldn’t help but feel that he was wasting his time, despite the drastic increasing in his running mileage and the gradual pace enhancements he’d been making. He was now running 20 seconds faster than his pre-ambrosia normal, which he could have accepted, but in his primary task he had accomplished absolutely nothing the last 2 months.

He didn’t let the frustration consume him but it was ever present, and even another successful workout couldn’t completely rid Paul of his bad mood. Most of the laps he’d just run had been spent trying to brainstorm ways of stopping a rail gun shell from blasting through the hull armor on the first shot, and finished just as disillusioned as he began, walking off the track and heading to the nearby equipment room where he caught a quick shower and tried to push all thoughts naval out of his mind, otherwise he’d linger under the warm water indefinitely.

Dressed in a fresh casual uniform, Paul walked to the nearby secure transit terminal and climbed into one of four waiting pod-cars, taking a seat facing backward and tapping in his destination on the control board situated like a coffee table on the floor in between two pairs of bench-like seats. The vertical door dropped down and sealed, then Paul felt the gradual acceleration around the loop track followed by the abrupt turn into the wall when all the external lighting went out, save for tiny running lights spaced as visual markers on the tunnel walls.

Several interior orange lights provided faint illumination, as did the glowing touch screen navigational board, but otherwise the car was dark and Paul leaned back on the cushioned bench and closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the weariness of the day lightly burning in his legs. It was a good feeling, meaning that he was pressing his body forward into new exertion levels that it wasn’t used to, but it also left him fatigued and sleepy on a constant basis…and he hadn’t eaten anything in 5 hours, leaving him hungry and mildly dehydrated.

Suddenly a bright light got his attention and he realized that he was already back to the station in their quarters block. As the car’s door automatically opened Paul realized he must have dozed off without realizing it.

He stepped out and headed down to the third level exit into the rest of the city, the only entrance into their restricted block. When he passed through the plain double doors he walked down a short walkway that opened up into a main ‘street’ through the interior of the city and blended in with the crowd, heading towards the nearest cafeteria where he met up with a few of the other adepts at one of over 200 tables, filled exclusively with Star Force personnel.

The tourist areas of the city were far from here, allowing the adepts some measure of privacy as they carted two trays of food each over to their table with only a few casual glances in their direction. The presence of the red striped uniforms had become almost a round the clock fixture in this particular cafeteria, and enough curious questions had been previously answered or not answered that the crowds had learned to leave them be.

Paul sat down next to Wes and began eating his various carb- and sugar-heavy foods, starting with a bowl of noodles and half finishing it before pulling the top off of one of the 3 reusable water bottles he’d grabbed and downed it in one long tilt of his head.

“Long day?” Sara asked, taking the seat across the table from him.

“Manageable,” Paul said, sucking down another forkful of the plain noodles. “Congrats on finally catching up,” he said half sarcastically, referring to her running speed which was now on par with his.

“Not quite,” she amended. “You’re doing more mileage than me. Bet if we raced you’d still win.”

“Raced?” Paul repeated, half laughing. “I’m tired enough, thanks.”

Sara frowned. “Aren’t you getting enough?” she asked, not mentioning the ambrosia by name in the unsecured cafeteria.

“I am,” Paul said, glancing down at the table as he tore off a bit of a roll with his fork and skewered it with the prongs. “It’s taking me a while to adapt to the mileage.”

“You having trouble holding pace?”

“No, it’s just the overall load. I’m fine, it’s just part of the adjustment process.”

The blonde bob on the back of her head belied Sara’s all knowing eyes. “You’re bummed out.”

Paul rolled his eyes. How did she always know what he was thinking?

“I’m stuck in a rut and can’t seem to work my way out,” he admitted. “I’m no further along than when I started.”

“Nobody said trailblazing was going to be predictable,” she reminded him. “You’ve had it so easy up till now you were bound to run into the bad luck monkey sooner or later.”

Paul raised a humorous eyebrow. “Bad luck monkey?”

Sara smiled. “It’s a 1s thing. He likes to sneak up behind you and beat your brains in when you’re not looking, which is why you can never take victory for granted. He comes in multiple forms…Ditty Kong, Donkey Kong, and King Kong.”

Paul humphed. “Guess I’ve got King Kong on my back then.”

“So shake him off,” Sara said, sticking a bite of white cake into her mouth. “Vary your routine and see if you can get your head clear. If you want we can take a walk around the city?”

Paul thought about that for a moment. “Actually, that sounds like a good idea. It feels like I’ve plowed the same mental field so many times the soil has broken down into lifeless sand.”

“King Kong will do that to you,” she said, sucking down half a bottle of water as the two continued to inhale their food and have their conversation simultaneously.

After they finished eating about 10 minutes later they left the supper crowd in the cafeteria and grabbed the nearest elevator and zipped off through the city to one of the public areas and lost themselves in the tourist crowd, walking down through the parks and commons areas, then swinging through the maze of shopping centers.

They passed many vacationing couples on the inside streets, with Sara eventually mimicking them and looping her arm through Paul’s and grabbing his hand, trying to gently shake him out of his stupor. “Looks like you finally ended up with that date after all.”

Paul blew out a breath and laughed, then glanced over at her. “Am I really that out of it?”

She nodded, then squeezed his hand. “Been in your place before. Hard to shake yourself loose if someone else doesn’t come along and do it for you.”

Paul returned the squeeze, gratefully. “Don’t know if it’ll work, but thanks.”

“No problem,” she said as they continued to walk down the streets masquerading as a couple…which ironically acted as a bit of social camouflage where their trim uniforms and ultra fit bodies otherwise made them stand out, but as soon as they ‘coupled up’ they lost most of the stares, given that people could accept that behavior and measure them up in a quick glance. Ambrosia-enhanced superhumans training to fight an army of Dinosaurs wasn’t exactly in the standard social lexicon.

They wandered the expansive ‘E’ complex, barely making it through half of it before they hit the apex of their long loop and lazily headed back towards the edge of the tourist commercial zone. Most of the walk they said nothing, merely observing the insane corporate giant that Davis had created and the hoards of ‘normal people’ infesting it. It had been so long since either of them had been around any non-professionals that the everyday moms, dads, and kids on vacation seemed disgustingly alien and overwhelmingly chaotic. Both of the adepts found themselves immensely glad their quarters had been kept segregated from the rest of the city.

Several of the space-themed stores along the streets had protrusions out into the walkways, displaying key items to attract the customers further inside, with one model shop in particular having various spaceships set up on pedestals with their unassembled box forms on racks below, ready for quick purchase at a register a few steps away.

Sara and Paul walked through the maze of display cases rather than fight the flow of traffic by going around, noticing dozens of movie-inspired models. Halfway through Paul’s eyes fell on one model in particular, prompting him to stop suddenly, which yanked Sara back by the arm.

“What?” she whispered, suddenly alert for trouble…until she noticed his distracted eye line on one of the models. It was a replica of the Trade Federation Battleship from the 1st Star Wars movie, looking like a giant, meter-wide donut. The model was huge and by far the largest available for sale, but otherwise unremarkable.

Paul stared at it for a long moment, oblivious to everything else, then his facial expression changed slightly, with his head twisting microscopically.

Sara watched him, patiently waiting for an answer until a smirk crossed his face.

“George, you just redeemed yourself,” he whispered, mentally releasing his death grip on the model and turning to look at Sara.

She smiled. “King Kong fall off?”

He answered her with a full kiss on the lips.

“Thank you,” he said emphatically after releasing her blonde head. “I owe you one.”

“Yes you do,” she said pleased, pulling him by the arm out of the model maze. “Ready to get back to work?”

“Already started,” Paul noted as they increased the speed of their walk, with Sara’s arm-lock guiding him towards the nearest elevator station.

9

When they got back to their quarters block Sara input the code to open the double doors then watched Paul hurry off down the stairs to the design center as she headed over to 3rd level ‘pantry’ to grab a snack before she headed on down to the lounge, her mission accomplished.

As soon as Paul got to the mostly empty design center he grabbed a table and used the touch screen interface to pull up the scifi ship designs file…one that contained 3d blueprints for every spaceship to ever hit the TV or movie screen. The Star Wars subfolder was easy enough to find and he pulled up a wireframe diagram of the TF battleship and set it slowly spinning in display mode, then used his index finger to move the giant donut off to the left.

Next he dug into the same subfolder and found the design for the Republic Cruiser, aka ‘Jedi Cruiser,’ that was the precursor for the Star Destroyer, which he also pulled up, along with a Super Star Destroyer, then set them each to different corners of the tabletop while leaving the center workspace empty. As they all rotated there silently he stared down at them and thought for a moment, working out a few details that he’d been mulling over on the walk back.

What had originally struck Paul when looking at the physical model of the TF Battleship was the sheer bulk of the ship. The model to his left was tagged at 3,170 meters wide, which was approximately 2 miles. The biggest starship that Star Force currently used was the Jaguar, which measured just over 800 meters long and barely hit 200 at its widest. The TF Battleship, on the other hand, was circular, so length and width were the same, making it a giant 2 mile wide donut whose internal volume dwarfed any ship, or even space station, that Star Force would even think of building.

But it wasn’t just the size, it was the double design. The donut had a hole in the center, even with a piece bit out of the outside ring, but that wasn’t the point. Inside the hole was a smaller sphere attached by a short ‘neck’ at the back of the outer ring. The sphere, Paul knew from the movies, could detach and land on a planet, making it a ship in and of itself while leaving the docking ring in orbit.

The sphere contained the crew, while the ring contained the droids and equipment…not to mention blocking fire aimed at the sphere.

The whole ship had shields, yes, and not all angles of attack were blocked by the ring, but the donut-shaped design did provide a massive physical barricade around the command sphere, which would take the hits of any direct line lateral attacks…including rail guns.

Not that Star Wars operated with such weapons, but Paul’s mind wasn’t limited to canon. No armor Star Force currently produced could stop a medium rail gun round without meters of material on the hull, and even that wasn’t enough if the round was sped up prior to firing by the momentum of a ship, meaning that any warship Paul designed would essentially be offense only, with a ‘one hit kill’ defense profile, which really meant the lack of one. If one round could penetrate the hull, then one round could kill a member of the crew, meaning Paul or one of the others...and that was unacceptable.

What was the point, after all, of training for years when one stupid shot could take you out in a space battle? All your skills were basically for naught, and in a situation like that numerical superiority would usually prevail. Yes, Paul and the others had learned to how dodge some enemy fire at range using small, nimble ships, but naval warfare was predicated on slow, massive ‘Capital’ level ships slugging it out with each other.

It had begun to look like he and the others would have to be expendable in battle, which was something he just couldn’t stomach…which was why he had toyed with the idea of using remote controlled warships that could take hits and be destroyed without losing any crew…but there was a problem with that approach. First of all, control signals could be jammed, which would require a very impressive comm system for any remotely reliable use. Second, the control ship could be targeted, and with a one shot kill scenario all the enemy would have to do is run past the other ships and take out the controller.

The kill power of the rail guns was linked to momentum, which was mass coupled with speed, so the only way to defend against them was to find a way to reduce their speed. Paul had briefly considered the idea of inflatable shields that could soften an impact until he ran the numbers and saw how pointless that was. It might work if he had a kilometer thick blanket around the ship, but then that wasn’t going to be very useful for a 50 meter long vessel.

Armor plating offered some defense based on its density and thickness, which the incoming slug would be smooshed against, but at the type of speeds the rail guns fired the shape of the mass didn’t matter. Even a blunt object would be too much for the armor’s structure to hold up against and it would tear into and through it…and often out the other side of the ship.

The armor would be effective against the lighter rail gun rounds, even when fired at a similar speed because their mass was so much lower, but they would eat away at the plates like a hungry beaver and tear through them with the efficiency of a chain saw on wood if concentrated to a small area on rapid fire. That at least wasn’t a one shot kill, but the rail gun’s superior kill power couldn’t be ignored even on the small scale.

Paul’s entire defense philosophy had been to reduce the slugs’ speed, because the mass part of the equation couldn’t be altered…but he now realized that it could be countered. Early on he’d considered creating anti-rail gun rail guns to shoot down incoming slugs with their own…but the mathematics didn’t work given the insanely high speeds. Missiles were bad enough to hit, but shooting a bullet with a bullet was virtually impossible, even in a controlled environment, but if the aiming factor could have been worked out, the mass vs. mass concept would have proved successful.

The trick of speed was that it was a relative measurement, based on either the spectator’s point of view or the combination of velocities at impact, meaning Paul’s ‘bullets’ could be fired at zero speed and still intercept the targets…if his bullets were in fact the ship’s hull.

Zero speed could cancel out the incoming speed 50/50 for equal mass, meaning that a slug coming in at 2 miles per second when, hitting and merging with an equal mass object at zero speed, would split the difference and continue on at 1 mile per second. Increase the mass of the object and the ratio would diminish, assuming that a merger occurred and the projectile didn’t just vaporize the target on impact.

Armor plating, while massive in weight, was never enough to completely counter the incoming speed…which technically would result in a slight shift in the entire ship, if the armor held integrity enough to transfer the momentum throughout the entire hull…which it never would.

But what if you not only blocked the slug with armor, but with an entire ship, much like the TF Battleship that had one ship inside the other?

Paul knew that with enough sheer mass in the way of the slug speed would be diminished as it passed through deck after deck and as the slug malformed from the impact it would increase surface area and slow further. He knew it would take A LOT of mass to completely stop a medium round, let alone a large one, but it could be done if you didn’t mind poking holes in your ship during battle.

And that was the second part of the inspiration. The TF Battleship was two ships in one, with the sphere holding the crew and the ring holding the droids…lifeless droids that were expendable.

It would have to be big, Paul knew, really, really big, but if he could get a control ship that wouldn’t pop on the first shot then they could explore the remote-controlled warship angle for their smaller designs.

But making a fat ship wasn’t the whole solution to the problem. Rail gun rounds could still be super accelerated by fast moving ships up to virtually unlimited speeds, meaning that any amount of blocking material could possibly be countered with a precisely set up attack run, which could be discouraged by the presence of an escort fleet, but Paul needed the crew…especially if it was him on the ship…to have a fighting chance rather than simply being a sitting duck hoping that the shot missed.

One of the other defensive possibilities that he’d explored was deflection, which required much less structural integrity than an abrupt stop that armor plating attempted, but the problem with the deflection was that the round had to hit the hull at an angle to potentially skip off…and even then the material that it hit had to be super dense otherwise the slug would just eat into it as if it were nothing more than paper.

On the outside of a ship you couldn’t select your angles…but inside was another matter.

Paul pulled up the design program center table and created a sphere representing the crew ‘ship’ and began encasing it in a massive armor coat that stretched out to needle point on opposite ends. The armor’s volume exceeded that of the sphere, but if a round happened to impact along the needle points then a deflection was probable…or even if it didn’t the meters of armor might catch the round before it made it to the sphere.

The other attack angles were vulnerable until Paul flipped the double needle ‘case’  up into a vertical position then began encasing it in a much larger ship, similar in design to the TF Battleship’s ring, only this one completely covered the interior sphere all the way up to the needle points, making it look like a non-holed donut.

Not convinced, Paul yanked the structure off the needle with his fingertips and ‘threw’ the wireframe mess into a virtual trash bin at the bottom of the table, then went back and built a larger one that literally swallowed up the needle on the inside.

On a sudden impulse Paul created little pointed ‘rocks’ of armor and suspended them mid donut at strategic points surrounding the needle like boppers in a pinball game, with the idea of deflecting rounds away from the midsection of the needle where it was vulnerable, given that a 45 degree attack angle would bypass most of the donut’s protective ring and come down on the center sphere from the side and hit the needle at too heavy of an angle for deflection.

With the density of the bumpers and needle case equaling their best armor, Paul set the rest of the ship’s internal ‘structure’ as a blan solid material with low density, given that he couldn’t design actual decks and equipment on a whim. Lastly he covered the outer hull with 20 meters of armor the entire way around the mile wide ship.

It was all overkill, but Paul needed to test the theory and there was no point in skimping. He took the primitive design, designated ‘Donut 1,’ and fed it into a simulation program. With the four Star Wars ships seemingly watching from the edges of the table, Paul fired various sized rail gun rounds at the ship from multiple angles while setting the center sphere as the mission end target. If even one shot nicked the sphere the simulation would auto terminate.

Paul started with light rounds and watched as they slowly burned through the armor plating, then ate away at the internal structure through the holes, but none of the rounds made it anywhere close to the needle, let alone the sphere, having them all stopped by the ‘filling’ of the donut before Paul called a halt to the simulation. With sufficient time they could eat into the center, but it was going to take hours, so that part of the defense plan held up…but then again he’d expected as much.

Next he set the auto turrets to fire medium slugs and mentally crossed his fingers. All of a sudden he saw impacts on the armor but no penetration. Repetitive hits on the same locations eventually broke through and little streaks of damage sunk into the ‘filling,’ but none of them were making it all the way to the needle. They were trashing the hull and whatever else was in their way, but the mass of the ship was completely bleeding off their momentum before they could get at the needle.

Paul nodded, satisfied that something was finally working, and increased the rounds to heavies.

The first few to hit almost made it all the way through the armor, punching giant dents into the hull instead of boring through. The broken plates in the craters flew apart on successive hits and the rounds eventually made it through all the way into the core of the ship…but there they stopped. A few managed to tap the needle, but not enough to damage it. Paul let the simulation continue to run a while before he was convinced that the defensive tactic was sound.

Which meant he’d succeeded…the ship was huge and probably could barely even move with the strongest Star Force engines, but it wasn’t a sitting duck for a one shot kill, and that’s what he needed. From there he could begin to tweak the prototype and get something workable to send off to the engineers for consultation.

Paul didn’t move. Something inside him said it wasn’t enough. If he was attacking this behemoth he knew what he would do, so he reset the parameters and upped the rail gun slug’s speed by a factor of 10 and hesitantly tapped the commit button.

The first round punched right through the 20 meters of armor and cored through the interior, then hit one of the bumpers and successfully deflected, angling off through the ship’s interior before finally stopping just inside the armor plating on the far right side.

The next few rounds did the same, either hitting bumpers or missing the needle altogether. It took more than 50 shots before one finally did hit, deflecting off the angle and missing the center sphere. It took 563 more simulated shots before it the crew section was finally hit.

Paul’s fist clenched up into a ball and he gently fist pumped the air.

“Gotcha,” he said, walking off in a hurry and heading for the stairs.

In the lounge below most of the others were preoccupied with games, vids or datapads and barely noticed Paul come in before he shouted.

“Roger, Liam! Get your asses upstairs. We’ve got work to do.”

Both turned away from their screens at the sound of his voice, but didn’t drop their controllers until they saw the expression on his face.

“You got something?” Roger asked as everyone else stopped what they were doing to see what was going on.

“Yep,” Paul answered loudly.

Liam and Roger exchanged glances then jumped out of their seats, eager to see what he had come up with.

Sara watched them hurry up the stairs and disappear from the lounge, smiling to herself as she hopped over the back of the couch and took Liam’s seat and controller.

10

September 7, 2045

Jason was sprawled out on the floor of the martial arts training center stretching out as he waited for Paul to finish his run in the new deflection chamber, where the user had to block incoming balls with the narrow, round blade of the stun sword knockoffs. The whole exercise reminded him of Jedi blocking blaster bolts, but it was proving extremely effective at honing their speed and precision movements, though none of them had yet progressed to the point of blocking multi-directional attacks or actually bouncing the wannabe tennis balls back at the mounted targets.

Two other new chambers had been installed, with four more still on the construction cue, but Jason was having more than enough of a challenge working on the existing ones with the heavier sword. Whereas he had been quick and nimble before, he felt sluggish and painfully inept with the weighty blade, though he’d been making gradual improvement over the past weeks, but he was far from recovering his former scores, which now seemed impossible to attain.

Still, Jason hadn’t given up and gone back to the standard sword as many of the others had. In truth they were still using them for part of their training, but Jason had promised himself he was going to fully immerse himself in challenge and had been using the arm numbing rod exclusively since Vermaire had delivered them two months ago.

Paul had taken up a similar training model, and was even now trying the deflection chamber with the heavier sword…something that Jason knew better than to try yet. He was going to wait a while until his arms adjusted a bit more and had spent most of his time on the basic drills, essentially relearning everything at slower speeds.

The door opened unceremoniously with a weary and sweat-soaked Paul slogging his way out into the middle of the chamber and dropping down next to Jason, letting go of his sword and leaning back on the rubberized floor at he stared up at the ceiling lights.

“Ouch,” he mumbled.

“Told you so,” Jason said with more sympathy than sarcasm. “You done for the day?”

“No, I just need a break for my arms to reattach themselves.”

Jason had to laugh at that, but his face suddenly blanked when he saw Vermaire walk in.

“Hey, look who finally came back…” Jason said, poking Paul.

Paul rolled over on his side so he could see. “That’s him?”

“Yep,” Jason attested as the giant began walking his way. “I was wondering when he would show up again. Guess it’s time to see how much improvement I’ve made.”

“He’s here for you?”

“I’m the only one he’s sparred with, and that was just the one time,” Jason said, standing up. Paul was a bit slower to follow.

The Black Knight walked up within a few strides and pointed two fingers at them, then one finger off to his left at the large sparring ring.

Jason nodded, then elbowed Paul. “Let’s go.”

Paul picked up his sword, his arms complaining but his mind not caring. He was grateful to get a chance to spar with the bastard, now that he was out of his armor.

They followed him over to the ring where he pulled out a pair of the lighter training swords and tossed them at Jason and Paul before grabbing one for himself.

The pair caught them and Paul dropped his heavy one on the floor outside the white circle that defined the ring. He spun it about with little resistance, his muscles almost grateful rather than further perturbed. Jason did likewise and went through a 7 second warmup flourish, then stepped into the ring where the Black Knight was already waiting. Paul waited outside, watching intently.

“Both of you,” Vermaire said, waving Paul inside.

The two adepts exchanged smiles as everyone else gathered around to watch, then Paul stepped into the ring and began to circle around behind the giant, taking up a similar position to the last time they’d fought…only this time he was much more prepared.

Jason struck first, with Paul moving a split second later as the Black Knight swung to block Jason’s attack. His blade came back faster than he thought possible, but Paul managed to deflect it in time and pulled back a step, then jumped back in as Jason took his attention away again. They exchanged blows for more than a minute before Vermaire locked up Paul’s blade and stepped in to slam his left hip against his chest, knocking the adept to the floor.

Jason struck immediately, but it wasn’t fast enough. As Paul picked himself up off the floor Vermaire succeeded in knocking Jason’s sword out of his hands.

To his surprise, Paul saw the Black Knight stop and wait for him to pick it up, then he waved his left hand tauntingly at them to continue.

Paul smiled and brought his light sword up in front of his face on guard, studying his opponent intently. He was still better than them, and far faster than he’d imagined, even after Jason had described their first encounter…but it seemed as a pair they could hold their own against him, at least for a little while, and that was definitely worth exploring.

Paul ran two steps forward and swung at the Black Knight’s shoulder, setting off a chain reaction of blows and counter blows as the pair alternately nipped at the giant, and he in turn fended them both off at once, never seeming to be in serious jeopardy.

They continued on for many minutes longer, with more than a dozen other adepts watching the sparring match with interest, rooting for their teammates but also learning from the display of skills.

From that day on Vermaire would make weekly visits to their training center, continuing to test and press Jason and Paul’s skills, barely ever saying a word during their bouts, but teaching them a great deal none the less.

Two days later a pair of Jaguar-class starships arrived in orbit around Luna, rendezvousing with the now complete starport in orbit and offloading 8 lunar dropships each, all of which were unloaded so as to keep down the mass off transit. They docked at the starport in turn, taking on crew and the first of the supplies that had been slowly accumulating on the space station via regular cargo shipments from Earth. When the first of the spherical dropships was loaded it detached from the starport and began a descent burn, slowing its speed and dropping down towards the grey cratered surface of the moon.

The giant golf ball dropped low over the surface then fired its internal engines again, killing more speed while maneuvering into a stable hover before losing its final meters of altitude and extending its landing gear from hidden compartments around the engines. The eight massive landing legs sank into the dusty surface a moment before the engine thrust shut down amidst a light debris cloud kicking out around the giant white sphere as if the ‘golf ball’ had just fallen into a sand trap.

Within minutes the cargo bay doors opened and a landing ramp extended down past the legs to the surface, with a pair of manned rovers driving down hauling wheeled cargo sleds behind them. The pair split up on opposite sides of the dropship and began depositing crew and cargo around the perimeter.

Hank Ronald stepped out of the passenger compartment of the second rover onto the ground, making him the first Star Force representative to set foot on Luna, and only the 46th person in recorded history, though that number would be passing the century mark within a couple of days as the dropship fleet would begin making continuous trips up and down from the starport, relaying the unending stream of supplies from the starships continuously ferrying them in from the Earth starports and the various Star Force orbital factories.

Ronald walked awkwardly in the 1/6th gravity in his hard plated space suit, but found his footing quickly enough as his muscles and mind suddenly seemed to remember the extensive low gravity training he’d gone through prior to this assignment. He grasped the controls of a portable lifter from the cargo compartment on the back of the Humvee-like lunar rover and extended its retractable third wheel, driving it over to the tractor trailer bed and beginning to unload crates onto the level piece of ground where they had parked.

Off in the distance a few kilometers another dropship landed softly and began disgorging supplies and personnel that would establish a second impromptu landing site and warehouse. When Ronald’s ship had fully unloaded it took off back into orbit leaving him and four others behind as they were busy at work assembling a command center that had been expertly designed into six canisters of equipment that unfolded like a giant tent and connected together like children’s toys.

Once it was fully erect they used variable pylon struts underneath to level the two-story high complex before attaching the oxygen canisters and power supply and ‘warming’ up the facility as they waited for the next shipment of supplies, which came down only a few hours after the first.

In that next dropship came more crates and two dozers which Ronald and another worker began using to scrape up the lunar surface and gently bury the command center to provide extra protection against radiation and meteorite impacts. After 14 straight hours of setup work and seven O2 tank refills/restroom breaks, Ronald retreated to the command center and stripped out of his suit, glad to be rid of the protective carapace. He showered in a small compartment, watching the water droplets fall peculiarly slow while trying not to hop into the top of the ceiling with every reflexive step.

He caught a restful 8 hours of sleep in the shared bunkroom then suited up again the next ‘day,’ redonning his hard suit and taking up the next shift on the round the clock construction site as Star Force quickly and firmly established its presence on Luna, putting more equipment down on the surface in 12 hours than all the nations of Earth had done in the past 75 years.

With their two crude spaceports established, the army of engineers and other specialized workers began creating roads and setting up prefabricated mono-rail tracks out to several predetermined sites for the construction of permanent startup facilities, the first of which would be a proper spaceport that would be marginally operational inside of two months, with a small mining facility coming online not long after that.

Hank Ronald, along with hundreds of other Star Force employees, took up residence on the moon for the next several years, with occasional trips up to the starport for normal gravity shifts to maintain some of their physical strength, making them the first unofficial Lunar colonists as they worked day in and out to build the habitats for the official denizens that would follow later.

As they worked the nations of Earth watched from surveillance satellites, gaining newfound respect and trepidation for the space agency, with a few of them rethinking their future plans and realizing that they had more to gain by working with Star Force than opposing them.

A great deal more…

Fabrication

1

February 2, 2047

Paul jumped over an angled fallen log, just barely clearing it with his left leg before his feet came back down on the moist jungle floor. He returned to his running gait within two steps, just in time to duck under a low branch before making a sudden left turn and busting through a wall of plants and off the trail.

The sharp spines of the grass-like leaves tried to cut into Paul’s body, but the light armor he was wearing deflected them harmlessly off the dull gray plates as he crashed into a small ravine and rolled headfirst down to the bottom…then was back up on his feet and running again in a flash as he heard the hum of the flying rovers closing in on him.

A small break in the canopy resulted in three stingers pelting the ground just behind his feet…the auto-tracking programs on the insect-like rovers were having trouble keeping up with Paul’s movements as he ducked in and out of the cover, but there were several of them, how many exactly he didn’t know but they were dogging his every step, tracking him via a small chip implanted in his armor so that he had to keep moving rather than hide from the stupid machines, which wasn’t all that hard.

His armor was equipped with a prototype IR disruption coating, masking most of his heat signature while covering him head to toe in the ‘scout’ version of the armor that the adepts had designed and been experimenting with. It restricted Paul’s movements, as was expected from any armor, but the light, thin plates had been augmented with flexible pads and stretchable sections to maintain as much agility as possible. It was still a work in progress, but without the basic protection the plants in Atlantis’s jungle park would have cut him to shreds as he ran through them, trying to evade the pesky rovers.

He had to ‘run’ five laps through the park to complete the challenge, tagging pedestals at either end without getting shot…and staying on the open paths was a quick way to make that happen, but then again pushing through the undergrowth was slow work, and the longer he stayed ‘live’ on the course the better the chance that they’d catch up to him, given that more rovers were added to the hunt on a random basis as the clock ticked off more minutes.

Paul had to be quick but not careless, which was the point of the challenge. It was one of many new adept-level challenges that they’d been designing themselves. This one was two months old and looked to be one that they would keep, while some others hadn’t lasted more than a couple days before being junked. The adepts were experimenting with many aspects of their training, and the things they didn’t like they quickly got rid of.

Paul stopped short of a large cluster of boulders blocking this end of the ravine, then set himself before leaping up to one on the right and bounce-jumping off its angled side up to the top one. He grabbed onto it with the traction pads on his gloves, elbows, and knees and crawled over, swinging his legs around and dropping to a lower rock on the other side where he bounced off and returned to his run as the nearby humming sound increased in intensity, meaning more of the devices were closing in on him.

The hover-rovers had been a new addition by the trainers, suspended mid air by means of four fan blade engines keeping them well out of reach of the adepts, taking away their ability to disable them with their bare hands. They had no target spheres, nor did Paul have a weapon in this challenge, so there wasn’t much he could do about them aside from run and run fast.

He was tempted to chuck a rock at them, but he knew more would come to replace any he downed so he had little choice but to keep moving. He was on his third lap in the outward leg, meaning when he got to the next pedestal he would be halfway, but it was a good quarter mile ahead with an open, dry creek bed in between which Paul knew he had to avoid, so his route would have to be an even longer circuitous one.

In the past this running drill would have taken him more than an hour to complete, if he could have completed it at all with the swarm of rovers hunting him, but his speed and reflexes had advanced so much in the past year and a half that it wasn’t much of a problem so long as he could keep them out of sight. His armor would even diminish the stingers’ bite a bit, allowing him to take one or two extra before going down, but more often than not Paul was able to evade the incoming rounds when he knew they were coming, even with the armor slowing his reaction speed.

It was when he didn’t see them coming that was the problem, and with multiple hunters he couldn’t rely on sight alone. This challenge was as much about speed as it was situational awareness…something that the adepts had been focusing on heavily the past year.

None of them had opted to take any of the augmentation drugs that the Black Knight had, but with Wilson’s help they’d begun troubleshooting ways of creating the same upgrades through training, including the sensory enhancement package that Vermaire got. It would take much longer, they knew, even if it was possible, but that wasn’t going to stop them from trying, feeling that doing it through training would be more reliable and beneficial in the long run, so they’d begun experimenting with a myriad of sensory enhancement drills.

