Beyond Antares Dimensional Gates

by Edited by Brandon Rospond

  “Was it trying to get us used to slaughtering civilians?”

  “I don’t know,” she said again. “But maybe… maybe it was teaching you—all of you—not to slaughter helpless civilians.”

  Tamika thought about that for a moment, but couldn’t frame any answer.

  “Just as an aside, I doubt that Cadet Nierny will be quite so quick on the trigger after this.”

  “Humpf!” snorted Tamika. “So you’re saying that the sim was trying to teach us mercy? Wouldn’t it be more merciful just to leave those people—my people—alone? How were we ever threatening the Concord? And if you say I don’t know again, I’m gonna get mad!”

  Krissa had her mouth open as if she was going to say that very thing, but she shut it again. After a pause, she said, “There’s no way I can give a reason for what the IMTel does, Cadet. Somehow the conclusion was reached that your world needed to be added to the Concord. I don’t know why. No one knows why. I’m sorry you and your people suffered so much in the process. A lot of times the world doesn’t have the technology to resist the nanosphere and the assimilation is quick and painless. Other times it’s… harder.”

  “I don’t know if I can do that sort of thing, Captain. What if I get sent to fight in a campaign like that? Against some world that can resist and just wants to be left alone. What if I can’t bring myself to do what needs to be done? I could get my squad killed. I do like the people in my squad. I want to do a good job for them, not let them down. But…”

  “I had a little talk with Chief Instructor Magale, when I heard about… what was going on. He told me about your question concerning the drones. Why we couldn’t just use them instead of live soldiers. I think perhaps you’ve answered your question.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you’ve shown you’ve got the anger in you to fight—and fight hard. But the wisdom to know when not to fight. Those are valuable qualities. The qualities that a leader should have. And the qualities no drone could ever have. You just need to let those two qualities mingle a bit.” Krissa smiled.

  Tamika thought about it. Could that be why the IMTel made her a soldier? Was her capacity for compassion as important as her tactical skill or marksmanship? It was an attractive notion. But was it true?

  “So what do I do now?”

  “Well, considering the time, I suggest you go to the mess hall, eat dinner, and then go back to your bunk and get some sleep. You’ve had a rough day.”

  “I… how can I go back? How can I face my squad? After what I did? Marc probably won’t even talk to me after what I did!”

  “I think you underestimate them. I’m sure they are very concerned about you, but not angry.”

  “Really?”

  “Only one way to find out.” Captain Krissa got up from the bench.

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Tamika got up, too. The pair started walking and as they reached the academy gates Tamika said:

  “I’m glad you’re back, Captain. How long will you be staying?”

  “As long as it takes, Cadet, as long as it takes.”

  Yesterday's Battlefield

  By Marc DeSantis

  Sasanga, Pivaris System

  “We’re surrounded by all this wondrous technology,” Carolus Vosper griped. “You’d expect they could make the drop a bit more comfortable!”

  Around Ayess Kozon’s small expeditionary party, the hull of the dropship shuddered and bucked as it plummeted in a ball of fire toward the surface of Sasanga. Kozon’s eyes flicked to the external monitor. The screen was filled by an unrelieved sheet of orange flame. Not that there was much lying beyond it to miss. The entire planet of Sasanga was a desert, its sandy surface relieved only now and again by rocky outcroppings and - other things. Those ‘things,’ dozens of enigmatic alien spires and a thousand armies' worth of left-behind vehicles and equipment, had brought Kozon and his team to this otherwise barren world.

  “It will be over soon,” Kozon promised. “Thirty more seconds and we’ll be on the deck.”

  “No doubt, sir,” Vosper said, mopping perspiration from his forehead. “But did we have to come down so fast?” The dropship rumbled angrily again, as if to add emphasis to Vosper’s complaint.

  “There’s no real danger in using a dropship,” young Wosk Uhliss assured, gesturing to the blue-gray interior walls of the craft. Uhliss was bright, eager, and annoyingly cheerful. “Statistically, it is very safe. Further, high speed insertion via dropship offers the fastest way to the surface, barring a transmat beam. Unfortunately, the nanosphere of this world has been isolated for so long that it has evolved to be inimical to the use of transmat beaming.”

