Invasion: Journal Three (Shockwave Book 3)

by Hammer Trollkin

  Kurt next focuses on the queen. “Kreahaam... leader... I am Company Commander Kurt. I have the authority to accept your surrender. But first, you will show me the location of the Cygnus Prime citizens, the Dahkoreen, that entered this facility.”

  The queen twitched a bit then answered. “I am not at liberty to speak of the Dahkoreen, Commander.”

  The Commander motioned to Sargent Broderick. “Ready a tube sergeant. Maybe this will help to persuade you.”

  The queen began rubbing her feeler-hands over her face, then slowly pointed a claw at what appeared to be a blank wall.

  Kurt nodded to Broderick, gesturing toward the wall. “Plasma tube up! You should show yourselves. Now!”

  The wall shimmered to reveal a large window, and a room filled with Prime citizens. Each had both hands balled into a fist, resting on top of their bowed heads in an obvious position of surrender. The throne room continued to fill with Solar League soldiers.

  Kurt took one last look around, then turned on his heal. “Wonderland Command, this is Red Queen Planet-side, Commander Kurt. The throne-room has been secured. The Red Queen has surrendered and is in custody. We also have a couple of dozen Primers locked down.

  “Say again, Wonderland. Affirmative. I understand. Kreahaam hostiles are dropping weapons and surrendering.”

  Kurt switches his comms to wide broadcast. “This is Captain Kurt, to all Red Queen assault forces. Those of Kreahaam have apparently surrendered. Stay vigilant. But treat these people with respect. Wonderland Command will be following on shortly with information and orders. That is all.”

  END DISPLAY.

  ***

  + TIMELINE DROP.

  Subject: Establish timeline for Dahkoreen operative Solar League infiltration efforts.

  Sourcing: Data mined at the Red Queen throne room site. Utilization of spatial recognition programs not available at the time of the Red Queen operation.

  Detailed information regarding the Nahaash’ereem, special agents of Prime, was developed through a series of events including a security log incident which led to an extensive review of scanner recordings using new spatial anomaly recognition technology. Agents of the Nahaash’ereem have access to a form of teleportation, though it is an inferior process, resulting in imperfect encoding and copying of the traveler. Physiological degradation and mental fragmentation compounds with each teleportation action.

  There are two known levels of Nahaash’ereem operatives.

  Level 1 operatives are used sparingly for espionage and high-level assassinations. Extant information suggests this level is comprised of Prime citizens. There is evidence suggesting Prime citizens accused of a serious crime serve their sentence in this manner. Level 1 operatives are thought to be few in number. These are under the jurisdiction of Prime Command and fitted with special abilities given by the Dahnahaash. They have the ability to envelope in a level 3 cloaking field (can be detected by human eye when the operative is in motion); degenerative teleportation; enhanced strength; access to special weapons (limited information available). They may see 20 missions.

  Level 2 operatives are assassins of the death-hack. They are never Prime citizens, useful for only a few missions, then discarded. Perhaps their service brings a level of prosperity to their families. More likely, their families are under threat unless this role is accepted.

  In the Red Queen Throne Room, no one noticed the cloaked Prime citizen as he sat very still in a corner, waiting for the troops to disburse. Morg was a Level 1 special agent of the Nahaash’ereem. His cover was that of a junior officer in the Cygnus Prime military, an aid to the fortress commander on Kreahaam-In. To most, he came across as an amiable chap, a real family man.

  END TIMELINE DROP. +

  ***

  ALICE IN WONDERLAND. ACT ONE. Go Ask Alice. Secure planet for application of queen pheromone and installation of Kreahaam-Out Freedom Fighting Force.

  Shockwave is on Kreahaam-Out. It’s May 28th. Tee and Scotty have been meeting with the leaders of the Act One Offensive, the operation to take final control of Kreahaam-Out. Important information has just come over our comms. The High Queen of All Kreahaam has surrendered. Kreahaam-In forces have laid down their weapons in what appears to be genuine surrender. Technically, Kreahaam-Out has surrendered as well. Their own planetary queen is dead, for pity’s sake. But the individual nest colonies on Kreahaam-Out are not capitulating. They’re fortifying their nests and digging in. No one wants a bloody nest-by-nest fight.