They had a rough go of it at first, as they did with all the other upgrades they were attempting to create. After a few months of basic fitness training they’d begun experimenting in small groups with different ideas then sharing data afterwards as they began to develop their own training regimen, both for themselves and the incoming second class that was scheduled to graduate in about a year’s time if they were able to get through the Final Challenge. He certainly hoped they were up to it, but he definitely didn’t trust them to be able to improvise the way they did, so it was essential that they get the basic training program established before the newbs came to join them.

It was frustrating at first, but after they got their feet wet small epiphanies began to take place…things that the trainers had never anticipated, nor had they seen with Vermaire. Sudden spikes in ability or random insights started to pop up amongst the adepts, often after dry spells that saw little or no improvement. They’d literally walk into their training area, ready to do the same workout they’d been doing for weeks and suddenly have a different body…like all the training they’d been doing had been backlogged and finally caught up in a massive surge of improvement.

The prompting for the sensory enhancement drills had occurred in a similar manner. After working for months on active marksmanship drills, Taryn woke up one morning to find that her eyesight had improved. At first she thought it was a fluke…sometimes eyesight would waver with varying levels of fatigue, but after three days of the markedly improved vision she and the others began discussing the possible source of the improvement and how to replicate it with targeted training.

After that any training epiphanies, no matter how small, were immediately shared and analyzed, offering the adepts a glimpse at new training possibilities, which to them was like finding Easter eggs. With them already having finished and surpassed the best training the planet had to offer they were truly trailblazing at this point, and any new insight excited them to no end.

With the early frustration gone and a pattern of discovery established, the adepts were literally tearing their way into the future, spending hour after painstaking hour training, testing, and vetting new training methods in addition to progressing through the new challenges they’d created that would eventually lead to a second graduation to superhuman status…though that was in the distant future, so much so that they hadn’t even chose a name for the third rank. What training challenges and drills they’d created provided the footwork for the adept training program, with the bulk of the content still to be created/discovered.

In retrospect, Paul couldn’t believe how far he’d advanced since he began taking the ambrosia. His abilities now made his trainee self seem pathetically out of shape…much like he’d viewed his prior Star Force self when going through his initial training. The main difference now, however, was that he didn’t feel like he was on top of the world, but rather at the very bottom with virtually limitless potential as he looked into the future. How much stronger would he be in another year? In another decade? Or even, if he truly lived that long, another century?

The potential was mindboggling, and the more he and the others learned and fine-tuned their training the more they began to glimpse on the horizon, like they’d been climbing up to the top of one of the Egyptian pyramids, sensing the peak coming with no more room to climb…only to get there and discover that the apex wasn’t the end, but the chokepoint of an hourglass. After the narrow portion was reached the walls would begin to expand again, opening up into more and more possibilities, leaving the future wide open to almost anything.

Davis had said that ignorance was the downfall of civilization, and Paul now realized that his passing through that chokepoint hadn’t been a matter of workouts, but a matter of understanding how his body worked. His eyes had been opened, thanks to the massive amount of training that the ambrosia enabled him to endure and learn from. With what he knew now, he figured he could have reached the point of self-sufficiency without the ambrosia, as Wilson had done/attempting to do…the jury was still out on that one.

The ‘pyramid’ that he had been climbing was nothing but an illusion, for the potential had always been there…now he simply had the eyes to see it.

Knowledge was power, and that lesson had never been more clear than it was continuously becoming for Paul and the others. He often wondered what else he didn’t know…which made him even more excited about pressing forward into the future.

When Paul eventually got to the end of the jungle park he had to sprint across a tiny clearing and tag the button atop the pedestal, dodging stingers for two seconds as he crossed from left to right so he didn’t have to stop momentarily to reverse course and give the rovers a better target. He slapped down the button on the run then ducked back into the foliage and disappeared from view as a few paint splatters speckled the armor covering his shins as the tiny stingers broke apart on the ground beneath his feet.

He felt just a hint of numbness but it wasn’t enough to slow him down. Paul cut right and up a small dirt-covered ridgeline, then chanced a quick run down an open path before cutting back into cover…more to test how close the rovers were than to cover ground. When he didn’t receive an immediate response he figured he had a few steps on them and pushed his pace, taking a more direct route through the underbrush than normal as he headed back to the start point to finish his third lap.

Up above, in a wall nook that he couldn’t see, a pair of rovers powered up and took flight, adding yet two more hunters that would push Paul’s speed, agility, and situational awareness even further, making him move constantly to stay alive…or in this case conscious. Repetition, they knew, was the key to adaptation, so they had to keep the pressure on constantly during the challenge, and then repeat the challenge day in and day out.

This was Paul’s morning run, which followed his typical 10k on the track, making his legs a bit fatigued in addition to the drag of the armor. After 30-40 minutes of this jungle challenge he’d head over to the sparring area and get in more sword work before taking a quick break for lunch. His second 10k of the day had been scrapped months ago in favor of a stretching/gymnastics package that some of the specialists in that area had developed and they’d agreed to make part of their standard adept training.

In addition to his previous backbend, Paul now could do a back flip and forward flip on the run, as well as several intricate yoga-like twists and bends that continually and aggressively pressed his flexibility to new levels, thanks to the ambrosia’s ability to sustain and refurbish his muscles, joints, tendons, and other tissues…otherwise he was sure he would have broken or strained something by now.

Thankfully the training regimen had been experimented with and vetted by those with gymnastic/flexibility skills exceeding his own, so his progression in that area was smooth and consistent, without him having to worry about what he was doing, only about finishing the drills that were assigned and trusting that his fellow adepts knew what they were doing…which they did.

The remainder of the day was split between standard training and experimental, with Paul’s experimental focused on running and swords, the first of which he finished up last in the form of a 2nd 10k, bracketing his day with continually faster and faster running, which he’d gotten down to 5:40 pace, thanks in part to scrapping one of the original 10ks, but also to him holding to the pace marker lap after lap, day after day and never slowing down, always keeping it the same or a tiny bit faster.

He held that ‘line in the sand’ no matter how good or bad he felt, and gradually worked his way up to faster speeds while the other runners each experimented in their own ways. Some had hard/easy workout schedules, others kept to Paul’s medium-every-day approach while varying distances and number of workouts. Some were even doing their runs in armor as if it were Piccolo’s weighted training clothing from DBZ.

Altogether they were making progress individually while amassing a tremendous amount of collective experience that was slowly creating a monster of a training regimen…one that, with adequate ambrosia levels, was going to turn them and the subsequent classes into literal superhumans.

The only questions at this point were how long they could they keep this level of training up and how far could they push their abilities…though in the back of their minds there was always another lingering question, one that they tried not to dwell on.

How far would they need to go to match the centuries, if not millennia old V’kit’no’sat Human slaves...and how many years would it take them to pull even?

2

After finishing his daily workouts Paul came back to the adept ‘block’ and immediately went to the snack room to grab three ambrosia wafers, already feeling a bit drained from the day. He scarfed them down along with a bottle of water before heading over to the cafeteria for supper, after which all 100 of the adepts gathered in the lounge for a ‘team’ meeting at Greg’s request.

Normally their downtime was spent either working on designing the training programs, equipment, and other facets of their soon to be military, or simply spent relaxing as they had as trainees…rarely were any official meetings called, so Paul and the others were more than interested in what Greg had to tell them as they stuffed themselves into the couches and chairs with a few stragglers left standing in back leaning on the walls.

Greg took no chair, instead preferring to stand in the center of their informal semicircle just in front of the wall screen amidst the various gaming devices and controllers lined up neatly on racks. He was the most muscular of them all, having focused his elective training on hand to hand combat, but like the others he was still rail thin and light weight, a good 20 lbs lighter than he had been in the NFL, now with training-focused musculature rather than the crude bulk created in a weight room.

“I’ll keep this brief, and I apologize for taking you away from your activities, but there’s something we need to discuss before we proceed any further,” he began, starting to gently pace back and forth, looking more at the ground and walls than any one person in particular.

“We’ve all been working our asses off since the day we got here, even more so since we graduated and started taking the ambrosia. The results speak for themselves, but more and more I hear you talking about what you’d like to do next, how to take your training to the next level, what new skills you can develop, etc. I feel the same way, and encourage you to pursue those aspirations. Very few people can keep at it like we can. Some can handle the intensity, others can handle the duration, but rare are the ones that can juggle both…and with the ambrosia added it takes us into a whole new ballpark.”

“Because we can train for long hours we do…but for how long? Some of our trainers suggested that we’d burn out, ambrosia or not. That hasn’t happened. We’ve been smart about our training, and where we’ve failed we’ve learned and adapted. I’d speculate we know more than the trainers do by now, and I don’t see us hitting a wall as far as ability or drive is concerned, but I do think we have a greater problem on the horizon…time.”

“We need to be training for at least 6 hours a day everyday to cover the basics, else we risk a backslide. We cannot afford to take time off. That little stint Sam, Rex, Kent, and I took up to the gravity training station was a mistake. The travel time inactivity was bad enough, but once we got there we didn’t have the necessary facilities to keep up with our normal training, so we had to cut part of it out for a month. Big mistake.”

“It took me a good two weeks before I caught back up to where I left off on the drills that the station didn’t have equipment for, which meant I basically lost 6 weeks worth of workouts in exchange for the zero, low, and high gravity training…which was extremely valuable, but we can’t be putting ourselves in a position where we have to choose between the two. Our core workouts must be completed every day without fail, otherwise we’ll risk losing ground…or worse yet, we’ll start to plateau and get complacent. We have to keep pushing ourselves forward constantly, and with the way things are set up now I don’t see how that’s possible after we leave here.”

“What do you mean leave?” Rafa asked.

Greg spread his arms wide. “We’re to lead the military. When it gets built, do you really think we’ll be able to stay tucked away here training day in and day out?”

“I hadn’t thought about that,” Jason said with a note of concern.

“Neither had I,” Greg agreed, “until recently. But a more pressing concern is what are we supposed to do with the second class when they arrive. None of you need any hand holding, but they’re going to be newbs and our responsibility. How much training time do we lose dealing with them?”

“If they make it through to graduation,” Sara argued, “then they shouldn’t need any hand holding.”

Greg looked over at her. “I would like to think that too, but are you willing to bet on that? If they were like us they would have already graduated 6 months ago. It’s taking them almost twice as long to get through the challenges than we did, so I’m not assuming they’re going to be up to par with us. And when they get here we have to incorporate them into some sort of structure because we’re not going to have the luxury of just ignoring them and hoping that they can train themselves. We’re the trailblazers, they’re not.”

“By ‘structure’ I get the feeling you’ve got a recommendation?” Jason inquired.

Greg nodded and dropped down into a crouch, placing a few fingers on the ground for unnecessary balance, bringing himself into eye line with the row of adepts sitting on the floor leaning back on the couches.

“We have to make a decision right now not to hold back, or be held back, in our training going forward. Once things start heating up we’re going to be pulled in separate directions with conflicting priorities. We cannot let ourselves start making sacrifices. We have to be stubborn about our training because we’re the tip of Star Force’s sword. If we’re not sharp, we can’t expect anyone else to be. So rather than using us as do-it-all troubleshooters, we have to devise a different role for ourselves, separate from everyone else.”

Sam leaned forward in his chair. “You’re worried that intermixing with others will dilute our effectiveness.”

“Yes I am,” Greg said, standing back up. “We can’t let their liabilities slow us down. We have to remain free to push the envelope if we’re ever to stand a chance against the V’kit’no’sat.”

“You want us to be Spartans,” Kerrie summed up. “Problem is, we’re also supposed to be the Generals. How are we supposed to do both?”

“That’s the dilemma,” Greg agreed with a nod. “Any suggestions?”

There was a brief silence before Andy spoke. “I don’t really see the problem so long as we only have to do things once…like setting up a training program for our ground troops, whatever incarnation that might be,” he said, referencing the still undecided ‘Black Knight cloning’ program they all agreed was needed, yet hadn’t worked out the basics of yet. “We spend some time working it out on our downtime then hand it off to the trainers. They do the repetitive instruction and we’re free to move on to other tasks.”

Megan looked over at him. “And what if there’s a time constraint? Say we have a week to get something done and not enough downtime to cover it. Do we skip workouts to get it done or fail the task?”

“Neither can be an option,” Greg reiterated, “but we all know we’ll skip the training rather than see someone hurt by our failure, which is my point. We have to think ahead to avoid situations like that or there will come a day when there is so much to do, with so many lives hanging in the balance, that we’ll be forced to abandon our training…or at least cut it up into so many pieces that we plateau or backslide anyway.”

“You want us to tell Davis we’ll only work part time?” Jax asked sarcastically.

“We have to define our role before someone else does,” Greg said as plainly as he could. “If we’re going to lead, we have to lead our way…and we better figure out what that is going to be before we have a military to command.”

“You’re right,” Ian said thoughtfully. “And I think Davis knew it when he had this place built for us.”

“It’s not enough,” Jason added. “Greg’s right, when we start going on missions we’re not going to have this place to train in.”

“And even this place is starting to become inadequate,” Randy reminded him. “We’ve run out of room for expansion already, and we can’t expect Davis to keep cannibalizing nearby areas of the city every time we want a new training chamber added.”

“Need…” Greg corrected him. “Not want, need. And that’s exactly my point. We can’t start thinking of our training as superfluous, otherwise we’ll end up cutting back rather than pushing forward. We need the freedom to add whatever training equipment we can think up rather than be restricted to a set few. Curtail our ingenuity and you curtail our advancement.”

“You’re saying this could grow into a bigger problem than we’ve considered,” Rafa said, beginning to see the depth of the dilemma.

“Right now we control everything,” Greg answered. “We can’t let that control slip due to circumstances. We have to anticipate and prepare for those circumstances so we can do what we need to do without compromising ourselves.”

“Can we run everything from here?” Sara asked, doubt in her tone.

“No, we can’t,” Jason answered. “Not eventually.”

“So we have to build auxiliary training centers for us to use when we’re away,” Ben thought out loud.

“That’s a start, but it won’t work in all situations,” Sara argued. “When we’re in the field we won’t be able to take along a building of equipment with us.”

“Actually,” Paul said, an idea beginning to form, “it will for the naval branch…if we agree only to post ourselves to command ships and nothing smaller. We’ve already designed training areas inside the ship, no reason we can’t expand them into a compact version of our core training equipment. Sort of an inner sanctum within the ship reserved for us alone, in addition to the crew training areas.”

“That’ll be one fat ship by the time you get done squeezing all that in,” Dan commented.

“It already is,” Paul countered. “A little more fat won’t make much difference.”

Greg pointed at him. “That’s exactly what I mean. He said if we restrict ourselves to being on the command ships. We need to decide what we will and won’t do, then make accommodations for the field work and missions we’ll accept, like Paul’s inner sanctum…I like the name, by the way.”

“Thanks.”

“Speaking of names,” Kerrie interjected. “What are we going to call ourselves? ‘Trailblazers’ works as a nickname, but what about the next class and those that come after? If we’re going to define our role we definitely need to define a name to go with it.”

“Jedi,” Paul said distractedly.

Jason looked over at him. “I think that one’s already taken, buddy.”

Paul shook his head. “No, I meant that as an answer to Kerrie’s other question. The Jedi are both Spartans and Generals, as well as separate from the rest of the Republic. They have their own internal order as well as leading the Republic in times of need, otherwise it functions on its own.”

 “That’s a damn good metaphor, Paul,” Greg said approvingly as he mentally linked up all the similarities.

“The clones?” Rafa asked.

“Why not?” Paul answered. “They’re trained to fight on their own, but are just as easily commanded by the Jedi when one is present. Best of both worlds.”

Sara looked at him slightly shaking her head. “Why am I not surprised,” she said mirthfully, which drew a few laughs from the others. “But he’s right. The metaphor is spot on. We train the military to operate independent of us, leaving us free to do as we please and intervene when needed.”

Greg smiled. “And ‘sanctum’ could just as easily be ‘Jedi temple.’”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “Scatter a number of training facilities throughout Star Force holdings which double as command centers and living quarters, including the naval control ships, and we’ve got a command structure that allows us to be near or in a training center at all times.”

Kerrie nodded. “I think we’ve got something workable here.”

“I agree,” Greg said, pleased. “Let’s see what we can make of it. We’ll continue this discussion in a week.”

With a chorus of nods the adepts broke out of their seated formation and dispersed like motivated ants, each working the problem from their own angle. Greg let them go, staying put until only Rex and Kurt remained.

“That went well,” Rex commented.

Greg smiled. “Never underestimate the power of the Huddle.”

3

Seven days later…

“Do we really want one on the moon?” Rafa asked. “The low gravity is gonna kill us.”

“Do we even want to put troops there?” Ian chimed in. “They’ll get so weak after a long stay it’ll probably be better just to post them on an orbital station and send them down as needed.”

“No,” Sara insisted. “The troops need to be on the ground so they can get acclimatized to the situation. That’s an advantage we can’t squander. They can rotate up to a normal gravity station periodically for training, but they have to learn to fight in the environment they’re stationed to. We may not be able to do the same, but then again we adapt faster than everyone else. They have to be stationed on the surface.”

“I agree,” Greg added. “But that still leaves the question of how much gravity are we going to require for a sanctum? Mars has 1/3 gravity. Venus is just a hair shy of full, and there are bound to be plenty of planets outside this system with gravity higher than Earth’s. So what’s our standard going to be? I agree we can’t put a sanctum in 1/6 gravity, but where do we draw the line?”

“Or do we put it higher?” Yori pointed out. “In space we can set the artificial gravity to whatever we like, so we can have training sanctums at 1.1 or 1.2 as a norm. We don’t have to stick with Earth’s gravity as the baseline. Who knows what the V’kit’no’sat use on their ships. Earth gravity could be considerably weaker than the galactic average for all we know.”

“An interesting point,” Paul admitted after a short pause, “but I think we should stick with Earth gravity as the baseline for all orbital facilities until we get a chance to experiment. I have a nasty feeling that cranking it up permanently would throw our rhythm off. That’d be fine if we were stationed to a high gravity world, but our fleet needs to maintain a standard, and I don’t see why we shouldn’t stick to what we’re already accustomed to.”

“So you’re not against the idea completely?” Yori asked for clarification.

“Centrifugal gravity isn’t exactly the same as real gravity,” Paul reminded him. “It isn’t constant and ballistics don’t function the same way, so if I was stationed on a command ship I might toy with the idea of cranking the gravity up a bit to increase the challenge and take a slight disadvantage and turn it around into a positive, but I’d still prefer to be on the ground.”

“Whatever we do, we have to maintain as much consistency as possible,” Jason reminded them. “We’ll adapt to any situation we’re put in, we just can’t afford to constantly be switching things up.”

“For our purposes I say we put all sanctums in orbit,” Morgan said slowly. “If we want to build additional surface facilities later we’ll always have that option, but we need to be able to be deployed to planetoids whenever necessary without it affecting our training, so let’s just take the whole gravity question out of the equation. Coordination with lunar troops can occur from an orbital command center, with occasional trips down to the surface as needed. Same goes for any other future ground operations.”

“We’re still going to waste a lot of time in transit,” Rafa objected. “Probably a day at least without any training.”

“Not if we have specialized dropships,” Paul pointed out as an idea struck him. “Sanctum transport ships reserved for our use only.”

Greg pointed at him. “Now there’s an idea.”

Paul nodded towards Rafa. “He’s right about the delay. We can’t be wasting hours of the day waiting in line for flights. We have to be able to move about at will, and the only way to do that is to have our own fleet of dropships.”

“Add one more item to the design list,” Liam noted.

“Two,” Roger amended, “if you also want dedicated starships to use as shuttles between stations.”

“Two then,” Liam amended.

“That may be fine for naval,” Cora interjected, “but we have to be on the ground. Regardless of whether we go with mechs or battle suits we can’t exactly train on a space station…unless you plan on building something the size of the Death Star.”

“One thing at a time,” Greg said, holding up a hand then turning to Paul. “Are we good with naval on principle? I know we have a lot of testing to do, but are you comfortable with what we’ve got planned now?”

Paul exchanged glances with Liam, Roger, and then Jason. “In theory, yes, we’re good to go.”

Greg nodded. “Alright, so long as we have our linchpin set we can work on the others from that angle. If we have a command station in orbit everywhere we go, we can double up if necessary for the other divisions until we get the rest designed.”

“You know something we don’t?” Sara asked sarcastically. “I don’t think we’ll be building anything outside of a design program for several years to come.”

“True, but we have to know what we want before the engineers can even start their work.”

“Point there,” she conceded.

“If we’re designing the divisions to function autonomously,” Paul deferred, “we can work almost everything remotely. I think Greg’s original point was that we have to keep ourselves separate from the troops, so us keeping to the command stations and having them on the surface when needed won’t be as much of a problem as you might think, so long as we develop solid training programs.”

“Exactly,” Greg agreed.

“Easier said than done,” Cora argued. “We have to learn it first, and that means hands on. Training simulators may work for naval, but it won’t for mechs if we’re going to use our own balance controls. We’ve got to design the mechanics around us, and that means putting us in the low and high gravity environments.”

“And zero,” Martin added.

Cora shook her head firmly. “We don’t want to go there.”

“Why not? It worked for Voltron.”

“Whoa, whoa…” Paul interjected. “Unless you’re talking about walking around on something, a floating mech works the same as a starship and would be woefully outmatched.”

Cora smiled. “Stepping on your toes too?”

Paul smiled back. “There’s no point in all the divisions covering the same turf, so let’s stay specialized. If the dinosaurs start putting on space suits and thruster packs, our fleet will just use them for target practice. Their physical size and strength are only a threat on the ground, so focus your counter there and only there.”

“Will do, Admiral,” Cora said, throwing him a mock salute, which drew a smirk from Jason.

“There’s something else,” Lens said, drawing a curious eyebrow from Rafa.

“What?” Greg asked when he didn’t continue.

“Our naval forces…why are we only planning for space? Earth is more water than land, and until we can develop some kind of forcefield, the closest thing we have to a planetary shield is the ocean. Atlantis is a sitting duck to orbital bombardment, but if we put ships and habitats beneath the surface, the water would act as a regenerable shield. When it’s vaporized or pushed aside it’ll flow back in and recover the target, whereas a facility built underground on land wouldn’t.”

For several seconds no one responded as the adepts exchanged glances, stunned. Lens didn’t say anything more, waiting for someone to respond.

“That’s genius,” Morgan finally said, nodding to Lens in respect before looking at the others. “Why didn’t we think of that earlier?”

“You want to sink Atlantis?” Ben asked.

“Expand beyond it,” Lens clarified. “We can’t build anywhere on land without permission of the host country, but they have no say over the ocean floor.”

“Actually they’d probably try,” Jason amended, “they just couldn’t do anything about it.”

“Wait a minute,” Rafa said, his face scrunching up as he tried to recall something from memory. “Didn’t Davis say something about part of the raw materials for Atlantis coming from the sea floor?”

“I think he did,” Paul agreed.

“Which would mean Star Force should already have some subsurface sites,” Greg pointed out.

“More than that, they should have a fleet of submersibles,” Rafa insisted. “Has anyone seen anything about that in the database?”

“There’s nothing, I already checked,” Lens said.

Paul and Jason exchanged glances.

“Come to think of it,” Ryan said, a suspicious look on his face, “have any of our V’kit’no’sat updates included any swimming dinosaurs, because I can’t remember any.”

No one else could either.

“Let’s find out,” Sara said, getting out of her chair and pointing up towards the ceiling, indicating that they should move up a level. The other 99 adepts followed her out of the lounge, up the small connective staircase, and spread out amongst the various workstations and began searching through the Star Force database.

“There’s nothing here about anything that swims,” Jason said more than half an hour later, giving up the search.

“Google says they were here,” Sam reported. “Fossil evidence of several species, though there’s some debate about which actually were and weren’t dinosaurs.”

“Anyone find anything about Atlantis being built?” Paul asked.

“Plenty,” Sara said, “but no mention of any seafloor mining sites.”

“Something definitely isn’t adding up,” Jason said, hopping up and sitting on the touch screen tabletop as he looked out at the others. “Davis said he hadn’t turned over everything about the V’kit’no’sat to us, but that doesn’t have anything to do with Atlantis’s construction records, so why would he hide it from us?”

“Unless there’s some connection that we don’t know about,” Paul added.

“Let’s ask,” Greg said, glancing at Jason.

“Let’s,” he echoed, hopping off the tabletop and opening a comm prompt about where he had been sitting. He typed out a short message and sent it, unsure of where Davis was or what he was doing at the moment. His prudence was unnecessary, however, as Davis responded immediately with his image appearing in a small square about the size of a book on the tabletop.

Jason enlarged it to fill the entire table and adjusted the small armature his direction that contained the camera on their end of the video link. “Swimming dinosaurs?” he asked bluntly.

Davis nodded slightly, as if he had been expecting the question for some time. “No data recovered on them yet, but I imagine it’s hidden somewhere in the pyramid’s computer systems. There are a lot of other land species that we know existed on Earth that we haven’t matched up yet, and we keep finding one or two new entries a year, but so far none recovered have been aquatics.”

“Well that answers that,” Jason commented, glancing off-screen at the others. “Second question…did you or did you not mention that Atlantis was built using natural resources harvested from the sea floor?”

“I did.”

“Why isn’t there anything in the database about the mining operations?”

“I didn’t think it was relevant,” Davis said apologetically. “Our sea floor operations are kept quiet inside the corporation so they’re not included in the standard data files. I can get a copy transferred to you within the hour if you want.”

“Please do. Lens had a suggestion that we want to follow up.”

Davis’s brow furrowed curiously. “Feel like sharing?”

Jason half laughed. “Just an idea about using the ocean as a planetary shield if we began building infrastructure underwater. Maybe even establishing a water naval division if the V’kit’no’sat operated on that front…maybe even if they don’t.”

“Interesting,” Davis mewed. “I hadn’t considered that angle.”

“Neither had we,” Jason admitted.

“If you want, I can have the project director meet with you and explain things in person, or give you a guided tour if you want to spare the time. Our underwater operations are quite extensive. They not only provided over 80% of the raw materials to build Atlantis, they’re also the source for most of our orbital infrastructure, though recently we’ve been having to rely on more and more purchases to meet up with demand. Hopefully when the Lunar mining operations hit full stride they’ll be able to pick up the slack. Having to buy materials significantly cuts into our profit margin.”

Jason glanced at the others, then back down at the camera. “I think a few of us could spare a few hours for a tour, if the travel time to and back would fit inside half a day.”

Davis smiled. “Less than that. Your dedicated rail system connects to the processing facilities at the base of Atlantis. You can be there within minutes, then transfer over to several connected complexes via larger rail tunnels. The others would require submersible travel, but everything we’ve mined has been within a relatively close distance to Atlantis, so I think you could get a good feel for our operations without skipping a day of training.”

“That was our concern,” Jason admitted, smiling out of respect at Davis’s ever growing empire. “Why has the seafloor operation been kept quiet?”

“To keep the politicians at bay. Some of them are still fuming at us building Atlantis outside of their legal reach, and if they knew the full extent of our seafloor operations they might try another push to lay claim to the oceans. The less they know the better.”

“You really managed to hide it from them? That amount of resources should be impossible to hide.”

“More or less. The American and Russian militaries know, we assume. They’ve had some of their subs snooping around, but they haven’t made any official inquiries. As for our bookkeeping, we order so much material from outside sources that it’s not that hard to cover. A lot of our purchases go through Pegasus, so the exact amount of commerce isn’t up for public view. So far we’ve managed to keep it hidden, and with the Lunar resources thrown into the mix it should be even easier to hide in the future.”

“Our compliments to your accounting staff,” Jason offered. “How soon can you arrange for a tour?”

“Tomorrow morning, if you like?”

“Afternoon would be better,” Jason said, exchanging a few glances. “Party of four or five?”

“I’ll make the arrangements,” Davis agreed. “Destination point 22 on your network. I’ll have Heston meet you there at a time of your choosing, just let me know a couple of hours ahead of time. Anything else you need?”

“We have a few projects in the works, but nothing we’re ready to pass on just yet, but you should let your construction crews know that we’re writing out a Christmas wish list.”

“They’ll be ready when you need them. Goodnight, Jason.”

“Goodnight, Director,” he echoed as Davis signed off.

“So,” he said, looking around at the others. “Who we sending?”

4

The next morning Greg, Lens, Roger, and Leo completed their core workouts as usual, but cut out all others so that they finished their day’s training just before 11:30, then hit the showers, caught a quick lunch, and met up at the transit terminal and piled into one of the small monorail cars. As Davis had instructed them, they keyed in point 22 on the control board and zipped off through the dark tunnels traveling down to the very foundation of the city.

Their arrival point was much smaller than they expected, only a short track with one other car on standby up on a small platform, on which stood a man dressed in a black/red Star Force uniform waiting for them.

“Welcome to the underworld,” Heston joked as they stepped out of the pod car wearing their simple white with red stripes adept uniforms to the view of a huge chamber stretching out laterally for nearly a quarter mile in all directions, interrupted by massive support columns bracketing piles of crushed rock being tended to by a myriad of dozers, trucks, and other earth moving equipment.

“Wow,” Greg said as he walked forward and shook Heston’s hand. “This is all below the waterline?”

“Mostly. The ceiling is just above at low tide. I’m John Heston, Director of Mining Operations.”

“Greg,” he said, then gestured to the others, “Roger, Leo, and Lens.”

Heston shook each of their hands. “Davis said not to ask who you are, but to give you as much clearance as he has, so where would you like to start.”

Greg showed his appreciation for his easy acceptance of their secrecy with a curt nod. “What are we looking at here?”

“Off to the right where you can’t see are the processing factories. To the left are the receiving areas where we bring in the raw ores, pre-dried so we don’t unnecessarily haul around tons of excess water. This is our storage floor. Some of the piles are unprocessed, others have already been sorted and/or broken down. On the far side of the room is the package and prep center, where we send the raw materials through a final screening and apportion them for transport to a fabrication center, either here in the city or in orbit. That’s where my realm ends and the manufacturers’ begins.”

“Do you have a map room?” Liam asked.

Heston nodded and began walking down the short staircase off the platform. “Just around the corner is our main control room. We have diagrams of all internal facilities as well as the seafloor outposts. We also have an active sonar grid to keep track of everything in the water. You wouldn’t believe the size of some of the critters swimming around out there.”

“Oh?” Lens asked as they skirted around to the right.

“We don’t operate in the deep water…yet, but there’s some not far off from here and sometimes the big ones come up for a look and scare the crap out of my pilots, so we try to give them a heads up whenever we can. Visual range is moderate to low, so if something comes up at you it’s going to happen fast. I’ve had it happen twice to me, and the second time wasn’t much better than the first.”

“Are we talking whales?” Greg asked as they passed through a small door in the otherwise solid metallic wall.