  “I understand that,” Vosper said, still looking like he expected to burn up in the Sasangan atmosphere at any moment. “But the other teams are going down in shuttles. Like they’re tourists!”

  “Shuttles are too slow,” Uhliss said. “We’ll have more time on the surface to explore this way. And don’t forget, we are fully protected by a suspensor field membrane from the friction-generated heat outside.”

  “Safe, as long as the field remains intact,” Vosper countered.

  Uhliss proffered the older man an indulgent smile. “Membrane failure is extremely unlikely. And if it does fail, it will be over so quickly we won’t feel it.”

  “I feel so much better,” Vosper said.

  The dropship slowed swiftly. “We’re here,” a thankful Kozon said as it touched down. “Time to go.”

  Vosper was out of his drop harness almost immediately, followed by Uhliss and the two Mhagris troopers, Odo Koresbor and Sulza Tosibel.

  “Get the Skyraiders out,” Kozon ordered. “Uhliss, I want you to do a circuit recon out to one kiloyan. Tell me what you find. Orbital scans can sometimes miss things. Keep me informed as to what you see. Meet us back at the wreck site.”

  Uhliss nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  The youngster effortlessly hopped aboard his Skyraider skimmer bike with the energy and enthusiasm of one who had never experienced the nagging pains of aging. Kozon looked on grumpily as Uhliss sped away on a cushion of anti-gravity. The youth likely had no idea what aching joints were, either.

  “Is this his first planetary mission, sir?” Vosper asked as Uhliss disappeared in the distance.

  Kozon frowned and then shrugged. “He came cheap.”

  Cost had been one of Kozon’s prime considerations when he had organized his team. Sasanga had been discovered shortly after Vardos Joxiana's surveyors had stumbled upon its gate hundreds of kiloyan off Antares. A successful exploratory mission might recover advanced technology that would bring in enormous profits and get him back in the good graces of Vard Joxiana. A steady stream of desirable lost tech would also enhance the prestige of the Joxiana vardos, enabling it to rise in the esteem of Vardos Oszon, to which it was allied as a vassal in the Mercantile League.

  Kozon could never have afforded to mount a major undertaking like this on his own, and so had formed a consortium with several other Joxianan investors. His buy-in had been twenty percent of the cost of the expedition. To save money, he was leading his team in person and had skimped on the muscle that he was bringing to Sasanga - just two vardanari and the two semi-wild Mhagrid mercenaries.

  The monetary outlay nonetheless had been enormous. To cover ground more rapidly, Kozon had purchased three Skyraiders and one Striker attack skimmer. Grav craft were expensive under the best of circumstances. He had also bought shares in Fourth Flight, which was therefore obligated to provide him with air support twenty-five percent of the time that he was on-world.

  Kozon’s head began to spin as he considered the funds he had burned through simply to be a part of the first exploratory mission to a newly rediscovered world. The buy-in had covered only the rental cost of the ship, the Vardosi armed merchantman Bright Prospects, its fuel, the shipmaster’s salary, crew pay, munitions, food, tolls, taxes, and sundry inspection fees. Ancillary costs that were not covered in the buy-in included hefty p
ayments for detailed orbital surveys of his allotted sector and the sizable sum he had forked over to a Vardos Kekkra data broker for anything that could be scrounged up from other vardos concerning the lost world. The broker had been able to tell him that the old name for Pivaris IV was Sasanga and not much else that his own House Joxiana had not already known. There were no records of the world having been settled at any time in the past, making it terra incognita as far as the Seventh Age was concerned. Such a big help. Kozon was deep in debt long before Bright Prospects had traversed the gate to the Pivaris system.

  * * * *

  “This ship predates the development of nanotech,” Uhliss observed. “It is wholly incompatible with our own technologies. We could not reshard it even if we wanted to.”

  “Then it won’t work with anything we have,” Kozon fumed. “I bid more than I should have for this sector just so that I could get a look at this ship. It’s nothing more than a useless antique.”