  Oh. The Act One meeting is breaking up. Here they come. Scotty is smiling, sort of, and waving to the crowd of soldiers, bugs and humans. Let’s see if I can get a little closer.

  Scotty is clapping Tee on the shoulder. “Sure, and it would be an honor to have ye at me side in the battle to come, Capin.”

  Tee is clapping him back on the upper thorax. “You know I would like nothing better, Mr. Scott. But I have my orders. For me, I’m off to fight the Empire. Besides, you’ve got this.”

  Scotty rubbed a feeler over his face, “Aye, we will win this. He pumped a feeler arm into the air and shouted through all of his spiracles, Freeeeedom!”

  The Kreahaam-Out Freedom Fighting Force has filed into some semblance of order. “Freeeeedom!”

  “See you soon, Scotty,” said Tee.

  With that, Scotty and Tee touched foreheads. Is that a tear Tee? And Tee just nodded his head for his team to follow toward a makeshift command tent. He obviously has something on his mind as he asks Fierce to push a call through to Viper Command. How’s he going to get through the gatekeepers? Oh, an access code. I wonder how high up the rank and file that code will get him. Let’s sneak a peek. Admiral Hollstad. Oh my, all the way to the tippy-top.

  I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I can feel this is going to be one of those odd situations with Tee. Technically, he shouldn’t be running around with a SpecOps squad. He holds the rank of colonel. True, his rank is largely ceremonial. He doesn’t function as a colonel in the military. Not exactly. In fact, their bureaucracy tries as best they can to treat Shockwave as a contractor. General Whitehall wants him to have a foot in the military door, though. For some reason.

  From there, it became even more complicated when he was pushed, kicking and screaming, into an undersecretary position at Solcom. Undersecretary for the Office of Strategic Programs. Technically, he outranks any ranked military officer, even General Whitehall. Yeah, even that’s complicated. Our general has pull way beyond his rank. We’ve known that since the early days of Shockwave. Seriously, I can tell from his demeanor, he’s about to pull rank. Here it comes.

  “Admiral Hollstad, this is Undersecretary, Strategic Programs, Trollkin,” said Tee. “I would like to make a request.”

  “Sir, I understood you were in-system. How may I help?” asked the Admiral.

  Tee went on. “The occupation force has assembled on Kreahaam-Out. Despite the surrender of the High Queen, and the death of the Queen of Kreahaam-Out, most of the nests are digging in for a fight. The cost in lives, taking this planet nest-by-nest will be too high. I would like the High Queen of All Kreahaam transported to the Kreahaam-Out palace.”

  The admiral protested. “I have jurisdictional control over the queen and we are preparing to interrogate her.”

  An edge crept into Tee’s voice. “No. Hold off on your interrogation for just a few minutes. You will be getting a call, momentarily, that will convince you to let me have first crack at the queen.”

  Then Tee eased up a little. “Admiral, believe me, it will be best if I interrogate the queen first. The Queen of Kreahaam-Out is dead. The queens are restless. If the High Queen comes to Kreahaam-Out for a short visit, I am quite certain we can avoid a good deal of unnecessary bloodshed, on both sides.”

  The Admiral was a little sketchy. “I will tell my people to hold, for 10 minutes.”

  Tee agreed. “Keep your line open.”

  He hung up and looked at Rock and Roll. “It’s only 40 light years. Can one of you g
uys hop over to the office Earth-side and give the general a call?” Tee called up a virtual keyboard and typed furiously for a few seconds. He held the pid out for the data transfer. “Play this message for him.” Then he pulled the pid back. “Hold on a sec. Just in case, I’d better add the admiral’s direct contact information, and location, so he can reach him on the quick. The general will have a port-tech at hand, so he can get right through to the admiral one way or another. We have to move fast. Who wants to go?”

  Roll was closest. He pulled the message onto his pid and ported. Ten minutes dragged by. Twelve minutes. The comms squawked, then an AI announced Sir Admiral Hollstad. It was a short call. The queen would arrive within the hour, with the shuttle landing at the Kreahaam-Out palace grounds, and then there were some sector grid coordinates.