“Whales are big, but not that scary. The giant squid are what really freak you out. Had one grab hold of a scraper once…took more than two hours to get it to let go. After that we started deploying armed escorts with stun arms, but most of the time our people are left alone. It’s more the idea of what might happen that scares people, with just enough random incidents to give the fear credence…here we go,” he said, thumbing an icon at the bottom of a wall mounted display screen that superimposed an image of Atlantis over the data sheets it had been displaying.

“What’s the biggest you’ve seen?” Roger asked, curious.

“Well, the biggest we didn’t actually see, but we did get a sonar silhouette that was longer than a football field and atypically shaped. We still don’t know what it was, but we have the image on file if you want to take a look at it later.”

Greg and Roger exchanged glances.

“This is a map of our internal facilities,” Heston said, pointing at the schematic of Atlantis as it cleared to show the ‘basement’ that housed the mining areas. “We’re here.”

The adepts looked over the map, realizing that nearly a third of the city’s understructure was dedicated to the mining operations.

“And it goes where from here?” Leo asked.

Heston altered the screen and the manufacturing areas were highlighted. “We have full fabrication facilities for everything from structural beams to computer chips, but in some cases it’s more economical to ship the raw materials into orbit and have the components for orbital infrastructure manufactured there, especially the larger pieces that would be difficult to fit in a dropship, but we make every piece of equipment that my division uses here in Atlantis, including the outposts themselves, though some of the fabrication for those has to occur onsite. We had quite a learning curve to overcome while building the city, but now we’ve got the process smoothed out considerably.”

The map of the industrial zones occupied the rest of the Atlantis understructure.

“You know, for once I’d like to see a full, complete map of the city,” Roger mildly complained. “It seems like we keep finding new areas that Davis keeps hidden.”

Heston tapped the screen. “This is the full version. The maps given to the general public are limited to keep these areas private. After all, they’re here for a vacation and don’t really need to know what goes on down here.”

“May I?” Greg asked, pointing at the map.

“Knock yourself out.”

Greg chewed on the inside of his lip as he toggled the map controls, playing a hunch. He zoomed through the city’s internal structure to their training zones and parks…and not finding them. Instead the areas were mislabeled as a variety of unimportant service and storage areas, none of which actually corresponded to the internal architecture.

He tossed a glance at Lens, but didn’t say anything to Heston about the ‘oversight.’ “These areas run beneath the entire city?”

“And beyond,” Heston said, stepping forward and readjusting the map, with Atlantis shrinking to half its size. “The docking module actually sits on the seafloor outside the city. It houses and services all our underwater craft, as well as serving as the transit hub for our rail lines,” he said, zooming out again with a spider web-like grid of lines popping up and traveling many times the width of Atlantis away from the city.

“Some of our outposts are connected by the tunnels, which allow us to transport much more ore back than we can by ship, so they link all of our larger facilities and we’re continually expanding the tracks to others as we spread out our infrastructure base, all of which currently sits within a radius of 100 kilometers of the city.”

Heston pressed another button and smaller ‘cities’ appeared at the vertices of the rail lines, as well as a scattering of unconnected dots.

“Where’s the deep water you spoke of?” Greg asked.

“Here,” Heston said, zooming out the map half again. “There’s an inlet on the western side that comes within 30 kilometers of our furthest mining sites, though we’re scheduled to add two more this year within 20 kilometers.”

“How many submersibles do you have?” Lens asked, studying the map intently. “And how big are they?”

“SUV up to a blimp in size, with the larger ones numbering less than fifty, though we have well over 1000 of the small craft. None of my people work in suits, everything is done from a pressurized cabin via controls.”

“And the armed ones?” Roger asked.

“They’re midsized to small utilizing a contact arm with a stun dart on the end. On contact an energy discharge occurs, numbing or rendering the target unconscious. I have no idea how it works, except that it’s not an electric charge or harmful to machinery.”

“We’ve worked with stunners before,” Greg said, almost offhandedly. “What are your larger submersibles used for?”

“There are two types…cargo haulers and mobile platforms. The first is self-explanatory, the second is what we use for exploratory digs and recovery efforts in lieu of building new outposts. They’re small scale mining units that we can float around wherever we like, land on the target, dig down to recover samples or seafloor nodules, then reposition to other sites on a whim.”

“What types of materials do you mine?” Leo asked. “I can’t image you collecting every element and compound required to build this city?”

“No, not everything. Certain select materials have to be acquired from other sources, true, but the bulk of the construction materials comes from us. The rest are purchased using the currency exchanged for the gold, silver, diamonds, and precious gems we recover on a fairly regular basis.”

Lens raised an eyebrow. “You’re not talking sunken pirate ships loaded with treasure?”

Heston laughed. “No, no…there’s plenty of interesting deposits laying around on the surface surrounding hydrothermal vents. The stuff comes up from the high pressure regions in the crust or lower and spills out into the region over the centuries. A great deal of our mining endeavors are just to sift through the silt and pick the stuff up.”

“Are there active vents nearby?” Greg asked, a bit concerned.

“All extinct. We can’t afford to risk mining around active sites, let alone build a city in an area where a lava plume could rise up beneath it. No, this area is tectonically stable. The deposits came from thousands of years ago and have been waiting around to be picked up ever since.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t cleaned out the area already,” Roger commented.

“There’s a lot of seafloor out there, but we have sifted through everything close by, which is why we keep expanding our perimeter. Silt recovery is phase 1 of our operations. Phase 2 involves digging down to the bedrock, setting up a dome to keep the backflow from recovering the site, and coring out samples to see what we’ve got to work with in the upper crust. If we find something of value we start sectioning off the area and cutting out segments, which we then transport to a crush dome where we pulverize and dry the material to then be shipped back to here for processing.”

“Phase three involves gas or oil capture, of which we currently have 2 sites. Since Atlantis runs on hydrogen fuel cells, the oil is used in the creation of polymers and the gases are used for similar indirect manufacturing purposes. Phase 4 involves the creation of permanent outposts in the craters resulting from phase 2 mining. These either house the crushing and drying apparatus, vehicle sheds, or storage areas. Phase 5 sites are outposts that harbor the deep drilling apparatus, which involves drilling a series of thick shafts more than a mile deep and pulling up all the constituent materials for processing…then moving a few dozen meters to the side and repeating the process.”

“Phase 6 is our newest endeavor, which involves deep drilling to set up permanent mining facilities below ground, similar to the method used beneath mountains on land. Large chambers are hollowed out and material recovered. Trick is, we have to keep ours air tight, so we’re building a habitat at the same time as we’re digging. After a while we’re going to have a series of catacombs in the bedrock that we can use for storage or any other purpose we like.”

“Is there a phase 7?” Lens asked when he stopped talking.

“Not yet implemented, but phase 7 is deep water excavation. Underground the extreme pressure is mitigated by the density of the rock, but in the open water it’s a greater concern. We have equipment that can go deeper, but we’re not fully set up for that yet, and until the probing missions are completed we’re obligated to wait.”

“What kind of probes?” Greg asked.

“Unmanned and manned exploratory vessels to chart the deep areas. They’re not due to begin mapping operations for another six months. Davis wanted sufficient deep water escort vessels should we encounter more hostile wildlife.”

“How deep are we talking about?”

“In excess of 800 meters. Atlantis sits on a plateau only a few hundred meters deep, our mining operations operate on that plateau and then gradually sink down to 600 meters at the deepest, then there’s a sharp drop off down to more than a mile. That’s where the big critters live.”

5

Roger took a step closer to the map, looking at the deep region immediately west of Atlantis. “Has there been any reconnaissance of these areas to date?”

“Just some deep sonar when we were scouting out the area before the city was built. It gives a generic topography, but nothing very detailed, and no help geologically.”

“Have you run across any skeletons…large ones?”

“Oh yes, we’ve dug up quite a few, and not all of them have matches in the scientific catalogs. Fortunately Davis gave us permission to dispose of them after a quick photo session, otherwise we’d never get anything done with the scientists nosing around, treating a 100,000 year old dead critter like it was the most important thing on the planet and telling me to put everything on hold while they took their time tucking it into bed.”

“Any of the big ones?”

“Not whole, but we did find some scattered bones that came from something gigantic. I suspect we’ll find a lot more when we get down into the deeper water. Things have a way of settling in the deepest areas in the water with the currents sweeping the trash about.”

Suddenly the rim of the screen began flashing purple along with a whisper-quiet alarm clicking like a Geiger counter.

“Speak of the devil,” Heston said, walking over to a nearby console and grabbing an earpiece from the hand of the woman working the station. He put the earpiece on while the woman directed the comm signal to all submersibles currently in the field. “Heads up boys, we’ve got a big one coming up out of deep water. Sector 12 and heading northeast. All craft working the immediate area shut down and make like a rock and wait for your escorts to arrive.”

Heston gestured to the woman who adjusted the comm line to reach the four escort craft currently in the water. “Target is a category 4. All of you better head that way in case it wants to cause trouble.”

Someone answered back through the earpiece, but the adepts couldn’t hear.

“Not a squid,” Heston answered the pilot, looking at the sonar image that had been superimposed over the map. “I don’t recognize the silhouette, but it definitely doesn’t have tentacles. It’s thick bodied.”

Another pause.

“Will do,” Heston said, taking off the earpiece and handing it back to the woman. “Prep another two escorts and dispatch them immediately.”

“On it,” she said, putting the earpiece in and typing away at her control keyboard.

“Category 4?” Greg asked when Heston walked back over to them.

“Size classification. Whatever this is, it’s bigger than a house. We’ve only had two cat 4s before, both of which were squid.”

“Something new then?”

“Possibly. We’ll get a better sonar image the closer it gets to our sensors, then an EM scan when the escorts get to it.”

“What’s their range?” Leo asked.

“Depends how much dust is in the water. Our equipment keeps it to a minimum, but there’s enough residual particles in the water to keep the sensor range inside of 400 meters on the best days. Their sonar units will provide a decent picture when they get inside a kilometer.”

“Can we get their feeds here?”

“Yes.”

The lead escort vessel motored over the seafloor infrastructure powered by two internal fan blade tube engines, sucking in the water at the bow and shooting it out the back at variable angles to assist in steering as it moved to intercept the target, just now becoming visible at the edge of sonar range. The pilot inside primed the forward stun rod, extending it forward like a long pole and charging the tip, which would hold the energy until physical contact was made, otherwise it would just bleed off into the water uselessly.

Below his sentinel, an elongated submersible designed for its speed and maneuverability, Robert passed over one of the mobile platforms, now firmly attached to the sea bed and drilling core samples in preparation for another possible outpost expansion if the bedrock contained the necessary ores. Seemingly oblivious, the tiny running lights on the gigantic submersible passed by and left the forward view totally dark, with no other Star Force infrastructure before him to mark his passage.

Having worked these waters for more than six years, Robert knew the topography intimately, as well as how a little vertical drift could run one into the ground without the pilot even feeling the shift, so he kept a close watch on his ground sensors and kept a steady 60 meter minimum clearance at all times while watching the target continue to grow larger on his secondary screen.

The sonar image was fuzzy, but Robert now agreed with Davis that it wasn’t a squid, though whatever it was it was huge…far larger than anything he had personally come across. During his usually boring shifts he’d spotted a category 3 sea snake, a pair of category 2 squids, more whales than he could count, and a rare category 2 jelly fish that moved so slow it almost didn’t seem worth chasing.

This current target, however, was moving at a good clip in a diagonal that would just cross the edge of their territory where several small craft were scraping up the silt and sucking it into collection bins where it would be sorted out and the useless material compacted down into cubes for disposal back on the sea floor, all of which kept the dreaded dirt clouds at bay from covering the entire area with a blackening fog.

Not that there was any surface light getting down this far, but the faint, distant glows of outposts and ships gave everything a sense of direction as opposed to the infinite blackness that seemed to defy any orientation stretching out in front of Robert’s sentinel. Only the sonar provided him a crude map of the area until he finally activated the flood lights and search beams.

The flood lights were mainly focused below the ship, while the search beams were odd spectrum lasers used for computer analysis, which would then be displayed in a synthesized map. It offered greater detail at shorter range, so long as the water remained clear. Some frequencies managed to penetrate the haze better than others, but dirt clouds usually rendered the system all but inoperable.

Fortunately the waters were pristine and the sensors were able to get a good silhouette of the creature before Robert came very close, then added detail and depth with every meter he closed. The category 4 target adjusted its swimming direction slightly as he approached, which was the most common response to the sentinels and their primary purpose…to shoo off the critters rather than stun them, which they reserved for close encounters and grapples.

That wasn’t going to be a concern this time, for the creature had no claws or tentacles…rather it had four giant flippers sprouting out from a thick shell. Its head was angled and came to a point, with enough of a jawed beak on it that Robert didn’t want to come anywhere near its mouth for fear of it biting his ship in two. Out the back came a studded, thick tail that flattened out like a rudder, making the monster look very similar to an oversized turtle…a mean, gigantic turtle that didn’t look like it wanted to be messed with.

As he flanked its starboard side, following a parallel path about 300 meters away, two more of the sentinels arrived and stacked into a wall-like formation and eased towards the creature. Luckily it responded by drifting aside as well, allowing them to turn it away from the glowing dome ahead and the dark little rocks on the surface that were powered down scrapers and other silt movers.

Once they were north of the highest latitude of their infrastructure the sentinels turned off, leaving the plated behemoth to its own business and returned to their patrol routes, thankful that it had moved off so willingly.

Robert framed a computer generated picture of the creature and saved it to a special memory file that he kept as a personal scrapbook and tally count of all his close encounters, the first to go under the level 4 category, putting him slightly ahead of some of the other pilots he was in a friendly competition with. The giant turtle had just earned him 4 points and a new bedtime story for his kids when he got back to Atlantis.

Back inside the control room Heston and the four adepts were busy analyzing the image captures and sonar data, trying to sort out exactly what the creature had been. Greg was both impressed and dismayed with its size, never before having realized just how alive the ocean was and grateful to be sitting safely inside the city and not in one of the submersibles out there.

“Looks like we’ve got another entry to make in the catalog,” Heston commented when they couldn’t find a match. “He’s a big one too. Probably could cause a lot of trouble if he wanted.”

“Do you have anything other than the stunners to work with, weapon wise?” Lens asked.

Heston frowned. “Sometimes the lights will scare them off, and some of the braver pilots have gotten in the habit of bumping them away, but the stun rods have been the most effective by far. We considered developing some sort of sonic deterrent but never got very far with the idea.”

Greg glanced at Lens. “You starting to get ideas?”

“A few.”

“Me too,” Greg admitted, pointing to one of the outposts on the wall screen map. “What’s this?”

“Phase 4 outpost, one of our earliest. Used mostly for storage now. The processing units it contained have been moved further out to be nearer the active mining sites.”

“How long would it take you to get us out there?”

“About 20 minutes. Feeling like a sightseeing tour?”

“Something like that,” Greg admitted.

“Alright, let’s head over to the docking module then,” Heston said, heading towards the door. The foursome followed him out and back across the way they had came, passing by the transport platform and walking a long way next to the giant wall on a sidewalk protected by a sturdy railing separating it from a ‘road’ that several dump trucks were traveling about on, hauling heaping loads of crushed rock to and fro amongst the dozens of small mountains blocking the view from the walkway and obscuring the true size of the chamber.

One of the massive trucks rumbled by four meters to their right, rising several meters over Greg’s head, making the railing seem woefully inadequate, but the driver didn’t vary from his course by so much as a foot and passed by harmlessly. A second truck also passed them several minutes later just as they were approaching the docking hub entrance. Large containment doors stood wide open, creating a gap in the western wall even larger than the trucks that could easily pass two wide through them.

An empty truck was returning from the north and ducked into the archway just as the group made a slight left turn and walked through the cattycorner entrance in the southwest corner of the storage floor…which took them over a minute to pass through. The sheer size of everything in the ‘undercity’ was intimidating, and the docking hub was no exception.

Once through the entrance the hub stretched out in a huge rectangle north and south of their position with several roads spanning the length with half a dozen of the trucks visible at varying distances. Offset from those roads were loading stations where monorail tracks circling about, coming in and out of dozens of huge tunnels heading out the western edge of the hub. There were two trains docked at the moment, both to the north, with a series of cranes and augers emptying the open topped rail cars and filling the much smaller trucks that slowly carried the load into Atlantis.

“Down here,” Heston said after giving them a moment to look around. He stepped into a small alcove and walked down a hidden staircase that brought them down below the floor and into a tunnel that ran underneath the roads the trucks were traveling on. They rose back up on the other side near a smaller monorail station that serviced what looked like tiny tracks in comparison to the cargo lines.

“These are personnel lines,” he explained, checking in with the service desk that oversaw all traffic and kept a number of the automated cars at each location on the grid so that no one would get stranded. “They run through the same tunnels, parallel to the larger trains but in a dedicated system that’s disconnected from the airway in case of flooding. It pretty much runs through the wall, so there’s not much to see,” he said, opening the vertical door and stepping inside the bus-like car capable of seating up to 20 people.

Heston walked up to the front of the transport and keyed in their destination on a control panel then sat down on one of the bench-like seats that ran the perimeter of the rectangular car, leaving the center open to accommodate additional people if necessary, with handholds on the ceiling for balance.

“We shuttle our work crews out and back from Atlantis each day, with the farthest outpost being just under 2 hours away. If and when we continue to expand further, we’re going to have to start building habitats for the workers to live in during long shifts, otherwise half their day will be spent in travel time. We’ve been working with the engineers to design suitable facilities, but so far no plans have been finalized.”

“How big is your workforce in the field?” Roger asked.

“It varies, but usually we have about 4000 people out at any time, with continually rotating shifts. It’s dark down here all day, so there’s no point in keeping to a surface schedule. We’re pretty disconnected from the rest of Atlantis, and run our little realm by a different set of rules.”

“I wouldn’t call this realm ‘little’ by any extent of reasoning,” Leo differed.

“Ha. If you knew how much ocean was out there you’d realize our operations are tiny. Take all the landmasses on the planet and squeeze them together and they’d fit in this ocean with room to spare. Then consider that the average depth is well over a mile, meaning living space higher than any city’s skyscrapers across the entire ocean and the notion that we live on a water world begins to come into perspective a bit, but the sheer size of it all is even hard for me to contemplate. What we have here is just a drop in a drop in a drop of the big bucket…and there are five buckets on the planet.”

“Point taken,” Greg said as the car began to smoothly glide off down the track laterally then took an offshoot to one of the giant tunnels, dipping into a hole in the ‘wall’ of the tunnel and disappearing from view.

6

The tunnel was similar to the transit lines that ran throughout Atlantis…dark, cramped, and with nothing to see but running lights. The inside of the car was much larger though, and allowed the men to walk around during the trip as they talked through the setup operations that enabled the first mining site and the construction of Atlantis’s foundations, which were situated in a cradle that sat on top of the bedrock as opposed to drilling footholds to firmly grip the Earth’s crust.

With the city’s design, they were using the sheer weight of the construct to hold it in place, with no detectable slippage occurring in the years since completion. It was a design motif enabling internal structural integrity, for if the ground were to split beneath them the city wouldn’t be sheered in half by its own ‘legs’ when they were pulled apart, not that they were expecting any such fissures to arise within the area, but it also made the city more resistant to earthquakes, which they did experience on occasion.

The rail tunnels themselves were also designed to ‘float’ on the ground rather than be anchored in place, other than by their weight. The entirety of one line was open air, but the side tunnel that they were traveling in was separate, with its own airway and emergency stoppage points along the pair of tracks that ran one on top of the other to allow for transit in opposite directions simultaneously.

The stoppage points were little more than platforms that connected to a pressurized rescue room that also connected into the main tunnel via pod-like airlocks that would allow personnel to transfer through in a small booth that would swivel about and only allow a few bucketfuls of water into the room along with the person, even if the other side was completely flooded. Same went for the access airlocks from the small line’s side.

To date there had never been a line breach, but they’d designed the tunnels with web-like internal structures that would keep a single hole from collapsing a much larger section, meaning that it would take longer for the ocean water to flow in and fill up the miles long tunnel to the top, thus increasing the survival odds of anyone caught inside, though the train engines were fully pressurized ‘ships’ of their own, capable of surviving and even towing their cargo while completely submerged underwater if need be.

Greg appreciated the safety precautions, especially now that they were only meters away from the ocean through the tunnel walls.

When they arrived at their destination the rail car slowed to a stop as it branched off the main line and entered a dedicated alcove inside a much larger train station. For the first time since they left Atlantis they could see the main monorail line, branching off at a 90 degree angle and heading into the outpost dome that was larger than any sports stadium Greg had ever seen.

“There are watertight doors that can seal off the spur line in case of flooding,” Heston offered as they walked down a wide connective walkway alongside the rail line as it traveled down a stubby tunnel large enough on its own to hold a basketball stadium. “With backups here at the entrance,” he said, pointing ahead to the widening point.

“Automatic or manual?” Lens asked.

“So long as the monitoring systems are live it’s manual, but if they go down it switches over to automated triggers, along with bilge pumps and air lines to replenish lost atmosphere. Each outpost can draw either from Atlantis through the tunnels, dedicated tunnel feeds encased in the walls along with the personnel rail car lines, or by inflatable tethers that will float up to the surface and draw air in directly.”

When they walked into the outpost they saw a widespread flat area rising up several stories beneath a geodesic dome, opaque, but with visible support structures everywhere across the roof connecting to several main support pillars that ran up from the floor. The monorail line ran straight through the center and dead ended three quarters of the way in. Spaced in tiny clumps around the floor were stacks of metallic crates and sporadic pieces of construction and/or mining equipment, but for the most part the outpost was a gigantic empty room.

“So this is just sitting unused right now?” Greg asked.

Heston nodded. “Distance is key to all our operations, and since this one was built several other outposts have taken its place as the closest storage facilities to the active mining sites.”

“You’re not going to turn it into a phase 6 site?” Roger asked.

“We considered it, but the deep deposits under our feet can be reached via nearby sites just as easily once they branch out. This facility is too close to the city and would curtail expansion in that direction since it’s been labeled a mining dead zone. We don’t want to risk subsurface instabilities that might affect the city’s cradle, potentially tipping it off balance. I don’t even have a clue how we’d fix something like that, so we’re not digging anywhere within 10 kilometers of the city.”

Leo looked up at the dome, wondering how strong it actually was. “Any of these ever break?”

“It’s a lot sturdier than you might think,” Heston said, following his line of sight. “It’s made of a new alloy created by Star Force called Herculium. We mine the constituent metals and additives and produce it ourselves. I don’t believe it’s available to the public markets yet, but it’s more than 200 times stronger than basic steel and a third lighter, and there are tons of the stuff up there and below our feet, so don’t worry about any accidental flooding. The dome could take a torpedo hit and not crack.”

“We’re familiar with the material,” Roger told him, “I’ve just never seen it used on this scale before.”

Heston’s face scrunched. “I didn’t think anyone used it aside from us. We have to, to survive the pressure within design standards, which are beyond conservative.”

Greg smiled. “Yes, Davis likes to play things safe with infrastructure. We’re beginning to experiment with Herculium in spacecraft, particularly in the larger designs to keep the structural framework from warping during heavy acceleration burns.”

“Well I hope you guys don’t start using a lot of it. We only get as much as we can make, and our seafloor expansion is dependent on the material. We’d have spread out further by now if not for lack of the necessary building materials.”

“I can’t say for sure, one way or another,” Greg wavered, not informing him of all the military applications that they had planned for the material, “but I think we might have a use for this warehouse. How many others do you have with this much empty space sitting around.”

“Four, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Most of the outpost is below our feet.”

Greg and the others exchanged glances. “How much more?”

“I’ll show you,” he said, gesturing off to their left and leading them to a large freight elevator the size of a tennis court. Once they were all inside the perimeter Heston walked over to the control platform and triggered their descent.

The large section of floor detached and sunk below, exposing another huge room broken up only by support struts. The ceiling was flat, unlike the dome, but it still rode several stories above the floor. The adepts remained silent until the elevator dropped down through the floor again, exposing a third gigantic chamber.

“How many levels are there?” Greg asked.

“Sixteen.”

Leo whistled appreciatively.

“All the same size?”

“Save for the bottom three, which get progressively smaller,” he said as they passed down into the fourth level.

“Can you stop here?” Roger asked.

Heston hit a switch and the elevator leveled out even with the floor.

“Give us a moment?” he asked, pointing off into the massive chamber.

“Sure,” Heston said, waiting at the controls.

The four adepts walked off into the emptiness, noticing several other elevator shafts around the perimeter, until they were out of earshot.

“I think this could work for us,” Greg said immediately. “It’s a bit of a delay getting here, but there’s plenty of room to build whatever we need.”

“And maybe they could even connect our private lines so we could have a straight shot here,” Leo added. “And I’m pretty sure our pods can travel faster than those cars.”

“They did seem slow,” Lens agreed. “But all this isn’t going to be enough.”

Greg’s eyes narrowed. “He did say there were three others like this.”

“That’s not the point,” Lens argued. “We need to build hardened structures. This dome is designed to protect against the pressure, not attack. The water will protect us to a point, but we’re going to have to bury any structures we build under meters of armor, if not the seafloor itself.”

“Lens is right,” Roger said after a moment of thought. “This facility will work as a transitional training center, but long term we have to be thinking ahead. If we’re going to build a sanctum, it needs to have all the bells and whistles. Until then, we can make use of this facility and the others if adequate transport can be arranged.”

“I see your point,” Greg said. “Does anyone have any idea how long it would take them to build a full blown sanctum?”

“Assuming we even had blueprints made up…several years minimum,” Roger answered.

“Is it worth it to build up this place for only a few years?”

“How big a sanctum are we talking about?” Lens asked.

“Like Paul said, something akin to the Jedi temple.”

“Then it’ll have to be huge, and given that it takes longer to build underwater than it does on the surface, or probably even in space, we could be looking at more than a decade,” Lens laid out for them. “We can’t wait that long for adequate training facilities. Once the second class graduates we’re going to be overcrowded, so I think we need to build here as both an overflow and a trial run for the main sanctum to be built later. There’s a lot of ideas still sitting on the drawing board for lack of room in Atlantis. Let’s explore those before we start deciding what we want to make for keeps in the true sanctum.”

Greg nodded. “Transitional it is then. These rooms are also big enough to begin testing our mech designs, and no one will even know we’re here.”

“Good point,” Roger added.

“What about his water navy?” Leo asked, gesturing to Lens.

Greg exchanged glances with the three of them. “This probably isn’t the only world with water on it. If the V’kit’no’sat can fight underwater we need to learn how as well…if they don’t, then we need to even more so to develop an advantage over them, or at least to give us a place to run to. Problem is, I’m not sure where to start. Will lasers even work underwater?”

Lens shook his head. “Not well. I think the more power we put into them the more it will vaporize the water and refract the beam. They might work at point blank range as cutting tools, but I wouldn’t count on more than that. It’s something we need to look into though.”

“Alright, lasers are out,” Greg said. “Rail guns won’t work in the water at the speeds that make them lethal, so I guess we’re left with missiles?”

“Torpedoes,” Roger corrected. “Sluggish, bulky torpedoes.”

“Which means we need other options,” Greg pointed out, looking to Lens. “Think you’re up to the challenge?”

He smiled. “Always.”

“Water navy it is,” Greg decided, knowing he wouldn’t get any argument from the others. “We can have one of the outposts reconfigured as a naval research base and start learning what does and doesn’t work in the water.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Roger agreed. “Let’s get back to Atlantis and have Davis kick his engineers into overdrive. We’ve got a lot of building to do.”

7

July 24, 2047

Cora felt her balance slipping backwards again, unable to do anything about it strapped inside the mech. In a vain attempt she threw out her arms in front of her, but the initial momentum only pushed her back further. As she fell backwards she brought her knees up to her chest, buckling her legs to diminish the fall, but she still hit hard, jarring her to the bone despite the cushioning springs in her harness.

“Ow,” she said to herself, staring up at the domed ceiling of the underwater outpost through the ribcage of the mech. The high set floodlights had become an all too familiar sight.

Stretching out her legs, and those of the mech, flat to the ground, Cora twisted her hips and brought her right leg up over the left as she pushed off with her right arm, flipping her over onto her side. From there she pulled her right knee up and flipped over onto it, bracing herself with her arms in a low hunch position.

Hanging from inside the protective cradle in the chest of the mech, but otherwise exposed to the open air, Cora maneuvered her arms and legs about, working the mech’s feet back under it and standing up slowly, cautiously. It took her more than two minutes to get back into a standing position, and that choreographed routine had taken her more than a month to learn.

Now fully righted, Cora could see out through the support beams crisscrossing around her and spotted the pair of automated mechs on the other side of the giant room, walking about on slow, predetermined paths. Boris and Dan were taking them through their paces with the onboard computers handling the walking calculations while they did the ‘driving,’ providing data and feedback for the crew of techs working out of a small booth as they constantly upgraded the movement programs, making the awkward machines a bit less stupid each day.

At the moment they were doing better than Cora, but she knew that in the end the computer controlled mechs wouldn’t be good enough in combat against the V’kit’no’sat. They had to be agile and quick, which meant the movements of the machine had to exactly mimic the movements of the pilot, otherwise they really were just drivers and not super-sized warriors.

To make that dream possible, Cora and the other adepts self-assigned to the mech division had painstakingly designed a control system that should have given the pilot the ability to maneuver the mech around with no computer control. They knew as a prototype it would be a work in progress, incredibly crude in the beginning, which they would have to suffer through, but that that struggle would be a necessary prerequisite in creating an adequate system down the road.

The system they created was based on the skill of the pilot rather than the engineering, using her balance for the mech’s balance, requiring Cora to be strapped in at the back, so that her vertical orientation exactly matched the mech’s. Her arms and legs hung free inside the orb-like cradle, encased in plates and straps that matched the pieces of the mech’s arms and legs. If the machine’s leg got caught on something and pulled backward, the plates around Cora’s leg would similarly be pulled back, though not with enough strength to potentially snap her bones, but enough to give her a crude ‘feel’ for the machine instead of having to rely on vision alone.

Likewise, whenever Cora pushed against the straps and plates, the machine’s servos would activate and move its arms and legs. In theory, that meant she should have been able to learn to walk around in the giant suit that right now looked like a birdcage of machinery with her being the canary inside.

Their first attempt was an utter failure. Neither she nor the others could even take a single step without falling off balance. They quickly realized this was because they hadn’t allowed for the pilot’s hip movements when walking. A Human can lift their leg a couple of inches straight up using only their hips, but the machines fixed legs couldn’t, so they’d had to redesign the mech’s structure not once, twice, or even three times, but a full six revisions, making the machine more Human-like before Cora had finally been able to walk a few steps.

Since then they’d been tweaking the control systems, foot pads, and other small details as she worked to learn the machine, knowing that her own improvement as a pilot was going to be the deciding factor, and given the awkwardness of the controls Cora knew she had a huge learning curve to overcome.

Meanwhile the others worked on parallel research, exploring the possibilities of traditional computer-controlled mechs as seen in many scifi franchises. That wasn’t going well either, but at the moment they were having the greater share of the minimal gains recorded, with a full basic obstacle course completion run to their credit.