  “Perhaps it has some kind of historical value?” offered Uhliss. “A museum might pay handsomely for such an ancient vessel.”

  “It’s worthless!” Kozon snarled as he picked his way through the wrecked starship. “Museums don’t pay enough to cover the cost of this transdimensional foray. To think that it should have survived here for so long and yet have so little to offer.”

  The interior of the fallen starship was stifling. The corridors and cabins within, from the engineering spaces aft all the way forward to the bridge, were painted a uniform medium gray. Little could be gleaned as to what had caused the vessel to make what had to be an emergency landing on the planetary surface. The hot and dry climate had preserved much of the equipment within remarkably well, yet it was so old that it could not interface with the nanospheres upon which all Vardosi technology was based.

  “We’ve found no bodies,” Uhliss noted. “The crew must have survived the crash and then left the ship.”

  “There was nowhere for them to go,” Vosper said. “Only sand and more sand out there.” Then he smirked. “And the boogeyman.”

  Uhliss ignored Vosper.

  “Does the ship have anything to do with the other machines we saw from orbit?” Vosper asked. “What about the towers?”

  “Now that I am aboard her, I doubt it,” Uhliss said. “The ship probably crashed here long before the fighting. Judging by the look of her, she may date from the Spill.”

  “Then we’ll have to push on,” said an exasperated Kozon. “I don’t have the time to indulge in an archaeological dig to determine when our ancestors came first to this world.” He turned to Uhliss. “Get back out there and scout out the most promising equipment clusters. We need to do this fast. My esteemed partners in this expedition aren’t above doing a little poaching in my sector.”

  * * * *

  “Disappointing, very disappointing,” Vard Oster Joxiana said as he scrolled through reports on his datapad. His plump fingers swiped through dozens of failed business ventures associated with Kozon. “You haven’t exactly lost money, Ayess,” he said as he continued reading. “You haven’t made much, either.”

  Kozon sat in Lord Joxiana’s palatial office aboard the Vard’s equally grand starship, the Shrewd Bargain. He felt like a naughty schoolchild brought before the headmaster for discipline. Kozon had staked much of his defense of his troubled ventures around the continued, if slight, profitability of the whole of his portfolio. That Lord Joxiana had raised that point himself showed that he did not think much of the meager profits that Kozon was bringing into the vardos.

  “I understand that my portfolio has - underperformed - of late, Lord Oster. The financials were sound when I undertook them. If they have not panned out as I would have hoped that is because of factors that were outside of my control.”

  Joxiana raised a dark eyebrow. “Such as?”

  “Well, Lord, there was the embargo of the Ernulis system by all the major sector shipping guilds. For three years I could not get my products out. Then there was the Concord-Isorian conflict over Kelmoc VII. That prevented me from bringing the uroan harvest to market in a timely manner or. . .”

  “Please remind me what uroans are,” Joxiana interrupted.

  “They are the deliciously sweet berries of the uroa bush, Lord. The crops rotted in the spaceports and in the fields.”

  “That war did not last for long,” Joxiana said.

  “That is true, Lord,” Kozon acknowledged. “Yet while my products were tied up on Kelmoc, other production centers stepped in to meet the demand for uroans. I have gotten my plantations on Kelmoc up and running again, but they are not as lucrative as they might have been now that my competition has captured the markets I planned to serve.”

  Joxiana considered this, but then he said, “The list goes on. What about your bid to supply mag guns to the king of Talatos IV?”

  Talatos IV! A particularly bitter memory for Kozon. He had lost a fortune. Damn King Lorwoll! Kozon suppressed all of his ill-feeling and smiled as best he could. “Alas, Lord, the civil war on Talatos ended before the shipment could be made. Lorwoll canceled the contract and I was left holding a hundred thousand mag guns.”

  Joxiana seemed to show some sympathy for Kozon at last. “Now I remember! Too bad for you! How were you supposed to anticipate that the king would offer clemency to the rebels or that they would accept it?”

  “Bastards all,” Kozon opined.