  A heavy transport shuttle landed in just under an hour. The lower section opened, producing the High Queen of All Kreahaam. She was shackled with some sort of nanotube strands with an overlay of something very heavy, making it difficult for here to walk. Despite that, she tried to maintain an air of importance. The attempt made her look a bit... silly. I still wouldn’t want her coming after me, though. She was huge, and in very good shape, for a queen.

  Tee walked up to the queen and touched her head. He immediately pulled his hand away and moved off, looking sick. It took him a minute to compose. This queen must have a powerful and particularly ugly mind. He motioned for a nearby sergeant to give him something. The sergeant drew his sidearm. Tee shook his head, no. The sergeant pointed to his baton. That would do, an old-school thumping baton. Very sturdy. Now, remember, Tee has nanite enhanced strength.

  He took the baton and walked over to the queen. She smiled in her own way at the human with the little stick. Tee wacked her right between the eyes. Both feelers went to her forehead, as she swooned momentarily. Then she looked angry and moved a leg as though to swat Tee, or eviscerate him. Tee hit the leg hard with the baton. There was a sharp crack. She shrieked. And she placed her forehead on the ground. Submission. I never thought I would see that under these circumstances.

  Tee put his hand on her forehead. The queen’s eyes opened wide and her plate scale turned jet black. She tried to back away but Tee grabbed a feeler and held her. Feelers are sensitive. Now the Queen looked as though she might get sick. Tee let go and moved away.

  He gave instructions to have her taken to the Kreahaam-Out throne room, scorched and ruined as it was from the battle and the fusion drive overspray. It would add to the messaging. The queen was escorted to the throne room. Tee then suggested it would be a terrible thing if her own throne room, and perhaps the Kreahaam worlds as well, looked like that. She snuffled through several spiracles and dropped her gaze as she all but collapsed.

  It only took a few minutes to set up a Kreahaam-wide special news event, a fireside chat from the High Queen of All Kreahaam, herself. She ordered the immediate surrender of all those of Kreahaam-Out. For good measure, she ordered Kreahaam-In, once again, to stand down and cooperate with the human forces.

  Tee wouldn’t say anything about the short delving interviews he had with the High Queen.

  He called the admiral and thanked him, letting him know the queen was on her way back to Kreahaam-In for interrogation, certain she would be very cooperative.

  The stand-down message of the High Queen must not have had any trickery woven in, as the local queens of Kreahaam-Out hastening to tear down their defensive positions. They don’t know what’s coming next. It’s the end of queen domination as aerial seeding of the pheromone inhibitor begins. It will take a week or so for the pheromone inhibitor to saturate the biosphere, maybe less, with nanite factories in the mix to increase spread rate. No matter, the actual half-life of the pheromones is only 24-hours. Their influence will quickly diminish.

  It wasn’t long before Scotty came running up to our little command tent.

  “Sure, and it twas you that did it, Capin,” said Scotty. “Stoppin the war I mean.”

  “Well, I had a hand in it, I suppose,” answered Tee.

  “Aye, I knew it twas so, fer sure,” said Scotty, all smiles. “And now it’s to the pub for a round o’celebratin, it tis.”

  Yup. Scotty likes his celebrating.

  “Sure, why not,” answered Tee. “I guess as an undersecretary, I can dismiss myself.”

  And just like that they were off, feeler arm around shoulder, and arm around... thorax.

  But the celebrating will have to be abbreviated and with ginger ale. Scotty is expected on Kreahaam-In soon, for Alice in Wonderland Act Two. Thanks to the general surrender, it will be a quick and formal passing of the baton to Scotty and his occupying forces, as the pheromone inhibitors roar from the applicators in their support of... Freedom!

  As for Shockwave, we have some time off before the Jabberwocky mission. Time off, my foot. We’re on standby, with orders to be ready at a moment’s notice to move out. I do know something has to happen within 2-weeks (Earth standard), when the gate is scheduled for an automatic opening. There isn’t much activity lately, between Cygnus Prime and Kreahaam. According to station logs, Jabberwocky has opened like clockwork every month or so for more than a year. Automatic scheduled openings. A stream of data is sent through. An occasional ship passes one way or the other.