That obstacle course was little more than a lot of twists and turns, none of the ramps, inclines, or objects to walk over that had been created for testing. Both groups were having enough trouble just walking in a straight line, so there was no point in throwing anything even mildly challenging at them yet.

Cora had to be constantly vigilant just to keep standing, even with the wide feet of the mech that seemed to almost balance itself. Oddly enough, the mech could stand up fine on its own when ‘parked,’ but when Cora was inside she had a tendency to fall backwards. They figured it was part of the acclimatization process as Cora incorporated the mech’s movements with her own and ‘unlearned’ how to move as a Human.

Even with all the design changes, the mech was incredibly stiff compared to Cora’s body, and the slight, natural balance movements that she made when walking or even standing didn’t translate into the mech, which was why she often tipped over backwards without realizing it until it was too late…which meant for now she was better off moving constantly, even if it was just shifting her feet in place, rather than standing completely still.

So once she got the mech back up into a standing position, yet still slightly bent forward at the waist, she took a step forward, over-twisting her hips to keep the leg’s movement from throwing her off balance. The foot came down hard on the ground, and Cora’s own foot felt like it hit a brick when the plate underneath her heel suddenly stopped moving, simulating the pressure of the ground beneath the mech’s foot.

She pushed forward and shifted balance between legs, then quickly snapped the other forward, all the while keeping slightly bent forward, afraid of falling backwards again.

Her foot came down and she followed it with another step…then another…then another, ending with her arms coming forward and impacting the crushable barricade surrounding one of the dome’s support structures. Using the mech’s arms she leaned against the pads for balance and shuffled her feet, awkwardly turning the mech to the right before staggering off with heavy steps again.

She didn’t make it to the next barricade, falling forward about halfway there. As the floor came rushing up towards her face she jabbed her ‘hands’ down in front of her and caught her fall, then pulled her knees up underneath her and slowly got back to her feet, then walked on until she hit face forward into the next pillar cushion.

Originally, the protective pads around the support pillars hadn’t been designed as walking aids for the mechs, but Cora needed the extra help turning so she was improvising, knowing that each step she took brought her a tiny bit closer to adapting to this frustrating machine, so she wanted to get in as many steps as possible, which meant staying on her feet, so she’d use as many crutches as were available…in this case meaning the support pillars in the otherwise empty section of the room.

Off on the other side of the testing yard Dan’s backwards legged mech walked forward quickly and tried to turn through a wide arc at speed…resulting in the computer controlled steps dumping the top-heavy machine over mid turn. It hit hard and skidded several meters, eliciting a small laugh from Cora. At least she wasn’t the only one falling today.

After three hours of the mech step workout Cora was thoroughly sore, and knew she needed at least a short secondary workout to mitigate the damage before she got to her core workouts the next morning, so after traveling back to Atlantis along with a carful of miners she hit the track and got 3 miles of running in, having to relearn her own steps the first couple laps as her mind was still in mech mode.

After her body smoothed out she clipped off her laps at 95 seconds each without using a pacing light. Cora watched her splits but didn’t have to make many adjustments, her body being very familiar with the stride length and cadence required, giving her a quick, soothing run that left her feeling refreshed and hungry, glad to be back in an efficient body rather than the cumbersome mech that needed massive redesign…but she knew that that redesign would come from her gaining experience in the machine and telling the engineers what to change, so she was going to have to tough it out for a while longer.

There were other adepts ready and eager to start learning to pilot the mechs, but until she could get something workable for them to use they were going to have to wait. It was up to her to trailblaze this piece of their military puzzle, even as others frustratedly worked through their own problems, setting up the groundwork for those that would follow.

Cora hoped the second class would appreciate that, though in all honestly they wouldn’t even have a clue. It was still a matter of some discussion amongst the adepts whether or not they would pass the Final Challenge…and what Wilson would do with them if they didn’t. If they did pass, then they’d have to incorporate them into their command structure, which was virtually nonexistent at this point. All of the adepts worked together so well that there was no need for ranks, and they’d been dragging their feet on establishing any, even as the potential graduation date for the newbs was growing close.

Once Cora finished her run she hit the showers and headed over to the cafeteria before coming back to their quarters block, grabbing an ambrosia wafer and crashing in the main lounge along with a few dozen of the others. She grabbed an overly stuffed chair and pulled it up in front of one of the dozens of video screens and pulled up a movie from the hundreds of thousands that Star Force had on file as she checked the daily news updates on a small data pad.

She flipped through the general Star Force updates, noting a festival announcement for next month and a new cruise package available that would take tourists from low Earth orbit out past various pieces of Star Force infrastructure and make a loop around the moon, offering a short stopover for ‘shore leave’ in a small surface resort.

None of that really interested Cora, other than to keep herself in the loop of what the corporate side was up to. After she got through those notices she pulled up the classified reports of all military activities, including progress reports on all divisions, including her own. With their busy schedules, the adepts had almost no knowledge of what everyone else was doing, save for random discussions during downtime. The team leaders tended to stay better informed, but nowadays even they were busy with side projects, so the news updates were their primary method of keeping everyone in the loop.

One permanent entry was the training scores of the trainees, which Wilson was letting them monitor now that they were close to graduation and they would have to give them assignments based on their skill sets. Cora had to admit that there were a few promising individuals, but as a group none of their teams were even approaching the score of the 3s, which had been at the bottom of their own rankings.

She was afraid that even if they did pass the Final Challenge, they’d have to spend a lot of time breaking them in, and Cora did not feel like becoming a teacher. The trailblazers helped each other all the time, but all of them were really self-taught, requiring only a nudge in the right direction or some key piece of information and after that they’d be good to go. If that wasn’t the case with the newbs, then there was going to be a ruckus, because she and the others weren’t going to waste time babysitting them…which they’d communicated quite loudly to both Wilson and Davis, who had assured them that wouldn’t be necessary.

Cora flipped away from their scores and ran down the last few new items on the list as the opening credits of the movie ended, then she set the data pad aside and blew out a relaxing breath, closing her eyes for a moment and washing away her worries.

At least they didn’t have to share quarters with them…Davis had acceded to them on that request, so their refuge here, away from the rest of Atlantis, would remain untainted.

8

October 3, 2047

“Ok, you’re good to go.”

“Copy that,” Paul answered the voice piping through the worktable speakers. “Remote linkage just kicked in.”

“Take it easy until you clear the dock. I don’t want the backwash scorching the equipment in the berth.”

“Thrusters at 10%,” Paul said, allaying the yard master’s fears. “Confirm umbilicals have retracted?”

“Confirmed,” the voice answered back after a short delay.

Paul used the virtual controls on the touch screen before him and triggered a short burst from the aft thrusters, but the ship’s diagnostics didn’t respond, nor did the image of the vessel from the docking cameras for a full six seconds, then the tiny puffs of ionized gas appeared and the telemetry readings began to register the inch by inch creep of the ship out of the construction slip.

Paul watched the angle to make sure the ship wasn’t listing as he gave it another two bursts, then a tiny corrective thrust to starboard. After that he confirmed the vector was good and waited for the first Star Force warship to drift away into free space.

“Nicely handled,” the voice came back. “Didn’t even scratch the paint.”

“No point in dinging up either one on the first run,” Paul answered as he prepped the main plasma engines while giving the ship another couple thruster puffs to increase the distance from the clandestine military shipyard, located in high orbit twice the distance of the Moon away from Earth and their prying eyes. Save for pointing a telescope at their precise position, there was no way for any ship or probe to happen by their location on accident or by design, since the construction of the station had been kept quiet and out of sight, thanks to the loneliness of the venue, with Earth only a small, bright dot in the starry backdrop, leaving the shipyard essentially floating in a sea of nothingness with no nearby planetoid to visually fix a sense of up or down.

The remoteness of location was also the reason for the signal lag, both for the voice transmission and the remote control link that was enabling Paul to fly the warship on its maiden test run from back in Atlantis.

“Activating course beacons,” the yard master said a moment before a series of dots appeared on Paul’s navigational screen. He had the computer tag the first and plot a course, then he triggered a rotation of the yacht-sized warship to ‘face’ in that direction before he gently activated the main engines and began moving towards the destination marker.

In truth the cutter had no bow or stern, given that it was a rectangular block twice as wide as it was tall with eight engine vents at the corners. Paul had designed it that way to maximize maneuverability, so the ship could just as easily fly backwards or sideways at full thrust. The mechanics of the plasma engine were held in the center of the H-shaped assembly with the thrust carried out to the directional vents, protecting the engine in the center of mass as well as giving the ship multiple ‘engines’ to lose during combat and still keep flying, since only one of the vent-pods was necessary for basic flight.

Also encased in the armor-plated H-assembly were four separate comm systems and three redundant computers, all of which were hardened against EMP attack. The thruster assembly was a separate unit also contained in the ‘H’ along with the navigational sensors, fuel tanks, and primary fuel cells.

The secondary fuel cells that powered the weapons systems were located in the modular blocks that fit into the two gaps in the ‘H’ and interfaced directly with the ship’s computers, interlinking with their own fire control systems and sensors. Currently the cutter held a laser module in ‘front’ and a missile mod in ‘back’ that contained both offensive missiles and the anti-missile ‘intercepts,’ 18 and 30 in count respectively.

The laser assembly had a single medium weapon focused along the axis of the ship with a rotating cupola on the front that gave it a 170 degree firing arc. In addition, two smaller anti-missile laser nodes appeared on the upper and lower sides of the mod, giving the warship some measure of defense once the intercepts were used up, though power for the defensive lasers had to be diverted from the main weapon, given that the fuel cells couldn’t provide enough power for both to function simultaneously.

 That was the in and the out of the ship. It had no living quarters. No bridge. No airlock. No gravity section or cargo hold. It was simply a remote controlled, expendable ship that could be flown by a pilot safely located in a distant station, ship, or surface facility, with the signal lag the only concern, aside from the enemy finding a way to block all communications entirely…in which case the ship would carry out its last targeting orders on its own, then await signal reacquisition.

The comm systems had been designed with multiple devices in the hopes that one type of jamming wouldn’t affect them all, including laser communication panels located around the center of the ‘H’ that could receive input from a nearby ship that was impossible to block save for physically imposing an object to intercept the comm laser.

Paul had never expected the ships to be flown from Earth during combat, but since this was just a test run and no one was going to be jamming communications he had saved himself the inconvenience of traveling out to the shipyard and arranged for a remote linkup, figuring the six second round trip signal lag was more than worth the tradeoff.

It did, however, mean that he had to fly as if he was playing a game of chess…preplanning each of his moves as he flew the ship out to and around the first navigational beacon, decelerating on arrival and heading off towards the second marker while avoiding a collision with the small floating device with a single tiny blinking green light visually marking its presence on the back side where the sunlight couldn’t be seen reflecting off its dark gray plates.

Paul watched the object and its twins carefully on the warship’s camera displays and sensor board. At close range the beacons stood out easily, but get a few kilometers away and the flashing light was all that was distinguishable against the bright stars. Even the massive shipyard looked like it was about to be swallowed up by the galactic spectacle as the cutter reached the apogee of its lazy loop around the improvised course, though on the sensor board it and the beacons were all that registered, making them plain as day as far as the computer was concerned.

On the way back to the station a special targeting buoy had been set up, which Paul targeted on the move with the main laser, tagging the sensor-located target and ordering the ship to attack, since the signal lag prevented any meaningful manual firing.

The low power test shot hit and absorbed into the target, which sent a return signal detailing the amount of energy received and where it had hit on the twenty meter wide sphere…which was far left and almost a miss.

Paul slowed the ship to a crawl and fired off two more test shots, then rotated the giant block up on its side and tested the defensive lasers, firing off a barrage of tiny shots that peppered the target like a machine gun. Satisfied, he flipped the ship over and tested the opposite battery in a similar manner.

“Are you getting this?” Paul asked as he watched the data streaming across the tabletop.

“Receiving and recording.”

“Readying missiles,” Paul said as another idea struck him. “If you don’t mind, use the station’s sensors and see if you can pick up the missile at this range.”

“Give me a moment,” the yard master said, making the necessary preparations.

“No rush,” Paul answered, waiting patiently as he sipped a bottle of sugar-rich fluid that he usually had on hand when working long hours in the information and design center.

“How’s it going?” Sara asked, walking up behind him.

“No problems yet,” he said, rubbing his eyes. He’d been working on three different design projects the past five hours, with Atlantis time now just passing 10:00 pm with most of the adepts already headed to bed, needing a good 8 hours of sleep before they started their morning training sessions at 5 or 6 am, depending on their individual preferences and schedules.

“How’s the lag?”

“Annoying, but workable.”

“We’re ready here,” the yard master answered back.

“Firing on target,” Paul noted for his sake, targeting the sphere and firing one missile towards it at a distance of two kilometers. The tiny tube puffed up and out of the ‘back’ end of the ship, then lit up like a firecracker and zipped forward towards the target. A few seconds later it hit…with nothing happening.

“Our sensors did pick up the missile and registered a successful hit.”

“Thank you,” Paul said, adding that mental data point.

“Not much of a bang,” Sara commented.

“Didn’t want one,” Paul said, zooming in one of the cameras on the distant target, showing a crater on the surface of the sphere where the missile had imbedded itself in the apparently soft surface. “The target is designed to collect the missile in a gel layer. It damages the sensor panels on the surface, but it’s preferable to creating a halo of debris that we’d never be able to completely clean up.”

“Good idea,” she admitted. “Though I doubt it’d be much trouble way out there.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve seen the damage reports from the Lunar runs?”

Sara frowned. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, they’ve been picking up a lot of micro-debris impacts when they’re traveling in a perpendicular direction to orbit out and back from the moon. Nothing that their armor plates can’t handle, but they’re having to refurbish them more often than planned because of the higher speed impacts when cutting across the orbital tracks.”

“So we don’t want to make a mess out here that we might run into on the way to Mars or Venus?”

“That, and some of it could float in towards the planet and cause trouble elsewhere,” Paul explained. “Davis is planning to create permanent sweeper teams to hunt down and collect rogue debris, given how much junk is already out there and how careless the corporate competition is. They’re lucky they haven’t lost a ship yet, but I figure it’s just a matter of time since they don’t carry any heavy plating.”

“Speaking of which, where are we with the rescue ships?”

“Four weeks till the prototype launches. Liam’s going up to oversee the shakedown drills.”

“Really? How long’s that going to take?”

“About a week,” Paul said, ordering the cutter to vector off back towards the shipyard.

“Where’s he going to train?”

“There are some basic facilities in the station they’re working out of, but he’ll lose a day easy when he takes command of the ship. He doesn’t trust the civilian pilots to figure out the mechanics on their own, so he wants to be there to make sure they get it right the first time out.”

“Ouch,” Sara said, knowing how that much downtime was going to affect him.

“Yet another reason why we need a functioning command ship,” Paul noted.

“How close are we to that?”

“Twenty years,” the yard master answered sarcastically, still live linked into their conversation.

“Don’t listen to him,” Paul said, waving off the comment. “He’s overly pessimistic.”

“I prefer realistic,” he argued. “We don’t have the technology necessary to create something of that size within the mission parameters you outlined.”

“Yet,” Paul insisted.

“Which is why I say 20 years…minimum.”

“Ten,” Paul answered confidently.

“Not a chance,” the yard master insisted. “We don’t even have a slip half that big.”

Paul looked over at Sara. “We have this type of conversation a lot. I say yes, he says no, then I have to teach him how to do it. You’d think by now that he’d learn to have a little faith.”

“Easy for you to say. You just design them. I’m the one that has to build the damn things.”

Sara laughed. “I’ll leave you two at it then…but for the record my money’s on Paul.”

“You always back each other up,” he complained. “Ease her back, will ya? Don’t want you ramming the yard.”

“I’m on a deceleration track that misses the station by a good three kilometers,” Paul said dismissively. “I want to test the engines out on a hard break before I bring her back to dock.”

“Just remember the signal lag…and this isn’t a video game. We’ve got living people out on this station, so be careful, please.”

“Don’t worry, I’m on top of it. The plasma exhaust won’t even kiss the station.”

9

November 17, 2047

Jenkins stood in what had once been one of the adepts’ training chambers, now repurposed for the selective use of the 12 men the trainer was looking over from behind as they viewed secure footage snippets of Vermaire in various combat challenges dominating the trailblazers and other trainees. He kept silent and let the men watch, with their attention immediately caught and kept for more than an hour before the video finally ended with a still frame of the Black Knight lingering on the wall screen.

“Who is he?” one of the martial arts specialist volunteers asked.

“Don’t you mean ‘what is he?’” another one asked. “He’s huge, but faster than should be possible for his size. If I had to guess I’d say he was either a machine or this was movie special effects cut scenes.”

“He’s real, I can assure you,” Jenkins said dispassionately. “He’s a trainer, like myself, and the model for what you’re supposed to become. Personally I have my doubts. I don’t think any of you are up to this, but if you can even become half as effective as him, you’ll be an asset to Star Force. I wanted you all to see what is possible before we begin, because what I’m going to ask of you is going to be nothing short of day-round training without break for months to come…and that’s just the easy part.”

“Save the bluster for the civies,” a former SAS commando told Jenkins, “some of us have been through worse training than you can imagine. What I want to know is who he was fighting against? They’re rather good.”

A jujitsu world champion turned his head and eyed the soldier. “Good? They were getting pulverized.”

“I wasn’t referring to the outcome, but to their skills and tactics. They were obviously fighting at a disadvantage of size, armor, and no effective weapons. Those paint pellet guns are fine for target practice, and the man was doing a decent job of pretending they were live rounds, but it was hardly a real fight.”

Jenkins held up a hand to forestall any more comments. “What you just saw was not choreographed in any way. The paintball ammunition used was laced with an energy that stuns on physical contact. The black armor he wore offered him some protection, but with enough successive hits he could have been brought down…and was, temporarily a few times. We didn’t include those instances because they weren’t highlights, but I can assure you the weapons were indeed effective.”

“Poppycock,” the commando declared.

“Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is,” a voice quoted from behind them in the darkened room. “You have to see it for yourself.”

Jenkins reached over to the wall and brought the lights back up to full illumination as the twelve men turned around to look at Jason in his red striped, white casual uniform identical to Jenkins’ save for the extra coloration.

“025,” the trainer said with a nod of respect.

“Jenkins,” he acknowledged, though his eye line remained on the men.

“Hey, he’s one of them,” an Army Ranger pointed out, recognizing his face from the video.

“He’s also your CO,” Jenkins added.

The four former military personnel straightened on reflex, but the others seemed unphased.

“You twelve have been selected for an experiment to copy him,” Jason said, pointing to the image of Vermaire on the screen. “But it is unlikely that you will ever meet him. He spends most of his time training, growing stronger and faster with each passing year. Even we haven’t been able to match his skills yet.”

“Who are you, exactly?” a former SWAT team leader asked.

“He’s an Archon,” Jenkins answered. “They’re Star Force’s Generals.”

“Generals?” a martial arts/stuntman asked. “Are you building a security force or an army?”

Jason glanced at the trainer. “How far along are we?”

“Not far.”

“You are here,” Jason began, walking in amongst the group, “because of your prerequisite hand to hand combat experience. It should offer a solid foundation for the beginning of your training, but do not mistake your abilities for anything other than the skills of a child. We have set the bar very high compared to the world’s standards, but in truth the world sucks, so you’ve got a lot of catching up to do just to pass the minimum standards.”

Jason looked around at them, each in turn, judging their reactions. “But like I said, telling you isn’t enough. You have to see it for yourself,” he said, walking past two of the men, brushing shoulders to take a straight line out of the group towards a large sparring ring. “You’ve been together for more than two weeks now, so tell me, who’s the best?”

The SWAT member answered for the group when the others just exchanged glances. “There are some differing opinions on that.”

“Jenkins?”

“I’d say the most confident is Marshal.”

The mixed martial arts Champion smiled cockily. “Nice to have a fan.”

“Marshal it is,” Jason said, waving him forward. “Your objective is simple. Knock me out of the ring.”

“My pleasure,” he said, eyes gleaming with the opportunity to show off his skills as he stepped into the large, 20 meter wide ring.

Jason stood in the center casually. “Begin.”

“Any rules?” Marshal asked, starting to hop about in a circle around his opponent.

“Standard Star Force sparring rules…no permanent or serious injuries. Nothing that’s going to take away training time the next day.”

“Rough and tumble, but nothing broken. Alright,” Marshal said, twitching in preparation. “You ready?”

“Yes,” Jason said, standing still as the man circled around behind him.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Marshal said, jumping forward and punching the back of Jason’s right shoulder.

His shoulder collapsed under the blow, then suddenly Marshal found his arm being grabbed and yanked forward as Jason spun about unbelievably fast, backhand grabbing the man’s wrist and stretching out his arm, pulling him off balance as he rotated around and grabbed the man’s neck from behind and, using both points of leverage, threw him forward onto the ground, using most of his own momentum from the punch to do so.

A collective gasp was audible from the others, but Jason just looked down at the MMA Champion. “We can start whenever you like?”

Marshal growled angrily and jumped to his feet, bringing both hands up defensively and walking forward this time, punching experimentally with Jason dodging each blow by moving only a handful of inches each time, almost as if he knew exactly where the punches were going to land and how deep they would go.

After four dodges Jason reached his left arm forward and drew it aside, catching one of the punches on Marshal’s inside wrist and pushing his arm wide, opening up the man’s chest where he lightning snapped a stiffened right palm directly into his sternum, knocking him back a full meter and onto his ass. Marshal gasped on the ground, having had his breath unexpectedly knocked out of his lungs.

“He’s fast,” the Ranger whispered to the Brit.

The commando nodded his agreement as Marshal slowly got to his feet.

Jason simply stood in the center, watching the man and waiting patiently, a look of disinterest on his face.

Marshal feigned weakness, then dove forward and tried a leg sweep…which stopped painfully short as Jason counter kicked into the man’s leg while holding his ground.

“Next,” he yelled with disappointment evident in his voice.

The Ranger stepped forward and walked past Marshal as he limped off. The American nodded respectfully to Jason then ran forward and tried to tackle the slightly shorter man around the waist and knock him to the ground where his speed would be of little use.

Jason took one step backward then fell to the ground before contact was made, but too late for the Ranger to abort his tackle. The trailblazer’s legs came up as he landed on his back and caught the man’s fall as he grabbed him by the neck and pulled him over his head. Jason finished his short roll by kicking his feet over his head and propelling the ranger up and out of the ring in a large arc…too large for someone of Jason’s size and build to have managed.

“He’s bloody strong,” the commando commented under his breath as Jason lithely bounced up onto his feet.

“Looks like the recruitment drive was lacking,” Jason commented to Jenkins, but only to irritate the men. “Tell you what. Let’s try this 12 on 1,” he prodded, waving the others forward.

“What are you waiting for?” Jenkins bellowed. “Get in there! Knock him, push him, pull him out of the ring. Whatever it takes,” the trainer said, pointing them towards the ring.

“Alright then,” the commando said, game. He and the others moved forward, then began to circle the ring to try and get behind Jason. They exchanged glances and subtle gestures, attempting to organize their assault as the Ranger got to his feet and rejoined the group, as did Marshal.

Jason stayed in the middle, looking and listening. He figured they were going to try and attack his blind side, but it would do them no good. After all the time he’d spent sparring with his fellow adepts these men seemed pathetically slow, so when the first of them rushed him he had little trouble knocking the man aside into one of his teammates before spinning about and ramming his shoulder into the Brit as he tried to put him in a headlock from behind.

The SAS veteran was knocked backward, his hands grabbing uselessly at Jason’s body as the man juked back and forth, systematically and quickly cutting down all twelve of the recruits. At first they got back up off the mat and continued their attack, but after several attempts they began to realize that it was futile. They were no match for this man.

As they lay on the floor Jenkins walked up, stepping around the bodies as he walked towards Jason, who was still holding position at ring’s center. “I think their eyes are open now.”

“Who are you?” the Ranger asked.

“Someone whose ass the Black Knight kicks on a regular basis,” Jason said, walking over to the Ranger and extending his hand. He pulled the man up effortlessly, further displaying his superior strength. “My name is Jason-025. I’m an Archon. We’re the leaders of Star Force’s military, but we lead from the front, so don’t expect us to behave like your typical Generals and don’t expect to be trained like typical soldiers. We don’t want soldiers. Soldiers are of no use to us.”

“What we want are Knights…one man armies, so to speak, who we can deploy into situations that require hand to hand combat on solo or combined missions. We want you to dominate like the Black Knight did in the training challenges you witnessed, and in order to do that you have to open your minds. The universe is far more complex than you can imagine…and a great deal more impressive than society would have you believe.”

“My skills are still developing. As an Archon I’m a level 2 adept, which in our ranking structure means I’m only an experienced beginner. In the coming years I will become much more powerful, as will the others, through an insane amount of training from your point of view…but to us it’s just become our daily routine. A routine that you will have to mimic.”

“I’m going to leave all the details to the trainers…there’s too much for you to grasp right now and I’m not going to waste my training hours explaining it to you, but I’ll summarize. You are going to have to unlearn everything you know about the world, because you’ve been lied to your entire life. People do not grow old and die naturally. Myself and the other Archons do not grow old. The Black Knight does not grow old. Jenkins here I’m not too sure about, but if he’s keeping up with his workouts he won’t grow old either.”

“Everything you’ve been taught about training and how your bodies function is wrong, and we’re going to teach you the truth…but with that truth comes many secrets, secrets that will open the door of possibility for each of you, but you and only you can walk through that door. We can’t do it for you. You have to make the choice to commit yourself to a new life, a new purpose, and a new identity.”

“What we are asking of you is to become Knights. For Star Force, the Knights will be our ground troops, our security forces, our brawlers, our bad asses in any combat situation. We want you to become like him,” Jason said, pointing towards the distant wall screen. “We want you to become clones, each a one man army, because with the challenges Star Force faces in the future anything less will be cannon fodder on the battlefield, and we do not view any of our personnel as expendable.”

“We will not be fielding an army of millions of gun toting monkeys…we want warriors. War does not make a warrior…training does. Lots and lots of training. It’s how I’ve grown my skills and how the Black Knight has developed his…and it is the only way you will become Knights, so get used to the idea of living in these chambers,” Jason said, spreading his arms wide and gesturing to the facility in which they stood. “They will become your home, if you’re up to the challenge.”

“Sword,” he said, glancing at Jenkins who immediately walked off.

“As I said before, we want you to become clones of the Black Knight, and whereas you will be clones, the Archons will be Jedi, if you take the Star Wars metaphor. We command. We lead. And we are more powerful than you. That is the way it is now and will forever be…but I don’t want you to accept that. I want you to grow powerful enough to challenge us, for I will tell you a secret weakness of ours, and the reason the Black Knight remains beyond our reach for the moment.”

The men at this point were a mixture of dazed and energized, but they seemed to twitch at the mention of a weakness.

“The Archons are multi-taskers,” Jason said, reducing his voice down to a whisper. “We train to be good at everything. The Black Knight is a specialist. He trains for one purpose only, and that’s hand to hand combat. That’s why he can stand as our equal, and our better. That’s what I want the Knights to become…our equal in your discipline. We’re not going to tolerate that though, any more than we tolerate the Black Knight kicking our asses. We’re training every day to close the gap with him, and we never stop training.”

“But our training is spread out, and the number of hours spent on hand to hand is less than his…and will be less than yours. We’re better than you, though, so we don’t need as much training time for equal results. We know how to train smarter, more specifically, and our experience in multiple areas helps us learn new ways of training, which we will eventually pass onto you after we’ve worked out the bugs and secured a sizeable advantage.”

“Don’t accept that,” Jason intoned. “Take up the challenge and become better than us. You have the advantage of hours…use it. Push us, if you can, for we have no use for weaklings who can’t take two steps without instructions,” he said antagonistically.

“Star Force is structured as a team. The Archons lead, but we do not do everything. We have an army of engineers who pull their weight on a daily basis, and I expect no less from the military. The training staff will teach you much, but I need you to go beyond that. You’re the first ones, the experiment to see if we can copy the Black Knight. Some say that he’s too good of an individual, a fluke that can’t be recreated.”

“Prove them wrong. Learn from the trainers. Learn from each other. And learn from us when we stop by, but make no mistake about the fact that you have to do this yourself. They can’t make you into Knights any more than I can. They will give you the opportunity…but you’re the one that has to come through in the end.”

Jenkins returned to the group silently, sword in hand, and waited on the fringes as Jason spoke.

“I’m guessing that most of you have heard the old cliché ‘there is no I in team.’ With Star Force that is grossly false. Each member of our team has to carry their own weight. If you have no individual skills then you are worthless to the team…therefore, to be the best teammate possible, you have to become the strongest individual you can. Do not make sacrifices. Do not concern yourself with the feelings or progression of others. Be selfish and focus entirely on yourself…but do so without compromising others. That is the key distinction. Do not take away from others anymore than you should take away from yourself. If you can learn that mindset, then you have a chance of developing into a true team member.”

Jason turned and extended a hand to Jenkins, who tossed him the stun sword. “One last lesson before I leave you in the trainers’ hands. Technology changes how battles are fought, and in the present day the gun has replaced martial arts, and in doing so promoted the idea that a soldier doesn’t need skills to be effective, just weapons and numbers. Star Force rejects this philosophy, and the Knight corps is the epitome of the antithesis.”

“The challenge videos that you watched showed combat using paintballs that we call stingers, which are laced with stun energy,” Jason said, glancing at the Brit. “So too was the Black Knight’s sword. And while we use them for training purposes that is not their primary function.”

With a subtle, but distinctive crackle/pop sound Jason activated the stun sword and unceremoniously wacked the SAS commando across the chest.

The man dropped to the floor unconscious.

“The way of the warrior is back in vogue,” Jason said, deactivating the sword and tossing it back to Jenkins, “so get training and prove your mettle, if you have any.”

With that last insult Jason walked off, leaving Jenkins with the group and half a smile on his face.

“You heard the Archon. Time to get to work.”

10

June 19, 2048

Megan and Emily watched a large data pad in Wilson’s hand outside the Final Challenge chamber as the second class met the Black Knight with a hail of grenades. The baseball- sized paintballs had a metallic core with a priming button, which when pressed activated the delay timer that would charge the liquid with stun energy then pop the solid cover with a tiny explosive charge, spraying the energy laden droplets in all directions.

None of the grenades actually hit Vermaire, but they covered him with swaths of paint and he fell to his knees immediately…whereupon the trainees rushed out of the doorway en mass, with many of them being hit by the wall turrets as they flooded into the room, half of them wielding personal shields. Those that didn’t have the protective covers made a beeline towards the Black Knight and tried to pummel him with their stun sticks while he was momentarily incapacitated.

“That was too easy,” Emily commented.

Megan glanced at Wilson. “Did you increase the stun charge in the grenades?”

“No, all their equipment is exactly identical to yours, as is the conditions of the test, but Vermaire requested a weaker set of armor to offset his increased speed and strength, so it takes less hits to slow him down now.”

“Cocky bastard,” Emily commented as the trainees dog piled on top of him, whacking away as their teammates spread out around the walls, taking down the turrets while suffering a significant amount of casualties. “Almost makes you want to go in there and help him.”