  The Vard set down his datapad and looked Kozon squarely in the eyes. “Ayess, we’ve known each other since we were children. Were you anyone else, you would not have gotten this audience with me, but you have always been a faithful supporter.”

  “Thank you, Lord. I always will be.” Kozon began to hope that he might leave this room with nothing sterner than a ‘do better next time’ admonition.

  “That can get you only so far, however.”

  Kozon’s heart fell to his boots.

  “Others in the vardos are clamoring for your leads.”

  Kozon’s blood froze and his skin started to itch. With his mind’s eye he saw his entire fortune and exalted place in the vardos evaporating like morning dew. That could not be allowed to happen. He could not be too proud. He would have to beg. “Please, Lord! Not my leads! Those are mine!”

  Visibly irritated, Joxiana’s fleshy jowls quivered. “I do not have to remind you that those leads are not yours. They belong to House Joxiana, which distributes them to a chosen few on the basis of excellent past performance. Once, your performance was exemplary and that is why you joined my inner circle of business associates. Lately, your performance has been nothing short of mediocre, at best. True, you’re not losing money, Ayess, but you aren’t making me enough of it to warrant giving you the best leads I have anymore. Many believe that they could do much better with the opportunities that you have been given.”

  What was there to say in response? The ‘others’ were the sniveling backstabbers whom Kozon would have called friends and associates if they had been present. His portfolio had suffered a dreadful drought in recent times. It was only logical that some would seek to take over his leads in the belief that they could bring more revenue to House Joxiana. It was only logical that the Vard would want them to bring in more revenue. Joxiana received a five percent cut off the gross take of any venture in which his Vardosi were involved. Kozon had not been feeding his Vard much money in recent years.

  Kozon was at a loss. “What can I do?”

  “Make me a believer in you again,” Joxiana said. He reached behind him and took a second datapad from a small table. He handed it to Kozon. “Our surveyors have discovered a new gate on Antares.”

  * * * *

  The Striker's comm system chirped and Kozon grimaced. This would be yet another pointless report by Uhliss.

  "Tower up ahead, ten klicks," Uhliss said over the comm. "Coming upon a range of damaged or destroyed vehicles. Mostly military in origin. Old by the look of them. Very old."

  Kozon snorted. This was the first report in twelv
e hours by Uhliss of any interest. "Keep me updated as you push on. Maybe we’ll find something on this wretched rock that is worth resharding."

  "Will do, sir. Uhliss out."

  Oh, the fires of youth. Kozon sighed and scolded himself for being so sour. He had been Uhliss once, a young man hoping to please his superior and rise in the ranks. A Vard's household was filled with men and women looking to make their mark, and Sasanga was an unexplored world where a common soldier might make his name.

  The planet was littered with the detritus of battles fought in such distant times that the wars they had been part of were lost to memory. Much of it, like the damned starship, was likely to be of only antiquarian interest, superannuated equipment that had no place on the modern battlefield. Some of it might be of enormous value; the leftover relics of a forgotten age of scientific and technological advancement.

  Vosper gunned the engine of the attack skimmer. "On the right," he said, motioning with his outstretched hand. "There's more here than our scans showed. Much more."

  The Striker was cruising through a stretch of badlands studded with pillar-like buttes. The chaff of war lay scattered everywhere, as if tossed across there by an angry god. Kozon saw that the machines hailed from different eras, though he could identify offhand the origin of a mere handful. In the distance, about a hundred yan to the right, lay a prone humanoid-form warbot of the Daran Empire, its black and gold carcass embedded face-down in the desert sands that stretched as far as the eye could see. A little further on were the burnt-out remains of a Setolan tank, its thickly-armored hull penetrated in several places. Only one hit had mattered. The kill shot had smashed through the tank's left side, finding its way into its ammunition storage. Its turret had been hurled aloft by the force of the explosion and deposited some twenty yan away. The turret's main gun had come to rest atop a downed Voolean gunship. The beige and brown-camouflaged craft rested awkwardly on its nose, missing its tail and its starboard weapons mount.