  With the domes that house the gates on Cygnus Prime screening our port-techs, the only way in or out of a dome defense base is through a Primer gate.

  And now I know why Jabberwocky is so important. SID operatives have determined a planetary blocking network of some sort will soon be operational. They are certain the purpose is to stop our port-techs from coming or going to Cygnus Prime. Soon, there will be a planetary sized port-shield. Solcom wants Jabberwocky as a back door to allow our troops a means of escape if the need arises. Thanks for looking out for us, guys! From there it gets complicated.

  Assuming we get control of the dome housing the bridge from Prime-Kreahaam, or destroy the dome with a Growler, would we be able to hold the gate position on Cygnus Prime? Who knows what sorts of nastiness they could throw at us? The solution is something out of dreamland. Port-techs have been running scientists all over the universe, looking at this, studying that. Black holes have been a popular subject. So have white holes.

  They must have gotten an intelinet advertising team to come up with a presentation for the operational concept. The graphics were mesmerizing; the explanations of the technical aspects simple and to the point. Rock and Roll were rolling their eyes at first, probably because of the simple black hole and white hole explanations, with few mathematical formulae. But even they were seen nodding as the presentation moved forward. A black hole is a trap with no way out (at least in “normal” space). A white hole tunnel is a one-way shortcut through space, with only one entrance and one exit.

  The completed system, in 3-D display, looked very much like a shining wheel within a wheel. The white hole portal will ride within the Jabberwocky portal. We can move from Kreahaam to Cygnus Prime. But no one can move from Cygnus Prime to Kreahaam. And the Primers won’t be able to close the dual-system down from their side.

  Upon receiving an emergency QuIM call, the white hole generator can be closed from the Kreahaam side, allowing emergency teleportation. A message would come, something like: Our troops are in trouble! Shut down the white hole portal! With the white hole closed, we have our back door to get off planet even if the Primers manage to complete a planetary port-lock shield.

  ***

  It’s my impression we are ahead of schedule with the push to move on to Cygnus Prime. The Kreahaam invasion has gone much better than expected. There is still a hard deadline, less than two weeks from now, when the Prime-to-Kreahaam bridge is scheduled for that automated opening. We definitely want to surprise the Primers when we open the gate from this side.

  Solcom is convinced the white hole system will work to hold the Kreahaam-to-Prime bridge open. The Growler missile will then have a chance to crash the dome. With that, th
ey won’t need us to risk an incursion to affect a manual shut-down of the dome, or rig the Cygnus Prime gate to fault to an open position.

  And it’s fine with me that Shockwave has been relieved of Jabberwocky duty.

  I also managed to dig some scuttle from Tee about the timing of things. It’s obvious Solcom is planning to port troops through Jabberwocky, assuming the Primers will very soon have the planetary port-shield online. But they wouldn’t just send troops through without air and space dominance. Troops can port through to any location on the planet. But warships would have to stream through one by one, sitting ducks for planet-side defensive guns.

  How in the world are they going to get the Viper Strike Fleet from here to Cygnus Prime, in less than two weeks?

  They can’t, not without some more scientific trickery. Let’s do the math. It’s 1,400 light years to Prime. Our fastest ships can barely make FTL-10. Yeah, that’s 140 years for a destroyer. And, well, something like 1,750 years for the other League warships. Obviously Solcom has a sneaky gate set up somewhere. But the Primers would know about a gate being erected anywhere near their planet. So, here’s the scuttle.

  There’s a full size, mil-spec teleportation gate about to be completed on a dismal rock of a planet only half-a-lightyear from Cygnus Prime. They’ve been working on it for a while. It’s been a very slow process, with the need to be all stealthy, so close to Prime. The Primers hate the rock for some reason. Word from the SID has it there was some terrible mishap there a very long time ago. Since then, the entire Cygnus Minor system holds a spot somewhere south of despised.

  They used the rocky planet for target practice, or something, for a few hundred years, and since then have ignored their sister star. Okay. I did the math for that as well. At half-a-lightyear it would still take our carriers and battlestars more than 7-months to cruise to Cygnus Prime from the target rock. That’s a lot more than two weeks.