Just then the dog pile exploded, with several trainees being tossed through the air as the Black Knight stood up, using one of them as a captive shield across his shoulders. Once on his feet he tossed the unconscious trainee into three of the others then touched his wrists and began to punch them into unconsciousness quickly scattering the group, with Vermaire chasing down two of them before more distant gunners began offering cover fire for their stun stick-carrying teammates.

“Or not,” Megan said. “I had a feeling that was going to happen.”

“They look sloppy,” Emily commented as they finished off the turrets, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake.

“Just the opposite,” Wilson commented. “They’re not as…innovative as you were, so they’ve had to compensate by learning to be methodical and overly analytical. They’ve calculated the odds and are taking the best course of action available to them. If they hold true to past experience, they’ll begin going back for the wounded as soon as the turrets are down.”

True to his word, some of the trainees on the fringes began making runs backwards from the low wall at the finish and retrieving their unconscious teammates one by one as the rest of the heavily armed trainees distracted the Black Knight, with him continuing to add to the body count.

“Still looks sloppy to me,” Emily repeated as Vermaire was taken down to a knee again, with several trainees darting in to drag the unconscious away in the moment of opportunity.

“How has your training been progressing?” Wilson asked.

“We’ve both reached level 2,” Emily answered as they watched the data pad. “Morgan has been letting the other team leaders handle the military design and been pushing her training harder than everyone else. She just made level four last week. A few of the others have made 3.”

“How many levels are you going to have?”

“We haven’t decided yet…we just needed a ranking structure for the kiddos to work their way through,” she said, referring to the trainees. “Otherwise we’re comfortable just making it up as we go.”

“They have an awful lot of firepower,” Megan observed.

“That’s what I mean by them being methodical,” Wilson lightly argued. “They recovered 72 green cards from the maze.”

“Really?” Emily said, the first note of impressment in her voice.

“I was wondering where they got all those grenades,” Megan added.

“How long have they been at it?” Emily asked.

“That’s the downside,” Wilson noted. “They get the job done, but they’re slow. Clock’s at 74 hours.”

“They’ve been in there for three days?” Megan asked, aghast.

“Trouble taking the turrets apart?” Emily guessed.

“Actually they didn’t disassemble any of them. They took their time and deactivated the entire field.”

“Wait a minute,” Emily said, glaring at Wilson and his ‘same as them’ previous comment. “The turrets don’t permanently deactivate. The only way to take them offline is to take them apart.”

“Not true,” Wilson said, a small smirk on his face. “You just never figured out how. Each of the turrets has a high threshold for permanent deactivation…something you never reached because you stopped firing when the turrets temporarily deactivated. If you’d hit them with another fifty or so shots immediately after deactivation they would have gone down permanently.”

“Wish we’d known about that,” Emily said, mildly annoyed even though their Final Challenge had been more than two years ago.

“Wouldn’t have mattered,” Megan commented as the trainees recovered the last of their wounded while keeping Vermaire at bay with a hail of stingers completely coating his armor in green paint. “We didn’t have enough ammunition to do that.”

“Point,” Emily conceded.

“There’s also a field deactivation mechanism,” Wilson added, almost offhandedly. “They didn’t find it either, but there’s one turret in each area with a slightly different firing rhythm. If you can take it out before any of the adjacent two rings, it will deactivate the entire field…but if you take it out in sequence like they did it does nothing. Ditto for taking it apart.”

“Any other little tricks we missed?” Emily asked.

“A few,” Wilson said as the last of the trainees made it over the wall and past the finish line, with the main doors in front of the head trainer and two adepts cracking open, revealing the 100 new graduates, many of which were still unconscious.

“They ran out of serum,” Megan noted as the unconscious ones were being carried forward.

Wilson pulled a packet out of his pocket and handed it to her. “I thought they might. They’ve developed a bad habit of taking hits to draw fire instead of dodging. It works for the challenges, so they kept doing it despite the point penalties. Something you’ll have to break them of,” he said as the first few began wandering out of the long connective hallway.

“Among other things,” she said, walking a few steps forward and getting their attention with a wave of her hand. She tossed the packet to the closest one who, to his credit, snatched it out of the air with ease.

“Thanks,” he said, turning back and looking for those still unconscious.

As the others began filing out and gathering around Wilson, Emily began wrinkling her nose. “Whoa, you guys stink!”

“Yes they do,” Megan agreed, waving a hand in front of her face. “Did you guys forget how to shower?”

“We’ve been in there for days,” one of the girls argued. “What do you expect?”

“Wilson, I think you need to add some showers for the slow pokes,” Megan said deadpan. “This is bad.”

“Slow pokes?” another one of them asked irreverently.

Wilson raised a hand to get everyone’s attention. “Congratulations on passing the Final Challenge. Your basic training is now over. Allow me to introduce 023 and 026, they will be your handlers and superiors during your transition to adept training, which they will explain. My job here is done, and I bid you all good luck…trust me when I say that you’re going to need it.”

“What did he mean by that?” one of them asked as he walked off.

“It means the kid gloves are coming off,” Emily said, looking them over. “And things get much more difficult from here on out.”

“It also means you answer to us,” Megan added. “And we have no time for slackers.”

“We’ve gone through everything you did,” one of them complained. “How can we be slackers?”

Emily walked up to him, then thought better of it when she caught a whiff of the surrounding air. “That was the easy part. Adept training is a whole new game, and I’m not convinced you’ll be up to it. It took you three days to get through the Final Challenge. It took us less than one.”

The trainees exchanged glances, but said nothing further.

“You did well getting this far, but you’re on our watch now,” Megan offered. “If we’re going to train and work together, you’ve got a lot to learn and little time to do it in, so keep an open mind and listen closely, because we’re not going to hold your hands past orientation. We’ve got a busy schedule of our own, and if you can’t find your own motivation we’re not going to waste our time with you.”

“Right now though,” Emily continued, “there’s a lot we’ve got to fill you in on…but first you’re hitting the showers, because you really do reek.”

She just stared at them for a moment when none of them moved. “I mean it, go!” she said, pointing down the hallway and the long walk back to the equipment room. “Get cleaned up, then we’ll talk.”

As a group they began walking, slowly, in a haze that was part fatigue, part confusion. Emily and Megan let them get well ahead of them, dragging their stench down the hall with them.

“Well?” Megan whispered.

“I don’t know,” Emily said, watching them walk away. “They look like us, but they don’t feel the same.”

“Think that’s because of the ambrosia, or because they suck?”

“Ask me again when they’re not offending my nose,” she said, smirking. “That is really bad.”

“Yeah it is,” Megan agreed as they started to follow them from a distance. “But if they made it through, they’ve got to have some skills.”

“I know, but if they get stubborn or cocky we’re going to have to beat them into compliance.”

“Easy enough,” Megan pointed out. “Save for the fact that we don’t want automatons, we want improvisers. If they can’t learn to train themselves we’ll have to cut them loose.”

“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” Emily agreed, thinking along similar lines. “Let’s see how many of them we can salvage. We’re going to need their help down the road.”

“That we will…” Megan agreed, looking at their ‘peers’ walking ahead of them. Their gait was lithe and strong, similar to their own but smaller somehow, weaker. It was only then that she realized how much the ambrosia training had changed them, both physically and mentally. They’d spent so much time in their own company that they hadn’t recognized their transition from skilled to superhuman, but looking at the second class now as if they were a mirror of themselves a few years ago, the change finally hit home.

The question was, could these trainees make the same transition? Megan wasn’t sure they could, but she also wasn’t going to count them out either after all they’d gone through at the hands of the trainers. That at least was something they had in common.

Flashpoint

1

November 3, 2059

Clint-274 ran down the long hallway, popping his head into each training alcove as he went, finding them either empty or with the wrong adept. He worked his way through more than thirty of the chambers before he finally found his superior, standing in the center of the small sparring room on his hands, with his feet pressed together and toes pointed at the ceiling. His face was flushed, indicating that he’d been holding the pose for some time, but aside from a subtle quiver he was holding his handstand in perfect form.

“Paul, we have a situation,” Clint said, breaking their protocol regarding training sessions.

“What?” the level 8 adept asked, his legs swaying a bit as the movement of his jaw off balanced him.

“A ship transponder went dark,” Clint explained. “Twelve minutes later a distress beacon was activated. It lasted for 23 minutes then went dark too.”

Paul’s knees bent and he flipped over onto his feet and stood up, turning around to face his naval assistant.

“What ship?” he asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion. Star Force mandated that all ships carry transponders for navigational purposes, else the owner would incur a penalty on any future transactions. The danger of ship collision was low, but with the varying orbital speeds it would almost certainly prove fatal if it occurred, which is why Star Force was adamant that all ships be tagged.

“Not ours…Taiwanese, but a Star Force purchase. Leo-class.”

“Location?”

“Making a return run from Luna, probably headed for the Exchange,” Clint said, referring to the Star Force Commodities Exchange mega station, an orbital facility half the size of Atlantis set in near middle orbit, 50,000 km in altitude and smack dab in the middle of the ever-growing band of station clusters inching their way out from the planet. The station served as a way station for supplies transitioning between the Earth and Moon, allowing for the sale and purchase of raw, refined, or fabricated materials, not all of which were Star Force in origin, as well as being the transit hub for most mining traffic coming to and from Luna.

“Any comm?” Paul asked as the pair left the room at a quick walk. Whatever was going on it was sounding more and more dire.

“Nothing. Taiwan has also lost contact with them.”

“Any collision hazards?”

“Nothing immediate, but if she’s drifting…”

“How far away is the closest SR?”

“A little under 12 hours unless you want them to push it. They’ve got a 3/4 fuel load and 115,000 km to climb. Opportune orbital launch window is in…,” Clint checked his watch, “11 minutes.”

Hearing that Paul took off in a run down the hallway, with the third class Archon scrambling to match his speed as they hurried out of the training areas of the seafloor sanctum, which were massive, and up to the command and control center where Clint had been standing watch.

Paul burst into the circular chamber that served as fleet headquarters to find Levi-145 hovering over a display table with the orbital maps glowing in neon blue set on a black screen, with thousands of dots marking the locations of stations and ships.

“Show me,” he said quickly, with Levi pointing to a blank spot on the table-sized map.

“SR?”

“Number 4, here,” he said, moving his finger a sizeable distance.

Paul confirmed Clint’s figures in a glance and nodded. “Give the intercept order,” he said, taking control of the map and bringing up the data records. He backtracked the sensor data until the ship reappeared, then he let the timeline roll forward, noting the placement of the distress signal and duration…as well as the type.

“That’s a backup beacon, not a primary,” Paul said as Levi walked around the table to stand beside him. “It auto-activates if there’s significant system damage and the bridge doesn’t override the flag within a five minute window. Standard issue on all Star Force designed ships. They probably didn’t even realize it was there.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that for whatever reason they didn’t shut down their transponder voluntarily, because shortly after it went out something went wrong with the ship, and with so few minutes in between the two events we’re probably talking about a debris cloud hitting the comm array first, knocking it and the transponder out, then the ship taking more serious damage shortly thereafter.”

“Has this happened before?” Clint asked after sending the departure orders for the Search and Rescue vessel.

“Not on this scale. We’ve had some ships suffer minor damage, but never enough to trigger the backup distress beacon. And the fact that it went out means there’s probably not much of the ship left, given that it has its own transmitter and power supply. Problem is, that would take some large debris impacts, the kind of which shouldn’t be in the system. We’ve cleaned up most of the junk, and the odds of multiple asteroids passing through orbit undetected is low.”

“What are you thinking?” Levi asked.

“That we’ve got a bit of a mystery on our hands,” Paul said, searching around the map for the nearest tracking station. Star Force had 22 dedicated outposts for the sole purpose of being high powered radar arrays, each spread out at key positions within low and middle orbit to monitor traffic and detect any roaming debris passing through their zone. All other Star Force stations also had lesser powered arrays used to monitor the local regions, as did all of their starships and dropships…who simultaneously and constantly transmitted their data streams across the Star Force communications grid, letting any one user ‘see’ with the combined vision of the entire fleet.

The map that Paul was looking at was a series of circles spread out around the Earth, with each of the circles being the effective radar range of the active arrays. Dots were visible in between the circles where active transponders were transmitting on frequencies that the radar could pick up, but most of the orbital tracks were dark to detection of anything small in size, given that radar range was determined by the size of the object and its reflectivity.

The Taiwanese Leo had passed through one of the detection zones when departing from Luna, then continued across the map only by transponder detection. Paul searched the immediate area for additional ships or stations, both past and present, but no interactions appeared to have taken place.

He took the calculations a step further and plotted the expected course from the point of disappearance assuming the ship, or what was left of it, was ballistic and tagged that area as hazardous, then sent the update into the system, which relayed the data to all Star Force ships using the navigational net, as well as all the corporate and national vessels that also were tied into the grid with ‘view only’ status.

Next he contacted the nearest radar station to the projected course, a Star Force tourist resort, and requested that they begin beam scanning the area on a regular basis, thus increasing the range of their ‘search light’ in the hopes that they might pick up something in the next few hours, though the chances of that were minimal, given the distances involved. Still, Paul wanted to maximize their limited detection capability in that area, for even a brief contact would give the SR a position trace to help hunt down the ship before it veered off the projected course and/or ran into something else.

On the map one of the dots split in two, indicating that SR4 was pulling away from its berth at the Star Force way station that served as both refueling depot and base of operations for the crew when they weren’t deployed, along with more than a thousand other travelers moving about the orbital infrastructure. The ‘truck stop’ was situated in one of the heaviest traffic zones, making it likely to be near any trouble that would arise.

Six other SRs were similarly positioned around the planet, offering some belated assistance to ships in distress with the number of small hull breaches amongst non Star Force constructed ships rising by the month. Already four people had died when a Russian transport depressurized from micrometeorite impacts…too many to plug before they lost consciousness.

After that, and with the help of Star Force acquisitions, most starships had equipped themselves with internal patch kits with detection leaks and auxiliary oxygen canisters…enough to hopefully keep the crew alive until an SR could get to them and either evacuate the crew or patch up their ships from the outside. This they did free of charge, but with only 7 ships deployed the response times were dismal and even knowing that the other ship manufacturers refused to cover their ships with sufficient armor, citing weight and fuel cost concerns.

The Taiwanese, however, bought all of their ships from Star Force and had built up a sizeable orbital empire over the past decade, heeding every ounce of advice Star Force threw at them and making for one of their most loyal customers…which also meant that all of their ships should have been immune to small scale debris impacts.

Paul spent the next hour in the control room, studying all the available sensor data, ship logs, and crew manifests. The ship in question, designated AX-34, had been carrying processed ores from Luna, with nothing even remotely explosive in her holds, and given Star Force’s overly redundant systems he doubted it was an internal malfunction responsible for the loss of signal and short-lived distress beacon.

With nothing left to do but wait until the SR arrived in the search area Paul left the control room to return to his training, grabbing an earpiece on his way out. “Let me know the moment you have something.”

“We’ll pass the message along,” Clint promised, referring to the next shift that would arrive for the usually boring watch while most of the other adepts were busy training or building something elsewhere in the sanctum.

Paul nodded and headed back down through the mountain-sized underwater complex, wondering what the hell could have happened to that ship.

Thirteen hours later the Captain of SR4 got a radar ping on his display screen at extreme range, and lost it again just as quickly.

“What was that?” Borsk asked.

“Intermittent contact,” the helmsman confirmed as it appeared and disappeared again. “5,000 km out…too small to be a ship.”

“Can you tag the coordinates for Cyclops?”

“Not yet. Permission to adjust course?”

“Granted,” the Captain said, watching the blip reappear again as the ship rotated to the left then kicked in its four main engines for a thirty second burn, redirecting their trajectory closer to the radar signal.

“Got it,” the helmsman said five minutes later.

“Transmit to Cyclops 15,” the Captain ordered as a second, more distant intermittent blip appeared. “I want to know what’s out there.”

“Sight request incoming,” a synthesized voice said aloud in the control room of the surveillance outpost as the text version was displayed on the primary monitor along with a myriad of other data statistics. Halfway across the small room the tech on duty glanced up from his game pad, halfway through today’s shift monitoring and maintaining the large, yet relatively empty space station’s high powered radar and communications equipment.

Six other Star Force personnel were also assigned to the Cyclops station, two of which were on sleep cycle, another three on downtime, while he and Carrigan were on duty. She was off tracking down a faulty sensor, leaving him with babysitting duty in the normally boring control room.

Norrington paused his game and walked across to the primary console, seeing that a search and rescue vessel was requesting use of their telescope in the search for a missing ship. Coordinates were attached, so he brought the dorsal node around on the barrel-shaped station and pointed it in the approximate direction, then began the lengthy sifting drill as he pulled the zoom in and out, looking for anything to allow him to more precisely aim the high powered aperture.

Right off the bat he was having trouble, given that there was some kind of gaseous cloud obscuring the normally crystal clear view. With properly precise coordinates or a transponder tag to hone in on, the Cyclops station or any of its twins situated around the planet could monitor every vessel between the Earth and the Moon so long as they weren’t on a direct line between the station and the sun. Right now he could still see a starry backdrop, but the haze was constant until he pulled back far enough to outline a general perimeter to the cloud.

It was diffuse, but easily identifiable by the variable output of the starlight behind…at least as far as the computer controls were concerned. Norrington could barely make out the haze with the naked eye, and after a quick examination he turned the scanning process over to computer control to see if it could pick any microscopic reflection out of the haze.

It did so three minutes later, and the tech zoomed in on the object in question, adjusting the angle until he had a good framed image that he captured in both still and video, then sent it off to SR4 along with the offer of additional surveillance as they required.

He locked the telescope tracking program on the object so that he wouldn’t have to reacquire it again and returned to his paused game with the rotating rib-like piece of ship debris spinning slowly about, winking in and out against the bright sunlight.

2

Several hours later Paul watched the sensor data being relayed from SR4 in the sanctum’s control room along with Roger and half a dozen other naval Archons as the ship closed in on the carcass of what used to be a Leo-class transport. Large pieces were scattered over hundreds of kilometers, but what was left of the main hull drifted lazily in the center of a fine debris cloud that had made radar detection erratic, but at a distance of 6 km the fine particles of dust couldn’t obscure the view of the beaten and broken ship.

More than 500 meters long, the cargo ship was of the ‘pizza cutter’ variety with a large gravity disc up front trailed by four cargo pods along the ‘tail.’ As Paul watched the slowly growing ship on the screen he noted that the pods had each been breached, which would account for the dust cloud. The Taiwanese ship had been carrying crushed magnetite, and it appeared that nearly all of it had been expelled into space.

Worse though was the disc which was missing several large chunks. More than a third of the structure had been cut out, leaving large jagged edges that belied its original, smooth aesthetic design…and made the likelihood of there being any survivors nil.

“Find an airlock if one’s still intact,” Paul ordered over the comm. “If not go EVA. I want a computer interface if possible.”

“Yes, sir,” Captain Borsk acknowledged, then turned to the crewman on his left. “Get the team prepped.”

“On it,” Markinson said, hopping up out of his seat and heading aft. When he walked outside the bridge he turned right and headed up the curved walkway that angled up into the ceiling, but he didn’t feel the climb as he was only traveling around the artificial gravity arc until he got to the main spine that ran the length of the gravity cylinder. Halfway down he came to the crew quarters and walked inside, banging his hand on the wall three times to get everyone’s attention.

“Harry, Andy, Kara…get suited up. We’re going for a walk outside,” he said before ducking back out into the hall. He headed up a level into a lesser gravity section and into the prep room, letting the others catch up on their own time. He had his locker open and the bottom half of his vacuum armor pulled out when they got there.

“How bad’s it look?” Kara asked, walking over to her own equipment locker and pulling out the chest piece of her armor.

“Like half the ship is missing,” Markinson said direly. “I have no idea what could cause that much damage, but the Archons want a computer download so we get to go inside.”

“Decompressed?” Andy asked.

“Most likely. Chunks of the saucer section are visibly missing.”

“Damn,” Kara whispered, pulling the chest piece over her head. “How far out are we?”

“A few klicks, but there’s a lot of debris so the Captain’s taking her in slow. If we’re lucky we might find a useable airlock, otherwise we’re using the thruster packs and grapple lines.”

“Lovely,” Harry commented, realizing that this wasn’t going to be the typical patch job. “Any other fun surprises?”

“We’ll find out when we get there,” Markinson said, pulling on his chest piece and latching it in place. After that he attached the arms and helmet, then vacuum-locked the armor, hearing the reassuring crescendo of clicks as the separate pieces merged into one airtight unit. A reverse overpressure surge tested for leaks, and after thirty seconds of stability signaled the suit was ready for space via a small green dot on the left forearm panel.

When the other three were similarly suited up the quartet walked/climbed up into the center of the gravity cylinder and headed forward into the hammerhead portion of the ship that bracketed the linear pair of cylinders opposite the engine bank. In the head of the ship was a large bay that contained several recovery craft, but they skipped past that and headed up above it to a series of airlock ports spread out across the hammer, capable of extending and docking with a variety of craft, as well as cutting an emergency entrance and installing a makeshift airlock if needed.

Once at the third of five airlocks, situated just above the midline of the ship and the hammer, Markinson and the others waited for the 375m long ship to inch its way closer to the Leo. Once in position the Captain radioed that there wasn’t a viable airlock to connect with, but that they were as close as they dared get considering the list of the ship, which Markinson knew would make for a hazardous crossing.

Using interior controls, the team extended an umbilical around the airlock then transitioned through two by two, leaving them standing in the cup-like cubical open to space held in place only by magnetic latches on their boots and a few small handholds. Kara moved to the front and aimed a large gun attached to the umbilical at the slowly moving ship stretching out before them. The Leo was so massive that it blocked out almost the entire starfield, but it gave them an up-close view of the damage to the saucer section.

Kara aimed for one of the holes and fired the magnetic grapple, which silently puffed out trailing a stretchable cable. It disappeared into the dark, gaping hole where the sunlight couldn’t reach, then stretched taught when Kara retracted the cable, indicating that they had a good attachment.

“Let’s move,” Markinson said over the comm, reaching up and attaching his zip-line hook. “We don’t have long before the ship rotates around and snaps the line, so make this quick,” he said, running forward and off the umbilical, ‘sliding’ down the line with his momentum carrying him along and the tether ensuring he stayed on course.

Andy and Harry followed him, with Kara bringing up the rear a good stagger back. When she crossed the gap and flew into the dark zone her eyesight quickly adjusted and she saw the large bulkhead ahead of her where the grapple had attached. She brought her feet up in front of her, grabbing the line with her hands for leverage and caught herself on the wall.

Markinson helped pull her down to the ‘floor’ and get her boots attached, then they manually disconnected the basketball-sized magnet and let the line slowly retract back to the ship before it stretched too far. Looking back out the hole the bottom side of the SR was visible and moving upward, revealing more stars as the Leo rotated downward.

“This way,” Andy said, pointing into a more or less intact portion of the ship further in from the breach zone.

Paul and the others watched the images from the SR and the helmet cams of the boarding crew, trying to piece together the source of the damage, sorting and cataloging both stills and vids until they had a wall-sized display screen filled with images that the junior naval Archons were busy tagging. Paul and Roger exchanged knowing glances after the first few images came through, but they didn’t say anything to bias the analysis, but the more and more specifics that came in indicated, as they already knew, that the damage was not internal combustion or asteroid impact…but weapons damage.

“Missiles,” Roger whispered to Paul.

He nodded, still watching the live feeds. The recovery team was inside the disc now, working their way through the relatively intact decks headed for the bridge, but they soon came upon a sealed door leading into the bridge hub on the opposite side of the saucer section. Seeing their hesitation, Paul walked forward and keyed the mic.

“Don’t risk further decompression until we’re sure of the status of the crew,” he warned. “Try and tap into the internal sensors. There should be a redundancy hub two doors back on your left.”

“Copy that,” Markinson said, and the helmet cam spun about, showing his three armored teammates standing in the glare of his helmet lights. Their orange armor stood out in stark contrast to the soft-white interior of the ship, making them easily recognizable against almost any backdrop.

An arm shot out into the camera’s arc and pointed back the way they had come, with Markinson following the others back to a side door which was also shut.

“The panel to the right, just above the floor. Pull it off. There should be a latch upper left near the rim.

Markinson’s hand reached out and felt along the nearly invisible seam and, after some fumbling with the thick plated gloves he wore, he found the release hatch and pried the meter-wide panel off and floated it back to Andy, who dragged it out of his way. Inside was a series of cables and boxes, all of which were completely dark.

“Do you have a portable power charge?” Paul asked.

“Yes,” Markinson answered, reaching back over his shoulder.

“Plug in to the box upper left, then connect your interface line to the main cable hub in the center.”

“I see it,” Markinson said, pulling the small fuel cell off the equipment rack on his back. He dragged out a power cord from an internal spool and connected it to the small box. When he flipped on the power switch over two dozen indicator lights across the panel lit up as power was restored to the hub and the surrounding systems.

“Good,” Paul said as Markinson proceeded to plug in the interface cord from the forearm module on his armor. “See if you can access internal telemetry.”

“Hang on one second,” Markinson said slowly, working through the small touch screen using a tiny extendable ‘pen’ on his opposite hand’s index finger to precisely tap the screen. “I’ve only got part of the gravity disc…and nothing in the rest of the ship. The lines must have been severed.”

“Start there then,” Paul said. “Route power to any cameras you can find, as well as the lights. We need to see what’s on the other side. What’s the atmosphere reading?”

“One section is depressurized, but the rest still has air. Temperature is -5 to -20.”

“CO2 level?”

“High…the scrubbers are down too. If I had to guess I’d say the primary power conduits were cut along with the regional backups…or maybe the backups only recently ran out of juice. I think they’re only rated for 12 hours of moderate usage.”

“14,” Paul corrected him. “And if the CO2 levels are up then that probably means the crew didn’t die immediately, so there’s still a chance we might have survivors. Can you power up the scrubbers?”

“I don’t have a lot of power to work with here, but I think I can get one running. Is there another junction box nearby that I can have one of my team members plug into to boost the power levels?”

“There’s four each level around the disc. I’m guessing the hole ate up the nearest one on your level, you’ll have to climb up the stairwell to get to the next.”

“I think the stairwell was in the hole too,” Andy said over the open comm. “We can go back and see if we can jump the gap.”

“Let’s try and make this work first,” Markinson decided. “Cameras first.”

On his tiny display two icons winked alive…out of 34.

“We’ve got eyes,” he said, bringing up the first view. It showed total black until he also diverted power to the lights in that section. Half of them didn’t work, but there were enough to show a myriad of debris floating about against a wall, but nothing more. Apparently the camera had tilted during the damage.

The second one was more revealing, showing what appeared to be the galley and two bodies wrapped in sheets of synthetic material.

“Can you see this?” Markinson asked.

“Barely,” Paul answered.

“Looks like two bodies…no visible decompression damage, but they’re not responding to the lights.”

“Can you get the CO2 scrubbers going in that section?”

“Working on it,” Markinson said, switching off the camera view and going back into the system commands. “Yes. I’ll have to divert the flow from an auxiliary area, but it should gradually eat up the bad air.”

“Captain?” Paul asked.

“Here,” Borsk answered.

“Do you have a soft seal portable airlock onboard?”

“We have 8 last I checked.”

“Get one over there. I want those bodies recovered intact, dead or alive.”

“We’ll have to stabilize the ship first, but we’ll get it done,” the Captain promised, then turned to his three man bridge crew. “Get the tethers ready and move us into position. She’s heavier than us so we’re going to have our hands full.”

“I’m going to have my hands full,” the helmsman corrected him.

“Sorry,” Borsk mock-apologized. “You’re going to have your hands full. The rest of us are just going to watch and poke fun.”

“Whoever is going to catch that ship make it fast,” Paul interrupted. “If there’s any chance of survivors we don’t know their condition and the minutes could prove vital, so make it quick.”

“Already on it, sir,” Borsk said respectfully. “We just have a habit of talking while we work.”

True to his word one of the heavy magnetic tethers shot out from the hammer-shaped bow and connected with the front of the saucer casing on the Leo. Soon three more attached to strategic points, followed by backups in relatively the same positions to reduce the torsion on the connection points, then they reeled them in taut and the ship suddenly jerked at an odd angle, felt from inside the rotating cylinder.

The pilot responded with bursts from the stabilization engines that served as the SR’s supersized thrusters when it was pressed into ‘tug’ mode. The pilot was savvy enough to not fight the list too hard, letting the SR be yanked around a bit as he slowly ate into the cargo ship’s list without overstressing the tethers, which would either snap or disconnect if the magnetic lock was broken, and it was a guess as to which would happen first, both were designed for high stress applications.

It took more than twenty minutes to get the Taiwanese ship stabilized, then another ten to get the soft seal airlock ferried over to the hull breach by a support craft and dragged inside manually by the boarding team. Markinson continued to play with the interface port while the other three hauled the compact cylinder down the hallway up to where he was standing/floating.

“Two meters back,” he said, pointing behind him. “I want this junction inside.”

“Will do,” Kara acknowledged, floating the heavy casing backwards while Andy and Harry stood on the opposite side.

Andy activated the first stage deployment and the casing split, expanding out like a popup tent into a phone booth-sized box. They floated it up off the floor a few centimeters and held it in place as they deployed the second stage, with a ring of expandable material spreading out from the box’s center and forming itself to the shape of the hallway, connected by several hard spokes to maintain the shape and structural integrity.

Once the liner was in place Kara went around the inside edge and pushed the ring up against the walls by hand, smooshing the clay-like material in place and closing the tiny gaps that formed at the intersection of floor/wall and ceiling/wall. Likewise Harry worked around the outside edge making sure everything was secure before activating the third stage with the press of a button on the hard booth in the center, activating the chemical reaction in the ‘clay’ that turned it into a super-adhesive bonding agent.

The ring smoked a bit as the outer edge liquefied in the presence of an electric current, then hardened again when it cut out, leaving what should have been a physically hard, airtight seal.

Andy triggered the fourth stage, which had the flexible material inflate and expand a few inches, drawing it tight and forming a ‘hard’ wall around the booth, giving them a workable airlock to pass through.

“Ok, ready for the air,” Kara said, with Harry heading back to the docked support craft at the breach point. He pulled a canister off the rig and slowly walked back, making sure his magnetic boots didn’t slip. He wore a small thruster harness on his armor, but he’d learned from past experience that it was better to go slow walking than to fight the erratic flight of the thrusters.

When he returned to the makeshift airlock he attached the specially designed canister into a slot on the outside of the central box, with it halfway fitting into the slot. Once connected Kara triggered the slow oxygen release into her side.

“How’s it look?” she asked half a minute later.

“Slight bulge, but the material is holding. No visible cracking,” Andy said, deactivating the magnetization of his boots with a flip of a switch. He let himself float up off the floor as an experiment.

“No movement,” Harry reported, “and your side reads at 18% and climbing.”

“Yours is still zero,” Kara said, reading the mounted atmospheric display. “Better grab another canister. I don’t think one is going to be enough.”

“I’ll get it,” Andy volunteered, pushing off the ceiling with his hands and getting a grip back on the floor with his boots several meters down the hallway.

When he returned they replaced the empty canister and released the oxygen gas into the pressurized side of the airlock, bringing the count up to 52% of Earth sea level, which they deemed adequate for mixture with the ship’s remaining atmosphere. Andy went through the small airlock first, shutting himself inside the booth and letting the air flow in and fill it up before exiting out on Kara’s side.

Harry came through next, after the airlock vented most of the atmosphere back into the chamber, with a tiny amount lost pushing out against his armor when the door opened. He sealed himself inside and cycled through.

“Brace yourselves,” Markinson said once Harry was on his side of the airlock.

The three team members latched onto various door jams with their armored fingertips and stuffed the corners of the their boots into others as Markinson gripped the inside corner of the open junction box for support, then keyed for the door release, already having overridden the safety protocols for an inadequate atmospheric match.

The double door split horizontally, powered through the linkup from Markinson’s backpack unit, with a strong gust of wind rushing through as the higher pressure of the ship quickly mixed with the lower pressure of the rescue annex. It subsided after a few seconds and Markinson signaled the others to move forward as he pulled off the connecting cable to his forearm computer module and let it retract. He left the power cell floating in place and followed the others inside.

3

The lights on the other side were still out so the team only had their helmet mounted-beams to navigate by as they walked into the surviving portion of the ship’s gravity disc. They were on the outermost level of the dorsal disc, with the bridge being located on the ventral, so their first priority was to get to the central access corridor at spin center and cross over. Markinson led the way with Harry while leaving Kara and Andy to do a room by room search for survivors.

The gravity disc wasn’t all that wide, with the corridor floors angling up on a steep curve that soon led them to a stairwell. They floated up to the second ring and encountered another closed door on that level. It didn’t have power, so Markinson pulled off the small panel beneath the motion sensor nub and manually cranked it open a couple inches via a rotational handle, after which he and Harry pried it open further and moved on deeper into the recesses of the dark ship.

They proceeded in a similar manner until they made it to the core and floated ‘down’ through the circular opening and out into the ventral gravity disc’s upper stairwell, which likewise was unpowered and no longer spinning. Several levels out and they came to the normal gravity ring and made their way to the bridge compartment, prying open the doors there.

“Hello,” Harry said as his helmet lights flashed across a pair of bodies floating in the middle of the room…and one more sitting in a chair. None of them responded to their presence or the bright lights.

“Check them,” Markinson ordered, heading over to the individual seated in the pilot’s station. When he got close he saw that the man was strapped into the seat via a thigh strap. He reached out with his armored hand and poked the man in the chest, finding the body stiff and lifeless.

“Dead,” Markinson said over the comm.

“These too,” Harry reported, gently pushing the floaters aside. “Either the carbon dioxide or the cold, can’t tell which.”

“Save them for retrieval later,” Paul’s calm voice said through their helmet speakers. “The main computer console is directly behind the Captain’s chair. Plug in and see if you can download their sensor logs.”

Markinson looked around and found the appropriate station just behind the pilot’s depressed cubicle. He circled around behind the solid Captain’s chair and saw a stone-like pillar attached to the back of the seat with several interface points.

“Found it,” he said, motioning for Harry’s power pack.

“Catch,” he said, floating it across the room slowly as he made a sweep of every dark nook and cranny.

Markinson’s traction-covered fingertips had little trouble snagging it out of the air and pulling out the attachment cord, which he input into the proper receptacle, followed by his forearm module’s interface. As soon as limited power was reestablished he had full computer access…along with a security code prompt.

“Captain, Archon…don’t suppose either of you know their security codes?”

“I’m afraid not,” Borsk said.

“Since we built the ship our overrides should work,” Paul said confidently. “Type in the following sequence: J-A-C-K-0-I-N-0-T-H-E-7-B-O-X.”

Markinson suppressed a laugh until the computer let him in, then he indulged himself. “What kind of a security code is that?”

“Something long and easy to remember,” Paul said evenly. “It should work on all Star Force built ships, both ours and the public ones, for a ‘view only’ mode. You can copy out any data, but you can’t make any alterations. By the way, that code is classified and something you’re not to share with anyone not already on this comm line…but it’s also something that you might want to remember for future use.”

“Yes, sir,” Markinson said gratefully. He had no idea there were generic access codes for Star Force hardware/software, and he doubted that the buyers knew either. “I’m rigging my module for relay transmission rather than download and shunting you their entire database. Let me know when you’re ready to receive, Captain.”

“Standby,” Borsk said as he made the appropriate arrangements. “Archon, we’re setting up a datalink back to Atlantis as well. You’ll get what we get, but I’m saving ours to the hard drive just in case there’s some data lost to signal interference.”

“Good call,” Paul agreed. “Route it through this same line. We’re ready to receive.”

“Same here,” Borsk said, talking for Markinson’s sake. “Send it over.”

“Here we go,” Markinson said to himself as he keyed the ‘copy all’ function. The transmission icon lit up with a scrolling data transfer score immediately beginning to build set against a percentage complete marker, which was ticking up at about 2% every 5 seconds. “Are you receiving?”

“Yes,” Borsk answered.

“Ditto here,” Paul confirmed a moment later.

Kara and Andy made their way through the limited number of rooms on what was left of the dorsal gravity disc, coming up against another sealed door three quarters of the way around the arc which wouldn’t open due to atmospheric safety protocols…meaning they’d made their way back around to the breach point, so they doubled back to the nearest stairwell and headed up a level, eventually arriving at the ship’s galley.

When they entered the thermal readings on their armors’ external monitors jumped 13 degrees up to -7. The two bodies they’d seen on the surveillance camera were floating mid room, but there were five others spread out attached to various chairs, tables, or cabinets by makeshift ties to keep them from floating around. All of them were wrapped up in what looked like thermal blankets.

Now that they were in atmosphere their armor pumped the external sound through their helmet speakers, so when the crinkle of synthetic material sounded it got their attention immediately. Both of their helmeted heads turned to the right and saw one of the bodies twist slightly, crackling the makeshift blanket he wore.

Kara walked over to the person, tied to a floor-mounted chair via a wristband, and saw frost on his face and eyebrows, along with a plume of white as he suddenly exhaled in the frigid conditions when he realized someone had found him.

“Captain, we’ve found a survivor,” she reported. “We need an evac suit over here on the double.”

“This one’s dead,” Andy said, beginning to check the others.

“What’s his condition?” Borsk asked.

“Disoriented and frozen. Possible frostbite,” Kara reported. “We’ve got 7 people holed up in the galley wrapped in some type of blankets…might even be packing material. This room is slightly warmer, due to their body heat I’d guess.”

“Got another,” Andy said, his voice elevating a notch. “She’s barely showing life signs. We’ve got to get some heat in here.”

“Are the scrubbers working?” Borsk asked.

“Last I checked, yes,” Markinson said from the other side of the gravity disc, monitoring their conversation.

“Archon,” Kara asked, “is there a junction box near the galley?”

“Yes, should be a few steps away…too your left,” Paul said, checking the ship schematics.

“I’m going to try and get the heat on, see to them,” she said.

“I’m sending over recovery pods,” Borsk added. “You can use their internal heaters to warm them up. Are any of them responsive?”

“Barely,” Andy answered. “Visual recognition only. No speech…got another dead one.”

“How many survivors?” Paul asked.

“Looks like just the two here,” Andy said, double checking the woman. “But I’m not sure if this one is going to make it. And we haven’t finished searching the ship yet.”

“There’s also a few rooms attached to the depressurized section that we couldn’t search,” Kara pointed out. “Aside from soft sealing each one I’m not sure how we can get at them.”

“We have drill cams for that,” Borsk noted. “I’ll have some sent over with the pods. If we find anyone then we can soft seal, but for now attend to the ones we’ve found and keep searching the ship. Priority goes to them first.”

Andy looked at the pair of survivors, bobbing about slightly attached to their tethers. “Not much we can do here for them. Get those pods over here as fast as you can.”

“They’re coming,” the Captain promising.

Twenty four minutes later Kara and a medic from the ship hauled four thigh-sized cylinders into the galley, one held under each arm. Kara passed one to Andy and ‘dropped’ the other, letting it float lazily across the room as she looked at the man staring back at her with what looked like dead eyes, but the small puffs of breath oozing out of his nostrils testified to his continuing existence, and she hoped he could hold on long enough to get back to the ship.

She checked her thermals…now up to +4 in the room, but still below freezing elsewhere in the ship. The thermal strips in the walls, ceiling, and floor had been jacked up as high as they could go and were eating up a significant portion of her power pack, plugged into the wall outside, and woefully insufficient to warm up the entire disc, but hopefully a few degrees here would buy the survivors some more time.

Kara watched as both Andy and the medic opened their respective cylinders and pulled the insides out, expanding the compact bundles into what looked like sleeping bags. The soft, flexible material then mushroomed out into an elongated pod as hard ribs unfolded, along with a clear face cap at the opposite end from the hard equipment bundle at the feet.

“Some help,” Andy asked Kara as he began to pull off the woman’s blanket.

Kara stepped over and helped him slide her inside the pod, then hurried over and helped the medic do the same, sealing the survivors inside and activating the limited internal life support, warming the inside air, adding small amounts of oxygen, and scrubbing out the carbon dioxide.

“Take this one,” the medic said, switching over to look at the woman as Kara began walking the pod out of the galley.

“She’s weak,” Andy said as the medic looked at the condition of her face through the clear shield.

“Worse than the other,” he declared. “She goes first then. Let’s hurry.”

Together they pulled the pods back to the breach point and loaded them up on another support craft which ferried them back over to the SR, with the medic riding on the outside of the craft along with his two patients. He had a receiving party waiting for him in the hangar back on the ship, and signaled to them to get the woman through the airlock and into the med bay first. He stayed with the man for the three minute delay, then followed his pod inside.

The search team stayed with the ship, loading up the dead bodies into pods after looking for and finding no additional survivors. The engineering compartment under and aft of the saucer section had been completely depressurized with several holes opening it directly to space…and the cargo sections behind it were in even worse condition. Whatever had hit the ship had hit it hard and repetitively, making a mess of what had once been a truly elegant starship.

With the survivors onboard the SR and the recovery efforts continuing, Paul and Roger went over the ship’s sensor logs meticulously, unfortunately with little data to work with. The radar records clearly showed another ship in the vicinity of the Leo at the time of the incident, but it had no transponder and had made no contact with the Taiwanese vessel.

It took quite a while to sift through the external camera feeds, but an enlargement of three of them showed the culprit firing off a series of missiles at range, just before the feeds went dead. The ship was hazy, due to the range and magnification issues, but using the various angles they were able to construct a rough wireframe of the vessel, which didn’t match any on file, Star Force or otherwise.

Paul stared at the diagram, slowly spinning on a wall display next to the fuzzy images trying to piece it all together.

“Any theories?” Roger asked.

“It’s Earth tech, obviously,” Paul said, still looking at the screen. “But I don’t see anything here to identify the ship, and there’s no record of any ghost sightings in the traffic logs. All radar contacts have been tagged, so whoever this is, they’ve been sneaking about outside the detection range of our facilities.”

“Seems like someone has gone to significant effort to hide this ship, and perhaps others from us,” Roger said ominously.

“Meaning Davis was right,” Paul agreed. “They’re starting it all over again.”

4

November 5, 2059

Paul casually leapt up the stairs into Davis’s office, easing into an almost silent walk on the top step and passing through several intense sunrays coming in through the 360 degree, wrap-around window late morning to find Davis pouring over a mountain of data that he didn’t look up from. Paul walked forward and sat down in one of the three opposite chairs and waited for him to finish.

“The survivors?” Davis asked several long seconds later, finally looking up from his corporate figures.

“Transferred into the medical facility on A-23 three hours ago.”

Davis nodded. “Get anything useful from them?”

“Nothing in addition to the sensor data, and the woman is still in coma. I doubt she’ll have anything to add if and when she wakes up.”

“I haven’t reported the incident to the Taiwanese ambassador yet, and so far they haven’t made any inquiries. I wanted to decide what we were going to do before word gets out.”

Paul frowned. “How could they not know they’ve got a ship missing? The moment the transponder cut out they should have seen a red flag.”

Davis inclined his head skeptically. “Either they’re not as vigilant in monitoring their ships…or they’re waiting to see if it will eventually come in.”

“Sloppy,” Paul said dismissively.

“Course projections showed it wasn’t due to arrive at the Exchange until the day after tomorrow. I assume that’s not going to happen?”

“No it won’t. We’ve already diverted what’s left of the ship safely away and it should rendezvous with a proper tug within a week. The debris is another matter. The SR took care of the big pieces, but the sweeper team won’t get there for another two days. We’ll need to yellow flag the area for the public within the next 12 hours.”

Davis nodded. “And tell them what?”

“I don’t know,” Paul said honestly. “We haven’t been able to locate or backtrack the ship. We have no idea who owns it, who built it, or where it’s hiding…or how many of them there are.”

“What do you want to do about it?”

Paul stared him straight in the eye. “I want to bring in the fleet and hunt it down.”

“Which means letting the cat out of the bag.”

“We can do it quietly…for a while. But if there is a rogue warship out there we have to protect our civilian fleet. We’ve kept them unarmed for political reasons, which makes them target practice without escorts.”

“And escorts are visible.”

“Again, we can keep it discrete, but we don’t have enough warships to cover our own transports unless we start grouping them in convoys, which would then be letting the cat out of the bag.”

“Why convoy if there’s no escort?”

“Exactly.”

“Any guesses as to where it came from?” Davis asked, already having formulated a few of his own.

“There has to be a covert shipyard somewhere,” Paul said emphatically. “We already keep surveillance on all the current ones to make sure new ships are transponder tagged and they know it. The question is, where is the shipyard and how did they build it without us knowing.”

“I’m assuming this warship is too big to have been launched from Earth?”

“Yes, it’s roughly corvette-sized, and even if it was brought up from the surface in pieces we would have detected the launch.”

“Because they have to be transponder tagged,” Davis echoed. “So when can they get some peace and quiet away from us?”

“Best guess would be a side trip by an unmarked auxiliary craft or drone,” Paul said, laying out the possibilities that he’d been calculating the past 2 days. “A transport makes a routine run through a dark zone with us tracking the transponder. It launches a smaller, faster unmarked craft that travels to an orbital slot off the main detection grid and drops off supplies or parts, then it accelerates to catch up and re-dock with the transport before it comes within radar range of any other ship or station.”

“How big of a transport are we talking?”

“Any cargo module would work, but it’d have to be listed as an empty berth or a mislabeled one if the business they were carrying out was with us, and most of it is. If it was between other parties they could carry whatever they wanted, but most of those trips are within station groups or along high traffic lanes. Bottom line is there’s some opportunities to exploit, but in order to do so they’ve had to be very sneaky and innovative…and it would be very expensive.”

“Where’s the most likely place they’re hiding?”

“My money would be mid orbit along the transit lanes from Luna. A station parked there would come into alignment every few weeks, but that would also put it in detection range of passing ships temporarily, so it’s not exactly the perfect hiding spot. It could also be trailing the moon in the same orbit, outside the range of our Lunar Cyclops, but the deviation point would have to be well prior to arrival at Lunar orbit, meaning a great deal more range to cover. It’s something I’d try, but with their limited technology and fuel reserves it’s unlikely…unless they’re very committed.”

“Which is a distinct possibility,” Davis added.

“Another option is that they’ve refitted one of their known stations with an internal shipyard…one that we’re not monitoring. It’d be a game of cat and mouse in closer to the planet to avoid detection, but it does appear that the warship had at least moderate stealth plating that would diminish effective radar range.”

“But no AG?”

“Not based on the shape and size, no,” Paul said relatively confident. “Either it’s a drone ship, which I find unlikely, or they’ve got their crew in zero g round the clock, which is just plain stupid.”

“But it also has advantages?”

“Smaller ship size per mission profile,” Paul acknowledged. “The gravity discs and cylinders are mass anchors. Take them out of the equation and you have faster ships that can carry greater fuel loads for extended range…they just suck the life out of your crew at the same time.”

“But our warships are faster still, because they have no crew?”

“That and our tech’s better, yes.”

“If we bring in the fleet, how do you go about finding them?”

“There are a few locations I want to check out, but if we don’t get lucky then we’ll have to wait for the next attack. That’s why I want our ships moved in closer. Had they been here two days ago we could have had a chance of chasing this bastard down. Even now I could probably find him, but any ship I send chasing will just be a sitting duck.”

“So it shouldn’t be that hard to find unless it stays quiet?”

“Space is vast, but fuel calculations and drift are easy to figure. Give us a starting point and the ability to move high powered radars into the zone of probability and we’ll find them. Our ships are faster than theirs and more fuel efficient. Get us close and we’ll find them.”

“And if they play possum?”

“Given enough time I’ll find them. Even if they can move their warship around to avoid detection, they can’t do the same for their shipyard…plus, they have to keep running supplies out to service it. If we can find those lines they’ll give it away. If our increased scrutiny cuts the lines, then the warship is rendered useless. Either way, the harder we make it for them to hide the greater the odds we force them into either abandoning the operation or revealing themselves.”

“Or forcing their hand,” Davis added.

“That won’t get them anywhere,” Paul said resolutely.

“I know that…but they don’t. Their secrecy suggests that they’re one of our customers and they don’t want to lose our resources, but they still don’t know of our military capability. If push comes to shove they may try to start taking what they currently buy.”

“All the more reason to move the fleet in,” Paul argued.

“I agree, but we must be cautious. If they have more than one warship, how many can we handle?”

“Head to head, as many as they want to throw at us…the trick is being in the right place at the right time, and we’ve got too many stations to guard. We’ll have to start adding the defense packages for deterrency, otherwise all they have to do is build more crappy ships than we have and send them out to different locations simultaneously, and by sheer numbers they’ll get a few victories because we can’t cover all our infrastructure…unless we hit them first, which I would greatly prefer.”

“So, we have the advantage, but not so much that they can’t hurt us?”

“If they’re smart about it, yes,” Paul confirmed dourly.

Davis nodded. “We also have to consider the reaction of the Americans, Brits, Russians, Chinese, and Brazilians…assuming they’re not the ones involved. They all have warships of their own and could start throwing their weight around in an attempt to hunt down the enemy…or more likely start blaming each other and reopen old political wounds. We need to find out who’s to blame and deal with them before this starts to get out of hand. If we do have to let the cat out of the bag, let’s do so in a way that deters their aggressive ambitions.”

“Kicking the crap out of whoever’s to blame will do that,” Paul pointed out. “And not just the warship. We need to take out the shipyard that built it.”

Davis considered that. “If they should all turn on us, can we handle that?”

“Based on their known ships, yes. It’s on the surface where we’ll have trouble.”

“That thought has crossed my mind,” Davis admitted.

“In space we can kick their asses, not only because we have better tech and people, but because we know where their infrastructure is. If we wanted to we could really hurt them on the surface by taking out their satellite communications and kicking them back down to the planet, but our facilities in their countries would be in jeopardy. The trouble with the Phantom is we don’t know who they are, so we don’t know who to hit. That’s what makes this situation difficult, which is why I need the fleet to start searching. Secrecy is their shield, and we need to take it away from them ASAP.”

“You said you could do it quietly…how?”

“They’re not the only ones who can turn their transponders off,” Paul pointed out. “We can play that game too, stick outside of radar zones while repositioning to where we want. It’s not very hard to hide from them, we’re the ones with the detection grid that we graciously allow them to borrow. Some computer wizardry and we become ghosts to all but their own radar sources.”

“So where does the difficulty lie?”

“Escort duty would give us away, whether it be for ships or stations. We also have to avoid the traffic lanes or the ship radars will pick us up. Resupply will also be tricky. We either have to come into one of our stations or send supply ships out for rendezvous. If someone is monitoring our infrastructure that could give us away, just as I’m hoping their resupply lines do for them.”

“What about the command ship?”

Paul shook his head. “Too slow for a hunting expedition and too big to hide from radar. I won’t bring it in until we’ve gone public.”

Davis glanced down at his desk thoughtfully for a moment. “We could actually be seeing the start of World War III with this…and if that’s to be the case let’s have us dictating the course of events. Bring in the fleet. Find out who’s responsible and take away their toys. Bonus points for prisoners,” he added, using one of the Trailblazer’s running jokes, which drew an appreciative smile from Paul. “I’ll start prepping for the political backlash.”

“And Taiwan?”

“I guess we just tell them what we know…massive hull damage killed the ship, two survivors recovered, and we’re still investigating the cause.”

“They’ll know a bit more when they debrief the man,” Paul pointed out.

“I’ll stall the return of the survivors for a while,” Davis said as if it was a tactic he used often. “They can’t exactly walk up and visit the hospital unannounced.”

5

When Paul left Davis’s office he walked to the nearest juncture of their secure transportation network, now with 42 location options on the control board. He selected the primary sanctum and sat back as the pod car zipped off through the city’s interior, eventually carrying him down through the foundations and connecting to a tunnel buried just beneath the seafloor, which took him out about 12km to Atlantis’s little undercover cousin.

The sanctum was a city of its own, half built underground and half above, yet covered by meters of armor and even more of seafloor silt, creating an abrupt underwater mountain on the otherwise flat plateau. There was about 250 meters of water above the flat-topped peak, with the only entrances on the seafloor just off the perimeter of the mountain, to avoid the risk of becoming blocked by landslides. The entrances were collapsible garages, laying flat a meter or so above the seafloor and capable of rising up several stories to allow for entrance/egress, then closing back down for security and protection.

The line Paul was travelling through was the backdoor approach which directly connected the sanctum with Atlantis and several other new underwater locations that the Archons traveled to frequently. Most of them lived inside the sanctum now, training continuously while a select few left for other assignments and duties. A handful of the trailblazers remained in their quarters block inside Atlantis, but otherwise the rest of them had moved into the sanctum along with 600 lesser Archons, who they kept training and little else.

While Paul had risen to a level 8 adept, the newbs hadn’t progressed past level 3 save for a few exceptions. Jared was the highest ranked non-trailblazer at level 5, and from the 4th class, having caught up and surpassed the 200 adepts ahead of him in recent years. Clint and Levi were both level 4s and had demonstrated an aptitude for the naval disciplines, so he’d begun including them in some of the practical duties of running that division of the military, but for the most part everything outside the sanctum was run by the trailblazers while the other Archons just tried to close the skill gap with them…or more realistically, just increase their levels enough to prove their worth and be given a field assignment.

The lowest ranked member of 1st class was Mark-084 at level 7, and he was pretty much on part time training, enough to cover the core workouts and a few electives, but his main emphasis had been on developing a decent core of aerofighter pilots using combat simulations alone, given that they couldn’t practice anything more than simple maneuvers in the atmosphere where satellite surveillance could pick them up.

He’d been working hard at developing his own piloting skills in the skeets, and then teaching the recruits Davis had provided him to not only fly the unusual hover-capable craft, but to break down their bad habits and rebuild them into capable fighters. After having washed out two thirds of the initial class he’d gotten a small group that he’d been comfortable with and focused on their training for more than two years before adding any others, then using that core group to teach additional recruits through example, further building and growing their aerofighter core…all being done quietly inside Atlantis where no one would be the wiser.

Even with that challenge on his shoulders Mark had been able to continue advancing his skills at a faster pace than most of the other classes. Both he and the other trailblazers had developed a knack for training and pushing their abilities into the unknown, while the others, even with the benefit of the experience of those who had come before them, often plateaued after a breakthrough and/or had difficulty in training continuously, being more comfortable with long training blocks of days or weeks with short breaks in between, which Paul and the others knew diminished the gains, but they couldn’t seem to make the newbs understand, even after more than a decade had passed for the 2nd class.

Paul had seen some of them come around, slowly, and there was a general consensus amongst the trailblazers that if they kept them contained and doing nothing but training for the indeterminate future they would eventually develop the necessary training skills, along with an occasional kick in the butt when they required it. Bottom line was they weren’t up to par yet as a group, and they were only giving the individuals who were beginning to rise to the challenge a little more leash to work with. Otherwise, everything Archon-related within Star Force was exclusively the work of the trailblazers.

They’d split up the duties as they liked, but a group of them had opted for training only, seeing how far they could go and laying the benchmarks for the others that were splitting their time with military development duties, thus making their training hours a bit more efficient by taking out the need to experiment.

Morgan headed up that group and had risen to the highest rank yet obtained…level 16, a full two levels ahead of Jace who had a solid lock on 2nd place. Four others held level 13, with the remainder of the 100 stretched out down to Paul’s level 8, which begrudged him a bit at having been outdone, but the fleet that he, Liam, and Roger were building was going to be the linchpin of the entire military so it wasn’t like his hours were being wasted. So long as he continued advancing up the skill ranks…and stayed ahead of the newbs…he was content to work through at his own pace and reign in his competitiveness with regards to the other trailblazers.

Specialization had been inevitable, but the core workouts and ranking levels kept them all tied together and focused on advancement, despite the distractions of their ancillary work…something that the newbs just weren’t ready for yet.

When Paul’s pod reached the sanctum he exited in approximately the middle of what was a double pyramid, blunted point up and point down. From there he hopped into the nearest elevator and made his way to the naval command and control center.

Clint was on watch when he arrived, doing little more than babysitting in case anyone in their small fleet required Archon assistance, which meant running and getting Paul, Liam, or Roger to handle any unusual situations. If not, then he’d simply relay standing orders and handle communications as if he were a secretary…a necessary function, but one that didn’t require any great expenditure of physical or mental resources and would allow the newbs to continue training while getting just a hint of ‘field work’ even though they were still restricted to the sanctum.

As Paul walked into the large, segmented room capable of servicing 20+ crew he saw Roger working over on a design table and snapped his fingers to get his attention.

“Game on,” Paul said, with Roger immediately taking his meaning as he turned to face Clint. “Get me a network link to Harper, Minsk, and Voss.”

Clint raised a curious eyebrow but said nothing as he got to work making the contacts.

Roger left his design work and walked over to stand beside Paul in front of the main communications screen that Clint was sitting in a booth beneath. It segmented into three pieces with standby icons quickly appearing one two…the last of which took an additional five minutes before it connected and the feeds went live, showing the torsos of three men, each wearing the vivid dark purple Star Force naval military uniforms.

“Sorry,” Harper apologized. “Caught me in the head.”

Paul dismissed the delay with a quick nod. “Two days ago a civilian transport was hit, Star Force make, Taiwan owned, Leo-class. We recovered the sensor records and two survivors, both of which indicate they were attacked by an unknown class of warship of Earth construction. We’re bringing the fleet in to hunt it down.”

Voss whistled appreciatively.

“What are we dealing with?” Harper asked.

Roger nodded at Clint and he forwarded the sensor records and capability guestimates.

“It’s a corvette, armed with missiles at least, and has some minimal radar stealthing,” Paul explained. “It launched on the Leo at range, so we didn’t get a good visual image. We’ve pieced together what we could to get the approximate shape. Where it is now we don’t know, I didn’t want to risk sending civilian ships out looking so it either got away or is laying in wait. Either way, it’s staying away from known radar detection zones and has a shipyard off the grid as well. We’ve confirmed that it did not originate from any known yard, so there’s another mystery for you to unravel.”

“We also don’t know how many of them there are,” Roger added.

Minsk frowned. “Orion isn’t suited for a search mission.”

“No it’s not,” Paul agreed, referring to the massive command ship, “which is why you’re not going…but your support ships are.”

The Captain nodded his understanding.

“The two battleships will head up the hunting parties, but the Orion will fly its fleet in towards the planet until you’re in better signal range. Atlantis will handle any piloting duties in close to the planet.

“What if we’re not in position when the fireworks start?” Harper asked.

“We won’t engage with a signal lag,” Paul declared. “We’ll wait until one of you can arrive. I doubt this warship has engine capability anywhere near ours, so it shouldn’t be able to run our ships down. Otherwise we should be able to fly them by remote as mobile radar platforms without too much trouble.”

“What about jamming?” Voss asked.

“I doubt anyone’s even equipped for that yet,” Paul said, aware of the danger, which was why he’d designed the drone warships with multiple communications platforms. “Until they know we exist and we’re flying by remote we shouldn’t encounter any problems.”

“But it will be a weak signal,” Minsk pointed out.

“For combat, yes, but we’ll have one of the battleships in proximity by then,” Paul explained unnecessarily. Minsk was just being overly cautious.

“I assume you’ll want us on different sides of the planet?” Harper guessed.

“More or less. We’ll get you assigned search zones within the hour, but right now I just want to get you moving. We have no idea when this warship will strike again…and the next time it could be one of ours.”

“Are we taking everything?” Voss asked.

“All but two,” Paul said firmly. “Leave a pair of destroyers, we’ll need the smaller ships.”

“Are we doing this quiet or bold?” Harper asked.

“Quiet,” Paul said, appreciating the question. “No transponders or flybys. Keep your distance and out of sight until we find our target. We’ll advise then.”

“No clue at all who we’re after?” Minsk asked.

“Nothing,” Paul said, frustration evident in his voice. “Whoever’s done this has hid their tracks well. We’ve got our eyes peeled for any surreptitious supply lines, and hopefully we’ll come up with something on your way here, otherwise you’ve got a lot of space to cover.”

“Speaking of which?” Voss asked.

“We’ll bring the refuelers to you,” Paul assured him. “Just get here as soon as you can.”

“Any chance of getting us some extra pilots?” Harper asked.

“How many can you take?”

“I’d like four more, if possible.”

“I could make room for three,” Voss added.

Paul exchanged glances with Roger, who nodded confidently.

“We’ll make something happen,” Paul promised.

“Do you want me to transfer some of mine?” Minsk asked.

Paul shook his head. “Too far out of the way.”

“If and when we do find the enemy, what are our orders?” Harper asked.

“Disable and capture, preferably.”

“We’ll need boarding parties for that.”

“You’ll have them.”

Harper nodded. “Permission to get underway?”

“Burn whatever fuel you have to…just get here fast. I don’t like having a fox in the hen house.”

“Understood,” Voss echoed with a half-clenched jaw. “Just make sure the refuelers are standing by. Given our current position we’re going to have to suck our reserves dry to get there.”

“They’ll be waiting,” Paul promised as the three Captains signed off. Roger immediately went to the map table and began tagging available ships to divert for resupply duty while Clint waited for orders.

“Pull up the crew rosters,” Paul said absentmindedly as he was already mentally sifting through available personnel, “see how many active remote pilots we have in the field, then pull the files on the reserves. We may have to do some crew swapping.”

Captain Voss leaned back in his command chair, taking a moment to let the seriousness of the situation sink in before he glanced to his left at the rows of fleet control remote stations, all currently empty. Right now the bridge was occupied by him and his third in command at the ops station directly to his left.

“Wake everyone up,” he ordered after a pensive pause. “We’ve got work to do.”

“This is it then?”

“It is, and we’ve got a fleet of civilian ships to protect so we can’t waste time.”

“Be back in a sec,” the junior officer said, jumping out of his seat and rushing off to gather the rest of the crew, most of which were probably in their bunks, leaving Voss alone on the bridge of the 1050m long battleship, tucked safely inside a rotating cylinder encased within a protective ‘needle’ of armor designed to deflect rail gun rounds if/when they penetrated the ship’s ten meter thick armor plates.

The needle stood horizontally within the wedge-shaped ship, with the long prow and thick engine compartments providing physical barriers to slow rounds entering the ship through sheer mass. Likewise there were two blocky ‘star destroyer’ towers extending above and below the ship, likewise blocking for the needle’s weak angles, leaving the sharp tips pointing port and starboard along the thinnest approach vectors, providing the maximum deflection coverage possible.

Any rounds making it that far in then had to deal with the armored needle before breaching the gravity cylinders inside, stacked one on top of the other. The bridge was located in the bottom portion of the port, centering it in the ship as much as possible. The living quarters were located solely in the needle, with the rest of the ship being made up of automated systems and a small hangar bay that connected to the needle from the front, along the most protected angled, through a Z-shaped entryway to prevent a lucky spearing shot from getting through.

Voss appreciated the thought behind the design, knowing that it would give his ship extended battle life, but most of the searching and fighting was going to be accomplished by the support fleet lazily drifting alongside the Turok in extreme high orbit around Earth, taking a slow lap around the planet in a 120-day orbit, far from any prying eyes as they ran through test maneuvers and simulations, getting in some time away from the shipyard and civilization to get the crew acclimated to deep space assignments.

In truth it was a highly boring game of waiting until Star Force decided to bring them into the mix…which now they had. Problem was the Turok was a massive war machine and not easy to move about without expending an insane amount of fuel, which Paul had just licensed Voss to do. In the rear of the ship stood 42 high-thrust plasma engines, along with 8 others spaced around the ship for ‘quick’ maneuvering that kept the ship mobile when it wanted to be…and now was one of those times.

As soon as the crew was woken up and brought up to speed on the situation the pilot ramped up the engines past 20% for the first time, reaching all the way up to 60% for a long duration burn to cut sharply across the orbital angles and head them down in towards the planet on a more or less direct route. The fleet control pilots onboard took their positions in 13 of the 16 bridge stations, linking up to the surrounding support ships and keeping them in formation around the Turok, which wasn’t difficult considering their smaller masses.

In Voss’s fleet were 6 cutters, 2 corvettes, 1 frigate, 3 destroyers, and 1 of the new heavy destroyers, just two months out of dry-dock. All were unmanned and remote controlled with various modular weapons platforms, but the heavy destroyer was the first Star Force design that came with a non-modular primary rail gun running the length of the H-shaped hull, more than doubling the barrel length of its modular cousins and thus increasing firing speed.

The Turok also had a rail gun mount running down the centerline…but it was a heavy version with a 600m long barrel, making for one hell of a naval chess piece to maneuver across the map, but it wasn’t something to be used hunting smaller ships, given that the weapon had to be pointed along the Z-axis and could only move as fast as the ship could turn. Still, when dealing with stations or large ships it made for a potent deterrent…or at least it would whenever the public found out it existed.

For the quicker combat, which in naval terms was still painfully slow, the smaller ships ruled, making the tiny cutters the nimblest craft after combat drones, which the Turok also carried in its hangar bay, stacked up like crates for deployment if and when the Captain warranted it.

One of the destroyers also had a carrier mod, adding a dozen more drones to Voss’s arsenal, but their range was limited, so most of the hunting/hounding duties were going to be the domain of the cutters, unless the enemy ships turned out to be slugs, in which case the heavier capital ships would come into play, but he knew the Turok wouldn’t, given its size, so he was going to have to manage this operation from afar unless the enemy was stupid enough to come to him.

With his battleship and its 13 escorts headed in towards Earth, Voss began pouring over the data files Paul had transferred to him, trying to glean anything of use from the Leo’s sensor logs and the Archons’ analysis tags. With his fleet being just over 1 million km from the Earth it was going to take him at least 5 days to get to the search area and he wanted to be as prepared as possible for their first potential engagement, for the way this whole operation went down would set the tone for years to come with regards to Star Force, their military, and international relations.

What took place in the coming days could potentially start World War III…or prevent it. Either way the time for hiding their military might was over. The big dogs were on the prowl now and the pups were going to have to learn their place, one way or another.   

Harper and the Mjolnir were much closer, parked just outside the massive military shipyard that had constructed their entire fleet. The battleship was half the distance to the Earth at 580,000 km, standing guard over the 9 partially constructed ships in dry dock and the invaluable crews that were building them at a feverish pace. Twelve support ships floated nearby in parking orbits, pacing the station as it slowly meandered its way around Earth once every 50 days. On orders from Harper those ships awakened and followed the Mjolnir as it accelerated away from the station, leaving a pair of destroyers to guard the yard as well as the command slip some 250 miles away.

Spindly in construction but far larger than the neighboring shipyard, the command slip was a specialized shipyard designed for one purpose…to build the gargantuan command ships, of which only one had been constructed. The 2.2 km wide Orion sat ten miles away, watching as the slip began initial construction on a second ship, slated to be completed 8 years down the line if sufficient resources were allocated. The Orion massed more than any ship or station in Star Force’s fleet, looking for all the world like a gigantic jelly donut.

Inside was a core section of living quarters capable of housing hundreds of personnel from crewers to techs, medics, Knights, scientists and whoever else they wanted to take along for the ride, including Archons, for which they had a full sanctum built inside the ship. Given that the warship was basically being parked for lack of use no Archon had taken up command there, but the ship was a fully operational outpost/battle station with more weaponry than the rest of the fleet combined.

The bulk of the ship was automation, with an insane amount of redundancy designed to keep the ship flying and fighting even when the enemy was poking holes in it. It had engine vents spaced around the entire hull, allowing it to fly in whatever direction required, as well as mobile rail guns that could turn themselves on the surface of the ship rather than having the behemoth try to move for targeting. Add in thousands of laser batteries and missile clusters, along with hangars full of drones, transports, and even the occasional capital ship and the Orion made for a Death Star-esk presence…which made it completely useless for a hunting expedition.

Minsk kept the ship where it was, but had his pilots remote fly its small escort fleet of 7 cutters and 6 corvettes on a pacing track with the Mjolnir, to be taken control of the 2 battleships later as the distance increased and the signal lag became inconvenient. Altogether 38 of Star Force’s 41 warships headed in towards the planet to begin the search for the rogue warship and its birthplace, not knowing who or what they were looking for, but confident that they were more than a match for whatever they would face.

The real question was, would they find the enemy ship before it struck again.

6

November 8, 2059

“They’ve got something,” the Mjolnir’s 2nd officer said from the ops station, relaying a message from Atlantis.

Harper’s attention was immediately caught. “Where?”

“Zone 7,” he relayed, pulling up the appropriate location on the battleship’s main display. An image of the Earth and all her orbital infrastructure was laid out, sectioned off into orbital zones. Zone 7 was a band of middle orbit running from 100,000 km to 175,000 km altitude with an ever growing number of orbital habitats, though the most populated areas were still zones 2-5, with lunar traffic traveling in and out from the populous zones up to zone 10 which encompassed the moon’s orbit.

“Another attack?” Harper asked.

“No, but they think it’s the ship that hit the Indian transport yesterday. One of our stations picked up a faint radar signal as it nicked the edge of their cover zone. Whatever it was wasn’t carrying  a transponder and we’ve got an approximate trajectory dated as of 14 minutes ago.”

Harper looked over the map, frowning. His fleet was now stationed in zone 8, but on the wrong side of the planet. Voss’s fleet still hadn’t made it inside lunar orbit yet and the target was in his patrol zone.

“Damn it, they’re going to get away again,” he said, referring to the three subsequent attacks in the previous four days. After the initial loss of the Taiwanese freighter Mexican, German, and Indian transports had been hit at seemingly random points around the planet, but all were carrying economic cargoes, either ores coming back from Luna or processed materials/products from orbital factories.

After the German loss went public the story broke and the nations with military forces in space began mobilizing to defend their interests, yet none of the big 5 had yet been targeted, though there was considerable backroom finger-pointing going on amongst them, but no one had any proof to who the culprits really were.

At this point it had become clear to Harper that they were dealing with more than one phantom warship. The distribution pattern of the attacks was too widely spaced to have been the work of a single ship…unless it was ridiculously fast, which the Mjolnir’s captain doubted. By his guess the enemy had nothing faster than one of Star Force’s destroyers, and using that as a benchmark he’d been trying to narrow down their range of operation, but this was the first hard piece of navigational evidence that he’d been given to work with.

“Calculate distance from the most recent attack,” he ordered calmly to his bridge crew, which consisted of 5 at the moment, with only two remote pilots keeping watch over his now 26 escort ships, all of which were gradually spreading out into patrol zones to begin sweeping a swath of ‘dark’ space with their radar where none of the stations’ could reach. A portion of those ships were to be transferred over to the Turok’s control once it arrived, and Harper intently wished it was already here, because there was no way his ships could track down the fortuitous radar contact given how far out of position they were.

“32,000 km,” the Star Force officer reported.

Harper started doing the mental math. “15 hours puts it at 2,000 km per hour, which is in the 500m/s range, assuming it left immediately after the attack. Does that sound a little quick to you?”

“Not for us, but for what the other corporations are producing I’d say they were hauling ass to get away as fast as possible.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Harper confirmed. “Which means they probably burned up a lot of their fuel load…so they were traveling in a direction which would lead them to, or near, a resupply point, either a station or rendezvous. Damn, I wish we were in position!”

“If there is more than one ship, we’re still probably in the vicinity of the one that took out the Mexican transport,” the officer argued. “I hate to say it, but our best bet is to keep combing this area until it strikes again.”

Harper shook his head in agreement, staring down at the glowing map. “Where are these bastards hiding? They’ve got to have an unregistered base out here somewhere, otherwise their pathetic engines would run dry.”

“Do you think they could have repurposed some of ours?”

“We’ve already taken an inventory of all ships sold. They’re still flying. None have been decommissioned or scrapped.”

“Copied?”

“I’ve been assured that hasn’t happened,” Harper said, not confident in that being true or how Star Force could even know that.

“What’s the move then?”

“Stick with the patrol assignments for now,” the Captain said, not happy with the situation. “When Voss gets here we’ll have some more options.”

The Turok didn’t arrive inside zone 10 for another two days, during which a 5th ship was hit, this one belonging to the Australians and making a routine supply run between stations all the way down in zone 2. With Star Force’s fleet positioned so far out they weren’t in position to respond, but with better radar coverage in the area the attack didn’t go completely unnoticed. The attacker crossed two radar ‘halos’ as it fled, giving the Archons a decent idea of the direction it was heading thanks to the numerous stations and ships in the area that it had to maneuver around to avoid further detection, thus narrowing down the possible ballistic flight paths.

The optimal search areas were revised as a result, with Voss’s fleet spreading out to scan the regions around the heavy traffic lanes, augmented by part of the Orion’s support ships, sent round the planet by remote and picked up by the Turok’s controllers. Between the two battleships and their escorts, Star Force’s fleet was spaced out around the most populous areas, running with no transponders and themselves staying out of the radar halos of orbiting stations and passing ships, waiting and watching for any more sign of their quarry as they methodically searched through the dark zones of the orbital grid.

A day and a half after the most recent attack a corvette in Voss’s fleet picked up a radar signature with no corresponding transponder signal. The hit was transmitted to both the Turok and the Star Force communications network, making it back to Atlantis and subsequently the Archon sanctum within seconds.

“Roger,” Levi said as the sensor data reached them.

“I see it,” the trailblazer said, already looking at the screen. “Calculate trajectory.”

“Not much signal yet,” Levi said as the tracking data began trickling in. “Got a signal from the Turok.”

Roger took three steps to the left and activated a secondary screen. “Captain?”

A laggy nod returned his greeting. “We’ve picked up another contact with no transponder.”

“Yes, I know. We’re monitoring your telemetry.”

“How do you want us to proceed?”

“I need a course projection first,” Roger insisted.

“Hold on a minute,” Voss said, turning to one of his bridge crew and issuing orders. A few moments later the radar signal intensified as the corvette switched from spherical scanning to a more narrow and powerful beam. Likewise the tracking data altered, offering more precise numbers.

“Got it,” Levi said, shifting the calculations to the main map where it appeared as a heavy red line that intersected with nothing.

“Course projections for the tagged ships,” Roger said.

Levi hit three buttons and a myriad of lines appeared for all the nearby ships. Roger swung the 3d map around with a toggle switch, seeing if any of the lines intersected. One came close.

Levi pulled up another program and gave ETAs for both ships, showing that they would pass near to the same spot within 15 minutes of each other.

“We’ve got something,” Voss said. “Looks like it’s headed for a French ship.”

“We concur,” Roger verified. “Can you intercept?”

Voss conferred with his pilots for a moment. “Yes.”

“Go,” Roger said without hesitation. “And bring in more than one. I want options if this one slips away.”

“I’ve got two cutters and a frigate nearby, but not close enough to get there before intercept,” he offered.

“Just get them close, and push the corvette’s engines as hard as you have to. Whether this is a warship or unmarked cargo ship, I want it stopped before it reaches the French.”

“Already underway,” Voss said as the motion statistics for the corvette in question began to alter as it accelerated toward the calculated intercept point. Thanks to the control signals being transmitted to and from the support craft, Roger had clandestine transponders for all of their ships in the field, though their power settings were set to low, making the return signals only visible from a certain range. Voss was actually using additional Star Force infrastructure to route some of the signals through in order to maximize dispersement while keeping their locations secret.

Granted, even the long range control signals were difficult to detect if you didn’t know what to look for and were vastly different from the transponder beacons that broadcast loud and constant signals, literally shouting out their presence while the control signals were different in frequency, conical transmission, and intermittent cluster bursts, thus decreasing signal saturation and shortening detection range.

The radar the ships were broadcasting could and should have been enough to give away their position, but with so many radar signals in orbit, many of which were Star Force owned and in constant operation, there was a bit of neighborhood clutter to disguise their presence, but had anyone been monitoring and comparing the radar signatures to transponders they would have easily noticed the discrepancy.

The target ship in question should have sensed the much stronger radar beacon nearby, but no visible response in trajectory was noted, meaning either they didn’t see any point in running or that they weren’t set up to detect such things, which Roger found likely. Star Force starships were all equipped for such situational awareness, but at a cost…and given that this ship was not of Star Force build he doubted the designers had been that thorough. Also, if this ship was predisposed for stealth, then detection was something it wanted to avoid rather than be engaged in, meaning it probably had limited navigational ability and was flying off transponder signals alone.

There were several hours before the anticipated intercept, with the corvette accelerating at a furious pace before coasting then hard breaking towards the climax and interposing itself in between the French transport, this one also of Star Force manufacture and Leo-class, and the transponderless starship about 1,000 km out. There the corvette waited as the enemy made some last minute adjustments to its course to precisely line up its approach to the French ship.

“They don’t see it,” Paul said as he watched the telemetry. Both he, Liam, Jason, and several other trailblazers had come down to the control room to watch the intercept unfold. “They’re going straight for the transport.”

“We concur,” Voss said a few moments later. “What are your orders?”

Paul exchanged glances with Roger.

“Captain,” Roger said evenly. “Make your presence known, but under no circumstances let them get within missile range of that ship.”

Voss nodded to the screen, then looked over to the starboard line of control stations to the pilot of that particular corvette. “Turn on your transponder and give me a local broadcast…just powerful enough for the two ships, I don’t want to transmit to the entire planet.”

“Transponder going hot,” the pilot said, with a white icon pulsing on the Captain’s navigation map, replacing the dull blue that had been marking the ship’s location. “Comm line link established and routed to your chair.”

Voss slid his hand over the transmit button and let it hover there, watching for a reaction to the sudden appearance of the nearby transponder signal. After a long pause and no response from the quickly approaching ship he pushed down the button and began to speak, but before his first word could come out the corvette’s radar picked up four quickly accelerating contacts leaping from the target.

Voss clicked the comm closed again. “Missiles!” he warned, although the pilot had already seen them coming and began to reorient the corvette to engage the target.

7

“I see them,” the pilot said, spinning the ship around and beginning to accelerate towards the French ship and away from the target, slightly slowing the intercept time for the missiles but more importantly beginning to match the approach speed of the enemy as he activated the anti-missile laser system.

The H-shaped warship had a large laser mod with cupolas on one side and a missile rack in the other. All power for the laser mod was channeled into the two cupolas as the pilot pointed the ship square on so that both mounts could target the incoming missiles at range. With the corvette’s active radar tracking the missiles the pilot tagged each of the four as targets and let the ship’s auto-fire program handle the defense.

When the missiles passed the 50 mile mark the auto-turrets began peppering the area with rapid-fire laser shots, invisible save for when they hit, which first occurred at 38 miles out and the small damage incurred began to add up, taking down the first one at 22 miles when a small section of the guided missile’s fuel supply was hit during drift mode, causing an erratic lateral acceleration that sent it careening off target.

Two more of the missiles were ‘killed’ through damage, making them inoperable before they hit the second acceleration stage. The fourth of the long range missiles began accelerating through a second stage of propellant, aligning itself on the corvette before it was chewed apart by several sequenced hits that continued like a chainsaw as it approached the ship, leaving nothing but pieces to bounce off the hull armor. The closer targets got to the ship the more accurate the anti-missile turrets were, leaving the four missiles little chance of hitting, though a larger cluster fired at shorter distance would have been another matter entirely.

Voss didn’t plan on letting that scenario come to pass. “Target with the main battery,” he ordered. “Disabling shot if possible.”

While the turrets had been doing their job the pilot had been maneuvering the single large laser in line with the approaching ship and zooming in with the targeting scope, which included a laser ‘pointer’ so that when the Captain gave the order he already had the target in his crosshairs. The video feed he was watching showed a detailed, telescopic image of the attacking ship with two large missile racks attached to the hull. He let the shaky targeting laser drift over the port module and fired off a shot, missing as the dot juked off the launcher, due in part to the signal lag.

He knew the targeting would steady the closer the enemy ship got, but he didn’t want to wait that long. The pilot waited through the brief recharge cycle of the main laser and chanced another shot, trying to either hit the launchers or miss wide, keeping the shot away from the main hull if at all possible.

On the image, which had to be zoomed out slightly as the ship continued to approach, one of the box-like compartments exploded, pushing the ship slightly askew by the lateral thrust.

“Nice shot,” Voss congratulated. “Now get the other one.”

“I can’t,” the pilot said, frustrated. “Not until they fix their orientation.”

Voss considered the situation for a moment. “Try for the engines if and when they circle around, reduced power shot.”

“Yes, sir,” the pilot said, watching as the list slowly rotated the ship around, bringing the nose to the left and the destroyed missile pod directly between the two ships…but then the ship’s thrusters fired and killed the list, followed by a 22 missile salvo fired off the front of the warship and which curved sharply to the left, heading towards the corvette.

“Looks like they’re going all in,” Voss said.

“I’m on it,” the pilot said, keying the second weapons mod along with switching the laser power supply back over to charging the cupolas. Along with the offensive missiles was a bank of the fast moving intercepts, with hard armor plates retracting over the launch tubes and exposing them to space.

As the pilot waited for the missiles to close within range of the auto-turrets he kept the main laser’s targeting reticule on the ship, hoping for a clean shot with the single capacitor charge he had left. The ship was still partially lateral, with the bow pointed left but not so much that the rear of the ship was clearly visible. The boxy missile launcher was still covering the engines, and the front of the ship was little more than a square jawed protrusion of hull with a few tiny windows up front. If it wasn’t for the radar signature and the reflecting sunlight, the black paint job would have made it almost completely invisible.

 The laser turrets began firing before a target of opportunity presented itself and the pilot abandoned the effort, keying instead for the launch of the intercepts. He had to wait until the missiles were close by to fire, given that the countermeasures had very little range to work with. By the time that happened the lasers had killed five of the 22 missiles, then he switched them off and fired the intercepts with a smooth, coordinated key sequence.

Out of the ‘back’ of the ship sprouted sequenced shots that looked like fireworks, zipping away from the ship so fast they were hard to follow with the naked eye. On the radar they appeared as tiny fish, swimming out and biting on to the approaching missiles with both winking out upon contact. Two failed to hit on the first pass, with the closure rates being too high for them to circle around and catch up as they continued to travel in towards the corvette.

The pilot switched the lasers back on and the two missiles quickly disappeared, but got within a mile of the ship before splintering apart under the hail of laser blasts. The intercepts that had attempted to spin about and pursue ran out of fuel and began to drift unpowered through the ever decreasing engagement zone.

“They’re running!” the pilot said.

“Stay on them,” Voss ordered.

“I have a shot,” the pilot said as the enemy ship turned as it accelerated.

“Take it then get moving,” Voss allowed.

“Gladly,” the pilot whispered, concentrating. A moment later he fired off the main laser, clipping the engine vents sticking out the back of the ship like flower petals. The nearest one blew apart in a hail of shrapnel and the ship’s thrust suddenly became erratic, throwing their centerline off target and wobbling their acceleration but not stopping the ship from moving away.

“Pursuit course,” Voss ordered. “You’ll have to get closer to completely disable.”

“Accelerating,” the pilot said, kicking in the corvette’s superior engines and taking it away from the French ship that it had been sliding back towards. “How exactly am I supposed to shoot it without penetrating the hull?”

“Get the other missile rack first, then we’ll talk,” Voss said as he watched the enemy ship list as it continued to thrust hard, taking it in a curved trajectory that was hard to predict an intercept point for, but with the corvette’s greater speed it quickly ate up the course corrections and the miles between the ships scaled down drastically.

No more enemy missiles were launched until they came within 12 miles, at which time six more mushroomed from the front of the ship and pulled a U-turn, heading back towards the corvette but it was no use. The anti-missile systems disposed of them all and the Star Force warship continued to close.

Another well aimed laser shot hit the starboard missile rack a few minutes later as the pilot finally was able to intercept the enemy’s flight line and swing around behind them. No missiles exploded in the box this time, due to the fact that the affected rack area was already empty, but it put a sizeable hole in the assembly none the less.

The warship’s engines were now fully in view, but the pilot knew he couldn’t risk firing into the engine compartments and detonating the full reserves. If they were going to take the ship intact he had to hit specific systems…or in this case perhaps just run the enemy out of fuel, for they were still accelerating hard to get away, with the corvette having to constantly run its engines to maintain pace and closure, dipping below 50% of their own reserves.

A second laser shot blew off a chunk of the starboard missile box, which prompted a sudden reverse of course, with the enemy cutting all engine thrust, then using thrusters to flip over to face the closing corvette. It then ran its engines up to full thrust and set an intercept course.

“Captain?” the pilot asked.

“I see it,” Voss said steadily. “Focus on the missiles.”

The pilot nodded and lined up the laser with the inside of the port box, with the reticule no longer jumping around as much now that the target was less than 5 miles away, made all the more steadier when he cut out the corvette’s engines. He fired a precise shot and blasted away most of the port missile rack, with a large piece drifting off away from the enemy ship as it continued to accelerate hard towards them.

When it closed to within a mile it launched its remaining 11 missiles at nearly pointblank range. The corvette’s anti-missile systems chewed apart 7 of them, and a few hastily launched intercepts took down 3 more, but one of the missiles slipped through and impacted the front right corner of the corvette, detonating against the armor plating.

The enemy ship flew by less than 50 meters away, carrying its forward momentum and now adding it to the corvette’s…which was now drifting away from the target.

“Damage report,” Voss ordered.

“Not too bad, armor took most of it,” the pilot reported. “We lost one engine vent, directional thrust is gone but I can manage on the others.”

“Get after them, they can’t have much fuel left,” Voss said, keeping his nerve. “They’re not going to get away.”

“Pursuing,” the pilot noted, a bit frustrated that his ship took damage when he could have killed the enemy warship multiple times over by now. He rotated the ship around so that he didn’t have to utilize the damaged vent and could keep the laser pointed forward, then applied smooth but not full thrust, negating the enemy’s acceleration curve and gradually surpassing it, keeping the pressure on but not closing too fast, making sure they kept them running to bleed off their remaining fuel.

When the corvette finally caught up to within a mile Voss made a command decision.

“Pop an intercept into their engines.”

The pilot smiled. “Yes, sir,” he said, tagging the ship and sending the tiny firecracker streaking forward. The lower yield charge was less destructive than a missile, but still posed a risk of detonating their fuel supply or penetrating their hull and cracking their atmospheric containment. Voss figured with the fuel nearly gone the risk of explosion would be less, but the truth was he was tired of playing nice with these murderers…especially since they just damaged one of the ships in his fleet.

The warship had a cluster of six engines in back and the intercept hit center left, blowing apart five of the petal-like vents and sending a lot of shrapnel into the rear of the ship and the internal engine components. As soon as the intercept exploded a secondary plume of some compressed gas puffed out the back but that was the extent of the damage. The ship’s engine thrust completely stopped and the warship went ballistic.

“Well done,” Voss said, glad to see the warship’s wings clipped. “Now see if we can get a comm line established.”

“It’s still wired to your chair, sir,” the pilot reminded him.

“That it is,” Voss suddenly remembered, flicking the switch. “Unidentified warship, your engines are gone, your attempt to destroy us failed, and we have the ability to kill you at any moment we wish. That said, we’d prefer to take you prisoner. Our terms are simple. Establish communications, identify yourself, and make no other attempts at hostilities. We’ll arrange for your recovery...or you can sit here and slowly die, because the only way you’re leaving here alive is in our custody. The choice is yours.”

Voss waited a long time for a response, but the enemy wasn’t squawking. During the wait he contacted the Archons and arranged for an SR to be dispatched to board and recover the ship…something their drone corvette couldn’t do. They’d already prepped a number of ships for this purpose but the nearest one was 18 hours away, which meant they needed to get it moving as soon as possible.

Fifty minutes into the wait Voss finally got a response from the enemy.

There was a secondary viewscreen on the bridge of the Turok showing the camera telemetry from the corvette, with the warship sitting quietly in the center of the screen without so much as a thruster puff. Voss visibly jumped in his seat when the previously steady image mushroomed out in a debris-ridden, fireless explosion that utterly destroyed the ship.

“That wasn’t me,” the pilot said, aghast.

Voss’s jaw clenched in anger. “Did our ship take any hits?”

“All systems show operational, save for the initial missile damage. I have no way of checking the armor without an auxiliary camera.”

“Keep the ship where it is, we need to be able to locate the debris when the SR arrives. They might be able to salvage something,” Voss said, disgusted.

One of the other bridge staff shook her head, not believing what had just happened. “They did that on purpose?”

“Whoever they are,” Voss said slowly, “they don’t want us to know.”

“But to kill themselves?” she asked.

“More to the point,” the 1st officer chimed in, “why would they build a ship with a self-destruct in the first place? That was a warhead explosion, and it came from inside the ship, not the missile racks…meaning they designed the ship that way.”

“Oh my god,” one of the pilots whispered.

“These people are killers,” Voss said, trying to give some clarity to the moment. “Don’t expect them to be rational.”

“What now?” the 1st officer asked.

“We know this isn’t the only ship on the prowl,” Voss said, thinking ahead. “We let the Archons pick apart the debris, maybe gleam some idea who these people are. As far as we’re concerned the hunt goes on minus the corvette…and we start by backtracking this one’s approach line. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find its point of origin. If not, we keep searching and clearing orbital grids until we find them.”

“Or wait until they strike again,” the corvette pilot muttered.

Voss didn’t respond to the comment, but he knew the man was probably right.

8

November 13, 2059

Paul walked into the control room, his hair still wet from a recent shower, and found Roger studying the orbital map. “What have we got?”

“Harper picked up another radar contact with no transponder traveling in zone 6 on no apparent intercept and sent a cutter to shadow it. After a course correction it headed for the traffic lanes, hopefully for a rendezvous.”

“Hopefully?”

“The cutter got close enough to give Cyclops coordinates and we pulled several visuals,” Roger said, pointing Paul to an auxiliary screen. “There doesn’t appear to be any missile racks, so either it’s carrying different weapons or it’s a cargo ship.”

“Headed for a mid-course rendezvous outside of radar range,” Paul surmised.

“That’s what I’m hoping for. If they are we can ID their contact then follow the flow of supplies to the warships.”

“If you’re right this explains how they’re getting supplies out, but not where the phantom ships are being built.”

“If we’re lucky the supplies might be going there,” Roger pointed out. “Either way there’s no reason to intercept the ship now.”

“If it’s a cargo ship,” Paul amended as he scrutinized the photos. “How big is it?”

“Bigger,” Roger said, already having run some basic numbers. “At least by a factor of 2. We’re too far away to get a good radar silhouette.”

“Speed?”

“Slow. Not nearly the closure rate of the warship, which also suggests a different model.”

Paul nodded his agreement. “Good. What else do we have in the area?”

“Another cutter moving into support position a few hours out and two passing freighters.”

The freighters would give them two more radar platforms, Paul knew, but they would be of no other use.

“Any probables?”

“Nothing matches up yet, so I’m guessing they’re heading into a waiting position. When the target comes into range they accelerate, match speeds to transfer cargo, then the phantom moves off and the transponder signal from the tagged ship never so much as budges.”

“That’d be my guess,” Paul said, looking down the traffic lines to see what was already on the way…unfortunately there were more than 15 ships that were to pass through the area in the next 2 days, so it was impossible to make any reasonable picks. “Any response to our radar?”

“Nope, looks like they’re blind as a bat…or pretending as much.”

“I went over the telemetry from the battle again, and as far as I can tell the ship sent no signals whatsoever. Their friends may not even have missed them yet if all their ships are running dark.”

“Any word from the French?” Roger asked, wondering if their ruckus had been detected.

“Still nothing. It’s possible no one was paying attention to the radar and they just missed it.”

“Or they had it turned off.”

“Regardless, they’ve made no inquiries or public statements, but the ship did reach port this morning so I don’t think our secret will last much longer.”

“You think they’ll back off the attacks?” Roger asked, not really thinking that likely.

“Might make them pause to find out what happened to their ship, so we need to stay on this one without spooking it. We need to find out where these bastards are coming from and if they turtle up we’re going to have a hard time finding them again.”

“Well, the only way we can track them is with radar, and if they get smart to that we don’t have any other options.”

“I know,” Paul said, wishing they had a way of putting a homing beacon on the ship. “Let’s just hope we get lucky with this one.”

Four days later the phantom cargo ship finally moved from its holding position just off the main Lunar traffic lane and began to accelerate for an intercept…but not before another attack occurred elsewhere in orbit, with a small Japanese transport being hit down in zone 3 inside radar range. The warship destroyed the ship and retreated back to the dark zones before anyone could arrive to assist, though a nearby American warship did make a futile attempt at pursuit.

The position of the attack did give Star Force another data point to add in their analysis, but at the cost of another 12 lives. The rising death count was really beginning to get under Harper’s skin and by the time the enemy cargo ship made its move the Mjolnir had not one, but three cutters standing by at varying distances to insure that it did not get away this time.

More than an hour before the intercept was made both the battleship and the Archons had done the math and identified the selected target for what they assumed was a rendezvous…which turned out to be a Chinese transport, Jaguar-class.

Not wanting to give their presence away, Harper had the cutters stop transmitting active radar once Cyclops had a lock on the large Star Force-produced transport. He had one of the cutters close in on the converging ships in case this did turn out to be an actual attack…which was when they noticed that the Jaguar wasn’t broadcasting an active radar signal of its own.

The cutters were picking up the transport’s strong transponder signal and maneuvered via that reference point, which the enemy ship must also have been doing right up to the point where it flanked the Jaguar along the third cargo pod and docked with the much larger ship.

“Son of a bitch,” Liam said from the sanctum control room.

“Monitor for distress signals,” Paul said, though he agreed with Liam’s assessment.

“You think they’re hijacking it?” Jason asked standing beside Paul, both of whom were still dressed in training clothes, having interrupted a sparring session to be here when the intercept happened.

“Probably not, but let’s not jump to conclusions before we see how this runs its course.”

“Clint,” Roger said from the map table. “What’s the freighter’s destination?”

The junior adept dug into the computer files and pulled up the registered flight plan from Star Force’s navigational database. “Lunar orbit rendezvous with dropships from the Chinese territorial zones.”

“Have they filed after that?” Liam asked.

“Just this morning,” Clint said with a smile. “Back down to a zone 4 Chinese station…no stops at Star Force installations.”

“Are you going to grab the freighter when it arrives at Luna?” Jason asked.

“I’m tempted to, but we need to follow the unmarked ship on its next leg without spooking them.”

“What do you suppose their endgame is?” Roger whispered, glancing at Paul.

“Economic warfare,” he said without hesitation, having had a long time to think this over. “They haven’t picked a fight with a nation that has military assets, they’re just hitting the small ones that have been rising in stature. If they attack them on the surface they’d be starting a war, but with phantom pirate ships making the attacks in space they can deny responsibility while crippling the other nations’ orbital economies. Every ship that’s been hit has had a full load of either personnel or cargo, so they’re not just jumping anything that comes within range.”

“Why not us?” Jason asked.

“They’ll probably get around to that, but for now they need us as a business partner.”

“And witness,” Roger added. “They know we monitor all traffic, so if someone wants to blame them all they have to do is ask us where their ships have been and we become their alibi.”

 “Or,” Liam added, “it could be a ploy to diminish our monopoly. Up until now Star Force has had all the answers and been two steps ahead of every problem. Now we can’t protect ourselves against attack, or anyone else for that matter, without allying with one of the military powers, which would include the Chinese.”

Paul looked over at Liam. “Good point.”

“Signal from the Mjolnir,” Clint announced.

Paul walked over a few steps and hit the activation button, with the communications screen glowing to life with an image of Captain Harper. “Yes.”

“The target has docked with the Chinese ship, which I assume you already know.”

“Yes, we’re monitoring.”

“What are your orders?”

“Shadow the target wherever it goes. I want to know where those supplies are going.”

“And the Jaguar?”

“Let it go for now. As long as its transponder is active we don’t need it followed.”

“What if it makes another rendezvous?”

“If we want to start shadowing all Chinese cargo ships at some point we know where to find them, but for now I want you to take all three cutters and follow the phantom. If it meets up with another ship I want both followed, and so forth down the line so the more ships you have tailing it the better.”

Harper nodded. “I understand. I’ll pull what additional ships I can into the area.”

“The Chinese?” Davis mewed as Paul filled him in on their most recent discovery. “Now that’s interesting.”

“It’s possible but very unlikely,” Paul said from the chair across the Director’s desk, “that the ship was hijacked. We should know for sure when the ship reaches Lunar orbit and rendezvouses with the Chinese personnel there.”

“I had my suspicions after Taiwan was hit,” Davis admitted, “but the randomized attacks afterward threw me. The Chinese have been more compliant the past few years than they’d previously been, so I figured they had accepted our position if only to maneuver around us. Our reluctance to participate in military orders has made our position of neutral arbiter more legitimate than any nation can claim, so they intend to flip the coin and turn it into our weakness. A bold move on their part.”

“I have Harper shadowing their transport to wherever it’s going, and so far it appears they haven’t noticed our presence. We’ll know soon enough if they’re leading us on a wild goose chase or straight back to their base of operations or another warship…hopefully both. At which point we’re going to have to come out of the shadows.”

Davis nodded resolutely. “Whatever you do make it count and let them know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we have military dominance. I’ll need that to sell the point when the backlash comes.”

Paul frowned. “You don’t think they’ll be grateful that we stopped the attacks?”

“Some will, others will be outraged that our anti-military stance was all for show. Then they’ll be even more ticked when we refuse to sell them our superior weaponry…but the biggest struggle is going to be keeping the backlash against the Chinese from escalating into a war. Not only are we going to stop them from shooting up ships, we’re going to make sure no one returns the favor once their involvement in the attacks get out. To do that I need you to assert full military control over the system.”

“Consider it done,” Paul said, cracking a smile. “I’ll get the Orion headed this way.”

The cutters tracking the phantom transport followed it for three agonizingly long days as the presumably Chinese vessel creeped its way across the orbital backwater zones until it crossed paths with another unmarked ship…however, they didn’t meet up, instead passing each other at several hundreds of miles distance. Harper dispatched one of the cutters to follow the other ship, while the remaining two continued to hound the cargo ship as it travelled further and further away from the infrastructure bands circling the Earth.

Eventually the ship began to slow, with no apparent target in range of the cutters’ reduced radar output, scaled down so that they could follow the ship at a much closer distance. It wasn’t until several hours later when they picked up a faint radar signature ahead of the ship but slightly askew from the transport’s flight line, which then corrected as it came within 100 miles.

Watching from the control room Paul presumed that the rendezvous was being coordinated through line of sight without radar or transponders, meaning that the ship flew to a pre-specified set of coordinates and then visually looked around for its target…which in this case turned out to be a large space station.

Within an hour Cyclops had the location under surveillance and began transmitting images to the sanctum, which offered up the explanation to one running mystery.

“It’s a shipyard,” Liam confirmed, pointing out several construction slips. “I don’t see any gravity discs or cylinders, so the crew must be in zero g the entire time.”

“Same as their ships,” Roger pointed out. “Not very smart of them.”

“Moving disc or stationary box?” Paul asked sarcastically. “Which is easier to build?”

“Looks like they’ve got a half-constructed skeleton,” Liam also noted as they poured over the stills being transmitted from three different Cyclops stations, giving them multiple angles on the station. “Three slips total?”

“That’s what I’m seeing,” Paul confirmed. “Docking ports on top,” he said, pointing to the rectangular cube with a T-shaped module sticking out the top that the cargo ship was just now drifting in towards.

“Any weapons?” Roger asked, not spotting any yet.

“No,” Liam agreed. “I think this is just a clandestine shipyard. Anonymity is probably their only defense.”

“We’ll need to confirm that,” Paul noted, but in agreement.

“We taking it?” Roger asked.

“Not just yet. Let’s see if we can’t get a few more ships under surveillance while we assemble our strike force. I don’t want to leave unaccounted warships wandering around orbit if we can tag them all prior.”

“Take away their supply lines and they’ll be neutralized one way or another,” Liam pointed out.

“Or go nuts and shoot everything in their path until then,” Roger argued. “Including kamikaze runs against our stations.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Liam admitted.

“They’ve already showed they’re willing to kill themselves,” Roger went on to explain. “If they know they can’t resupply then they might as well hurt us as much as they can in the process.”

“We need to get all Chinese transports under surveillance,” Paul said, getting nods of agreement from his two peers. “If they’re transferring cargo we should be able to locate the warships or their supply transports. Let’s get as many of them tagged as we can before we hit the shipyard.”

“Pointing out the obvious,” Roger said, “we don’t have enough ships for that.”

“Follow the big ones,” Liam answered before Paul could. “The smaller transports can’t carry much auxiliary cargo.”

“How many Jaguars do they have?” Roger asked.

“Four,” Paul said, having already pulled up a ship list. “Plus six Leos. Their smaller ships are a mix of Star Force models and their own construction, which are too slow to worry about.”

“We need ten tails then,” Liam said, looking up their current transponder signatures. “Unless you want to use Cyclops for some of them?”

“Double up with Cyclops, but if there is a rendezvous we need a tail to follow the contact. I don’t trust the telescopes to be able to hone in on an accelerating target.”

“I’ll make the arrangements,” Liam offered.

Paul glanced across the map table at Roger. “Let’s organize some boarding parties.”

9

December 3, 2059

“Any response?” Voss asked his ops station as the Turok closed on the illicit shipyard with six support ships in escort formation.

“Nothing yet.”

The Captain returned his eyes to the visual display, magnified numerous times by the Cyclops surveillance station and transmitted to his battleship so they could monitor their target in detail as they approached. The station appeared to have no weapons of any kind, but the self-destruct packages that the warships carried worried him. If the station was also so equipped then his boarding parties would be put in danger, so he intended his attack to be slow and methodical…allowing the enemy plenty of time to blow themselves up if they wanted to before his ships came within range.

That said, he knew the Chinese had nukes and even though they wouldn’t be as effective in the vacuum of space they’d be the perfect option for a station-sized self destruct, which would violently throw debris at his fleet as well as radiation. His battleship was defended against both, but Star Force hadn’t had the opportunity to field test a nuclear detonation in space so the exact yield and outcome was a bit of a question mark.

It was also possible that since the Chinese had been using missiles as their offensive weapons they could have some equipped with nukes as well, and just one hitting the Turok’s hull would be a disaster, though he doubted it would destroy the ship through 10 meters of Herculium armor plating.

That and many other possibilities worried Voss, and with so little intel and this being the first engagement with the Turok he felt the need for extra caution. Star Force had a massive advantage in this situation and he didn’t plan to squander it in haste. Another transport had been attacked a week ago, with Star Force arriving minutes too late to prevent the attack, but they did manage to save most of the ship, with the Italian crew radioing in the incident to their government, which then spread out across the planet’s news agencies.

They reported the attack and the rescue, both in unidentifiable ships, which meant that the Chinese probably knew someone was on to them now, so it was possible that the shipyard had been put on alert and had a few surprises waiting for them.

The second Chinese warship had been taken out quickly with a missile attack from a cutter, given that it couldn’t be disabled and potentially captured while it was actively firing on the Italians. Star Force had dispatched a cleanup crew to recover the ship and debris, but so far had not taken credit for the rescue. The SR ship dispatched to aid the wounded Italian transport had originally been tasked to the strike force, and after a quick patch job on the freighter had returned to the group and was now flying just above and to the rear of the Turok, waiting for Voss’s orders to launch its boarding party.

As they approached the shipyard Voss sent one of his two cutters on ahead to draw any potential fire while his other cutter, two destroyers, frigate, heavy destroyer, and battleship waited at a safe distance. The remote pilot brought the small ship up within half a mile of the station and flew two laps around the perimeter, drawing no response from either the station or the cargo ship attached to the docking T, which had arrived two days earlier.

As the cutter circled around a different perimeter it passed by the one construction slip with a partially constructed skeleton in place, coming into sight of the half dozen workers in spacesuits that began running/jumping/thrusting for the airlock when they finally took notice, though the whole transitional process took them several minutes to get inside, with several of their handheld tools abandoned to drift off into space.

“Captain, I think they see the ship now,” the pilot reported.

“I believe they do,” Voss acknowledged, having also been watching the cutter’s camera footage along with the more distance Cyclops’ perspective encompassing the entire station and cutter. “Let’s give them a moment to get a grasp on the situation. Meanwhile, establish a laser comlink to the cutter and broadcast our transmission from there. I don’t want to give away the rest of our fleet just yet.”

“Laser relay established,” the pilot confirmed after he set up the additional control signal.

“Archon?” Voss said, turning to face an auxiliary screen/camera.

Back in the sanctum control room Paul motioned to his left. “You’re up.”

Oni nodded and activated her headset. “Attention pirates,” she began, speaking in Chinese, “your shipyard has been discovered and your days of pillaging are over. You are currently being targeted by a Star Force warship, and unlike your generous treatment of your victims we are offering you a chance to surrender yourselves to our custody before we take your shipyard apart. Please acknowledge this transmission to indicate that you want to continuing living.”

She paused for a long minute then repeated the warning, but no response was forthcoming.

“Captain, it doesn’t look like they’re going to play nice,” Paul told Voss. “Proceed with taking the station by force.”

“Yes, sir,” Voss acknowledged, then turned to address the cutter pilot. “Target the partially constructed ship and start tearing it apart, but don’t hit the station. Let’s see if we can provoke a reaction.”

“Laser ready,” the pilot said, aiming the medium grade weapon at one of the large, open ribs of the soon to be warship. “Firing.”

The invisible beam traveled the 743 meters distance almost instantaneously, superheating the metal and liquefying the surface of the beam, which then partially re-solidified by the time the laser capacitor recharged. The second shot hit the same spot and ate further into the structure. By the time the fourth shot hit the rib completely broke off and began lazily drifting off into space.

Next the pilot began taking potshots at the plating and internal systems that had begun to fill up the back end of the ship, blowing off bits and pieces in small explosions when nonmetallic bits were hit and reacted poorly to the intense heat of the laser. Over the next half hour the cutter chewed up the warship so badly that very little of the structure could ever hope to be saved, but with the sheer mass of metal it would take thousands more laser strikes to thoroughly tear it all down.

And in all that time there wasn’t so much as a peep on the comm channels.

“Alright, bring in the fleet,” Voss finally ordered. “Keep the SR behind us until we’re in position.”

As a group the remote pilots got to work while the ops officer relayed the message to the SR, which was fully crewed as opposed to the drone warships.

Voss watched patiently as his battleship slowly accelerated towards the distant station, closing on it while waiting for some kind…any kind of reaction from the Chinese, but there was oddly nothing. Even the cargo ship atop the station didn’t attempt to flee, which made Voss worry even more.

“Archon,” Voss said after getting a secure comlink to the SR, “the station appears quiet and they’re continuing to ignore all attempts at communication. They’re also not fleeing in their cargo ship, which concerns me. They may have some treachery planned, or they’re just holing up and making us come get them. I can’t tell which.”

“Understood, Captain,” Jason said from the bridge of the SR. “Get us onboard and we’ll take care of the rest.”

The docking shuttle from the SR nestled up against the ‘T’ on top of the station and magnetically latched onto the structure, then went about interfacing with the relatively standard docking port. It didn’t match Star Force standards, but the shuttle had been designed to dock with a variety of sizes and mechanisms, so with a little work they gained access without having to burn through the door.

The boarding party floated through the pressurized atrium, then passed through a second door utilizing available hand controls to gain access to the station. The three men in the boarding party emerged into a long square hallway about two meters wide and high, giving it a bit of a cramped feeling, especially for the two white-armored Knights, which both stood just shy of 7 feet tall.

Jason gently clawed his armored hands against the padded wall and pulled himself down the hallway ahead of the Knights, coming up to the bottom of the T that led down into the main section of the station. He poked his red helmeted head over the hole in the ‘floor’ and looked down, seeing nothing but a clear vertical shaft twice as wide as the tunnel he was emerging from. Above his head he saw another airlock, this one much bigger, that he assumed was used for delivering large supply sleds to the station.

Across the center of the T was an identical hallway that led to what should have been the airlock entrance to the docked cargo ship. As he pulled himself against the side of the hall, Jason pointed across the shaft and Harrison shot by him, heading for the ship as the other two focused their attention on the station’s crew.

Imbedded into the wall of the shaft was a ladder…two, actually, as Jason spied one on the opposite wall. Pulling on the edge of the hole he shot himself down the shaft, bypassing the handholds entirely with Reynolds following him down a few seconds later.

When he got to the bottom of the shaft he braked against the ‘floor’ with his hands and glanced around, seeing two available routes. One was a large cargo storage area that he had emerged on the edge of…the other was what looked like crew service areas through a series of doorways running the length of the wall.

Using his fingers to flip himself around, Jason righted himself and waited for Reynolds to drop down behind him, then he waved the taller man in the opposite direction, with the Knight pulling out a stun stick from the clasp on his belt. Through the speakers in Jason’s helmet he heard the distinctive crackle/pop of the stun energy activation and likewise pulled out his own weapon as he floated towards the nearest door, bouncing off a nearby crate to get a better angle of approach and some momentum.

A sudden impact on his chest knocked him backwards and askew, as well as registering a sharp pain and crunching sound just after the loud gunshot rang out in the otherwise silent station.

Jason grabbed hold of the doorway and swiveled himself outside the hallway and out of the line of fire, then glanced down at his chest, seeing his red armor plates had been cracked where the bullet hit and ricocheted off. He waved off Reynolds who had started back and pulled the small stinger pistol from his left hip and hit the charge button. He decided to wait for someone to come out after him, whereupon he could have bashed them with his stun stick, or until the charge icon on the side of his weapon indicated that the paintballs had reached the saturation point. When that finally happened he launched himself around the corner again and started firing.

His first shot hit the waiting man in the face, thwarting another bullet from coming Jason’s way. The Archon noted the fact that he’d missed high, attributing it to the awkward drift of firing from free float. He mentally adjusted his shoulder position as he bounced off the wall and accelerated down the short hallway with a push from his left foot.

He rammed into the stunned man and deflected off his body, angling into the low ceilinged room as he spotted several other crewmembers hiding in various locations, though none of them appeared to be armed. Jason didn’t give them an opportunity to recover the man’s weapon or find their own as he bounced around the room with practiced grace, stunning each of them into unconsciousness with his stun stick. When he had secured and searched what appeared to be the station’s dormitory, he pulled out plastic restraint bands from a tiny compartment on his armor’s belt and lashed the stunned men’s wrists together before leaving the room to continue the search.

“Five neutralized,” he reported over his helmet comlink. “One had a sidearm. I took damage to my armor, but aside from a potential atmospheric leak I’m ok.”

“You let him hit you?” Paul’s voice responded sarcastically.

“My fault, I got sloppy. I didn’t think they’d be armed. It won’t happen again.”

“Any sign of explosives?” Paul asked, his voice turning serious again.

“Not yet. Hopefully we can get them all before they realize what’s happening. Hold on,” Jason said as he got in position to dive into the next room, but instead he altered his aim and ‘jumped’ off another crate so that he flew past the opening rather than into it, aiming his pistol down the hall. He caught a glimpse of a person far down inside the room and took a hasty shot, then caught the edge of the doorway with his fingertips and reversed his momentum, pulling himself back into and down the hallway head first.

He emerged into what looked like an electronics prep room, finding two people present. Pulling himself along the ‘ceiling’ and across workstations, Jason rendered both unconscious with little effort, then put them both in restraints.

“Two more bagged, neither armed,” he reported, then floated his way back out into the cargo area. He cleared out two more rooms along the wall until he found a ladder-clad tube heading down to a lower level. When he was just about to go down his comlink activated.

“Ship secure, Archon,” Harrison reported on what Jason’s heads up display tagged as a private channel between the two armored suits.

“How many?” he asked, responding on the same channel.

“Three.”

“Bring them into the station and tie them to the ladders in the main shaft, then follow us in and help clear out the rest.”

“Happy to,” the Knight said, cutting the comlink as he got to work.

Jason moved down the narrow tunnel and emerged into another identical level, this one containing partially constructed ship components spread out on the cargo floor, attached to what looked like miniature construction slips. Through the mess he spotted a number of airlocks on the far side, suggesting that this was where they handled the assembly of the larger pieces before the crew put them together outside.

Off to his right Jason spied movement…a head ducking out into view and back in again. The Archon pushed off immediately, bouncing twice more to gain speed and angle of approach before ducking in the short hallway and running head on into a man in what looked like pajamas.

A quick flick of his stun stick and the man was stunned limp, with Jason pushing his body aside as he drifted into a plastic wall, breaking through easily but getting tangled up on a second less than a meter in.

As he righted himself his brain caught up with his surroundings and registered the fact that he had entered a clean room…with the man’s ‘pajamas’ being the corresponding anti-dust uniform. A myriad of computer components and delicate tools spread across the area, with one of the sharper ones flying through the air in his direction.

The knife-like cutter scratched and bounced off his helmet, with Jason’s quick hand reaching up to snatch it out of the air before it bounced into the unconscious man who had been propelled by his momentum into the room behind Jason. Holding the tool in hand, the Archon leapt across the room and slashed the face-masked tech who’d thrown it across the head with his stun stick, leaving what would later become a significant bruise on his forehead.

Jason tucked the tool away in a Velcro wall rack along with several other instruments and proceeded to bind up both techs when he got a report from Reynolds.

“How’s your Chinese?”

“Nonexistent, why?”

“I’ve secured what looks to be their control room…with their computers still logged in, I think.”

Inside his helmet Jason smiled. “Stay there and secure that location. Don’t let any of them sneak in and delete data or flip switches. Any sign of a self destruct?”

“If there is one, there’s nothing to indicate it here.”

“Alright, keep your eyes open. I’ll be there as soon as I secure this level.”

“Wanna trade?” Reynolds asked.

“Haha, no,” Jason said, cutting the link. He’d been waiting for this for a long time and wasn’t going to play babysitter now. With an eagerness built on years of training and a long, boring trip out from Earth the Archon floated off down through the stations’ second level, then the third, taking out and capturing 42 crew in total, with the Knights adding another 35, all of which were eventually transferred to the SR as prisoners and escorted back to a holding facility on a zone 3 station under the guard of the Knights.

Jason remained on the shipyard, helping the techs that arrived as well as the specialists back in Atlantis remotely take apart the inside of the station and its computer systems, acquiring a mountain of data and evidence that would be helpful later, both in hunting down the remaining warships and providing Davis with political ammunition for the diplomatic firestorm ahead.

10

December 23, 2059

“Well look at this, says that they got the last of the pirate ships three days ago,” Harold commented, reading the newsfeeds. “I told you there was nothing to worry about.”

“Did they blow it up or capture it?” his 16-year old son asked, seated across from him at the zero gravity table in the starport’s common’s area as they waited for their Lunar cruise ship to begin receiving passengers.

“Hold on a second,” he said as he read through the article on the touch screen tabletop in front of him. “Says they ran it out of fuel then demanded they surrender, after which the ship self-destructed.”

“Uh, again? I thought pirates wanted to stay alive at all costs, not blow themselves up.”

“Did they say who they were?” his 14-year old daughter asked.

“No, it just labels them as pirates. But Star Force has assured the public that they got the last of the pirate ships, so no need to worry anymore. From here on out it’s two weeks of relaxation and Moon exploration, just like I promised.”

“I still say we should have postponed,” his wife argued. “Look how many less people there are here than last year.”

“And miss the Christmas cruise? Absolutely not. This is one family tradition we are not going to break, pirates or no.”

“Who’s to say there aren’t more pirates roaming about? Just because they caught this gang doesn’t mean there can’t be others.”

“I don’t think there’ll be any more pirate trouble,” Harold assured her, “not with everyone knowing that Star Force can defend itself now. I bet the pirates wouldn’t have hit a single ship if they’d known that beforehand.”

“I don’t feel right about it,” she insisted. “Star Force was supposed to be a peaceful organization, and now they have a military? That’s just trouble waiting to happen.”

“Well someone’s got to protect us up here,” her son argued. “I think it’s cool they kept their ships hidden, then wham! That’ll make people think twice before messing with anyone’s ships again. I feel safer now than I did before.”

“He’s right,” Harold said. “Somebody’s got to put their foot down up here, and I don’t trust the UN to do it. Star Force is the only one that can, and like with everything else they seem to be two steps ahead of the game.”

“If they were two steps ahead of the game then nobody would have lost any ships, now would they?” his wife sniped back. “This whole vacation is leaving a bad taste in my mouth already, and we haven’t even boarded the ship yet.”

“You’ll feel better when you get some gravity back under your feet,” he said, watching his wife’s and daughter’s ponytails bobbing in the air. He figured part of her unease was the fact that she couldn’t let her hair hang down in the zero g without looking like a medusa.

“I still want to know who they were,” his daughter repeated. “Who has the money to build their own ships up here?”

“Good question,” he admitted. “Guess we’ll just have to wait to find out. Says in the article that Star Force is undertaking an investigation as to the identity of the pirates. I’m sure they’ll figure it out eventually. They’re probably picking through the debris from those warships right now.”

“And if they figure out what country they came from, then what? Are they going to start a war?”

“Oh, I’d like to see that,” their son said, clapping his right fist in left palm. “Bet they’d kick ass.”

“David, watch your language.”

“Sorry, Mom. But I bet they would.”

“The last thing this planet needs now is more fighting,” she said resolutely as Harold continued to read through the news reports.

“I’m with you there,” he agreed, “but it looks like the politicians are of another mind. Half of them want to give Sean Davis a medal for stopping the pirate attacks…and the others want him strung up. They say Star Force having weapons is a violation of international law and a threat to national security.”

“Ours or the other countries?” his daughter asked.

“Both,” the American said regretfully. “There’s a quote from the Secretary of Defense stating that an unregulated paramilitary organization with the means to disable or destroy our communications satellites puts not only our space possessions at risk but the States as well. Damn fool, can’t he see a good thing when it falls in his lap.”

“Harold, your language.”

“Well he is one. I’d trust Star Force to protect us better than the military when they’re following the orders of the…darn politicians. Star Force doesn’t have elections to win or people to please, they’re free to do what’s necessary and so far they seem to have our best interests in mind.”

“And how long will that last? They’re a business after all, bottom line they do all this to make money.”

“What money are they making from their warships?” David asked.

Harold raised an eyebrow at his wife. “He has a point. Where’s the angle there?”

“I’m sure we’ll find out sooner or later,” she scoffed.

“You’re hopelessly negative, darling.”

“Thank you, dear,” she said with equal sarcasm.

“Anyway,” he said, going back to the newsfeeds and pulling up another related story. “Looks like Star Force is going to be keeping its ships around the neighborhood to keep an eye on things from now on, which our Secretary of Deficiency also doesn’t seem to like.”

“Where were they keeping them anyway?” his daughter asked.

David looked over his shoulder at her. “Space is huge. There’s a lot of room to hide...” he cut off with his eyes going wide. “Holy shit!”

“David!” his Mom scolded.

“Son, we had a talk about using that word earlier…”

“No, look,” he said, pointing to the wall-sized screen displaying a camera image of the docking side of the starport.

Harold followed the line of his finger and did a double take. “Jesus Christ! What the hell is that thing?”

“Harold!”

He ignored his wife, something he’d gotten used to doing over the years, and stared at the slowly moving mass of gray blotting out nearly the entire image of the Earth and stars as it passed from off screen left and into view.

“That is freaking huge,” David said, his jaw dropping as more and more of the mass came into view. “It’s even bigger than the starport!”

“No, son, can’t be,” Harold said, squinting at the image.

“He’s right, Dad,” his daughter said. “It’s farther away than it looks. See that other ship down there,” she said, pointing to a Cougar approaching from the bottom right of the screen on a docking approach, looking for all the world like it was going to run into the behemoth.

When it passed in front and his eyes finally gauged the real size of the object his jaw dropped as well. “Are we passing another station in orbit?”

“Use the transponder app,” she suggested.

“The what?” David asked.

“Ugh,” she said, leaning forward and activating the touch screen in the table allotted for her seat. She dove into the menu system and quickly brought up a Star Force app allowing access to all of the station’s exterior cameras. She selected one view of the object and clicked on it, with the app locking onto the transponder signal and pulling up the relevant data.

With a slide of her finger she sent the app and the data over to her brother’s terminal. “There.”

“Sweet,” he said, barely prying his eyes away from the wall screen to read through the short profile. “It’s not a station, it’s a Star Force ship called the Orion.”

“Does it say what kind of ship it is? What it’s used for?” Harold asked.

“It should,” his daughter said, gloating over her brother’s unfamiliarity with the common app.

David sorted down through the various numerical designations that he didn’t recognize until he came to the ship’s class.

“It’s labeled as a ‘Command Ship’…warship class,” he read with a huge smile spreading across his face. “That is so freaking awesome.”

“Dear God,” his wife said, an expression of fear on her face.

“I imagine the pirates said the same thing,” Harold said, a mixture of awe and pride in his voice. “Does your information say how big it is?”

“Yeah, wait a sec…here it is. 2,200 meters wide.”

“What’s that in miles?”

His daughter reached over and tapped the conversion button, reaching across her brother’s arms.

“I can do that,” he scoffed. “It’s 1.3 miles.”

Harold whistled. “Honey, that’s further than it is to the Jackson’s house.”

She shook her head. “Why on Earth would you want a ship that big?”

“So nobody messes with you,” David answered.

Harold nodded his agreement. “I think that’s exactly the message they’re sending.”

“So much for national security with that in your backyard,” David offered.

Harold laughed. “No wonder the Secretary of Defense is pissed. We’ve got nothing that can go up against that. Lucky for us they’re on our side.”

“Are they?” his wife asked.

Harold nodded. “I’d bet my bottom dollar on it.”

“Please don’t,” she joked, referencing a previously humiliating bet with a coworker.

“All I’m saying,” he said rigidly, “is I’d trust Star Force over any of the countries out there, ours included.

“Dad!” his daughter scoffed at his lack of patriotism.

“Isn’t Davis and most of his people American?” he defended. “They’re doing the job the politicians won’t, and I’d trust our national security to them any day. At the very least they’re showing up our military, and if I know our boys they’re not going to stand for that. Healthy competition makes everyone stronger, and if that isn’t motivation to make some changes then I don’t know what is,” he said, pointing to the Orion as it now completely stretched across the screen as it continued to pass by.

David’s eyes remained glued to the screen as he lightly jabbed his sister in the arm. “Best vacation ever.”

On the bridge of the Orion Captain Minsk watched as his pilot expertly maneuvered his whale of a ship past the starport and into a parking orbit a few kilometers off, stationing the ship within easy sight of every dropship and starship coming to and from the station. Once there the ship would make necessary station keeping thrusts, but otherwise would become a stationary orbital headquarters for Star Force’s military fleet.

With the remote pilots he had onboard, Minsk had already reclaimed possession of his support ships and positioned them at strategic positions around the system, as well as taking control of most of the others from the Turok and Mjolnir, leaving those battleships free to maneuver about with a handful of escorts while the Orion handled the ‘show the flag’ operations, deployed as much for rapid response to potential crises as they were for intimidation purposes.

The Archons wanted Minsk to leave no doubt in everyone’s minds as to who was in control of Earth orbit and that was what he was going to deliver, buying time for the size of their fleet to grow before anyone realized that their ship count was too low to protect against a coordinated assault across multiple targets, as well as giving Star Force’s army of engineers a chance to install weapons mods on all their stations.

Minsk doubted that anyone had the potential to exploit their weakness, but he and the Archons both felt that they needed to plug the holes in their orbital defense sooner rather than later, feeling that some form of trouble was inevitably on its way. They’d succeeded in thwarting the Chinese attacks because they’d held their fleet away in secret…but from now on their potential enemies would be forewarned and forced to prepare accordingly before they tried to cause any more trouble, which in the short term meant a period of stability.

The long term, however, was anyone’s guess, and if Star Force wanted to maintain control of orbit they were going to have to stay a step ahead of everyone else, for soon the big five, seeing as how they no longer possessed military superiority in space, would begin rushing to catch up in an arms race that would dwarf that seen during the Cold War, rewriting previous allegiances and shifting the geopolitic as every nation began to reposition itself with Star Force becoming the standard-bearer, setting the stage for the next major shift in Earth’s history.

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