by CJ Williams
*.*.*.*
Luke was hanging out in the situation tank waiting for Hogan’s message when the communication officer perked up.
“Is that it?” Luke asked anxiously.
The officer studiously examined her console’s changing screen. “Standby please, Sire,” she responded. She seemed surprised and spoke into her microphone, asking several questions. Finally, she turned to Luke and pointed at the holographic display that filled the center of the room. “No sir. I regret to report our border systems have detected a large military force that is crossing the boundary from the Tenth Family space into Second Family territory.”
Luke studied the display which expanded to show a large section of the Galaxy, including the individual territory boundaries of the fifteen royal families. The Tenth Family was deep in Bakkui territory, on the far side of the Second Family.
Frankly speaking, Luke assumed most of their planets had been wiped out. Being preoccupied with rescuing Annie, he hadn’t given much thought to the other royal families since becoming King. It was something that should be investigated, just not right now.
“How big a force?” Luke asked. “Can you tell?”
The officer’s voice grew somber. “Reconnaissance estimates a fleet of two hundred thousand warcraft.” As she spoke yellow icons began appearing inside the hologram.
Luke’s heart fell. Once before the Alliance faced a Bakkui armada that size and it had come close to disaster. In that case, Carrie saved the day thanks to an ace up her sleeve. The Bakkui had foolishly integrated thousands of her Booker AI ships into their fleet and she turned the tables on them. At Carrie’s command, the Bookers flipped their loyalty and knocked out half of their fleet.
Luke didn’t have that advantage now. And these Bakkui were probably faster and better armed. “How old is that information? When will they arrive?”
The communication officer conferred with the occupant at the reconnaissance console before replying. “Haiyanas does not appear to be their destination, Commander. Their route of flight is toward Fifteenth Family space. The destination could be King Tetsu’s homeworld in the Saja system.”
That was a surprise. Luke hadn’t heard anything about the Fifteenth Family being in league with the Bakkui. They were one of the few families that had not been hit by the mechanized scourge. But there was another possibility.
“Put their flight path on the main display,” Luke ordered.
A thin line appeared inside the display, starting at the point where the Bakkui crossed the Tenth Family boundary. It extended straight through the Second Family’s space into Tetsu’s territory, ending near his homeworld, planet Saja.
Luke said, “If you continue that route, does it intersect system N93?”
“Recalculating,” the reconnaissance officer replied. The line crept a bit further and a small white sphere appeared. The designation was system N93. “Yes, Sire. Planet Mauga is also a potential destination.”
Grant had walked in during the discussion. “You think that’s possible?” he asked. “How could they know we have anyone there? There’s no way they could have gotten the word that fast.”
Luke shook his head. “I doubt this has anything to do with us. They probably started on that journey quite a while ago. It had to be prearranged.”
“How so?” Grant asked.
“Let’s think about it. As I recall, King Haejeog was negotiating with the Greys to fight off the Bakkui because they were encroaching into his territory. The Greys had agreed to help fight the Bakkui in exchange for replicator technology.”
“I remember,” Grant said. “That was one of our early briefings.”
Luke continued. “But the deal was never finished because King Haejeog died. What if the Greys reached out to others? Why should they put all their eggs in one basket? I bet somewhere along the line they made contact with the Bakkui. The Greys’ goal was to get replication. I doubt they care who gives it to them. Who knows? Maybe the Greys and Bakkui are planning on ganging up against the Nobility.”
“That’s not what we need right now,” Grant moaned.
“An understatement of the first order.” Luke turned to the reconnaissance officer. “So, when do they reach Mauga?”
After a brief discussion at the tactical desk, the officer turned to Luke. “Sire, it is difficult to say with precision. The Bakkui tend to move in a straight line but at varying speeds. Sometimes they will stop for a day or two before moving on.
“Best guess,” Luke demanded.
“Four to eight weeks,” the officer replied. “I doubt it would be sooner than four. If they have several delays, it could easily be longer, but impossible to say by how much.”
“I got something,” the communication officer shouted from her console. “We just received the message drone from Colonel Hogan on Mauga. He reports that His Majesty has just arrived with Princess Annie. Both the princess and her daughter are in good health!”
Luke’s knees turned to jelly. He wobbled and started to sink to the floor but Grant grabbed him. “Steady, Luke. You okay?” Grant walked Luke over to a vacant console. “Medic!” he shouted.
“I’m fine,” Luke muttered, wiping at the sudden moisture around his eyes. “Thank God, they’re okay. I’ve been cursing myself ever since I left them behind. I just…” He couldn’t keep speaking. Luke was surprised at his reaction. But the relief was overwhelming. He had guessed right, Annie was safe. That’s what mattered.
He shook himself mentally and stood up, straightening his shoulders. “One hour,” he said. “We launch with everything we have in one hour.”
“Headed to Mauga?” Grant asked.
Luke shook his head. “We don’t have any choice. Have all ships prepare to intercept the Bakkui. Their force is too over powering for anyone else.”
“What about Annie?” Grant protested. “You can’t just leave her with that robot. Not with the Bakkui coming.”
“I don’t intend to. But the immediate question is how to stop the invasion before they reach her. Until a few minutes ago, I was feeling optimistic that we have ten thousand ships. But that’s nothing compared to the Bakkui’s numbers.”
“So what’s the plan?”
Luke shrugged. “We’ll figure that out on the way. But right now, where’s Carrie? It’s time for her to run a special errand.”
Chapter Thirteen – Mauga
For me and Annie both, living a middle-class life was turning out to be good medicine. Tanner Hogan had of course agreed to Annie’s request for our own residence. The downtown area was being rebuilt and there was a house in the very final stage of reconstruction when we showed up. Hogan made a little ceremony of giving the keys to the house to Her Royal Highness, Queen Annabelle. The home faced the town square, now an old-fashioned park for the townspeople.
Shops and boutiques lined the green space and most were open for business. At the opposite end of the green belt, municipal buildings were once again filled with busy bureaucrats. And down the street, a newly constructed governor’s mansion served as Hogan’s personal residence, just two blocks from his office in the renovated City Hall.
City Hall also housed Hogan’s new command post. He had wasted no time in establishing a communication network for the local solar system and tying it into the expanding Alliance network, a smart and necessary move on his part. I had several conversations with him about the possibility of some kind of retaliation by the Greys. By the time Annie and I arrived, he was sending routine requests for more troops back to Carrie.
But for me, best of all, this was the first time in our married life that Annie and I were able to live like normal people. It was the lifestyle that I had hoped for back on Earth, but that we never got around to. Our house wasn’t fancy by any standard. Just a middle-class abode that might be overlooked in any modest-sized American city. But to us it was paradise, a real home. It had the beginnings of a lawn and I even added a white picket fence around its perimeter.
Annie had started w
orking half-days as a volunteer. The Greys’ occupation of the planet had left far too many orphans. She led an effort to establish adoption agencies and state-run orphanages.
I loved every little detail of our day-to-day life. Each evening, returning from my work in the desert, I drove a small ground car from the spaceport to our house. I even found it amusing that the king of the galaxy’s First Family only had on-street parking.
“Anybody home,” I shouted when I walked in the front door.
“In here,” Annie called. “Making dinner.”
She had gone back to cooking real food rather than just pop meals out of the replicator. I found her at the kitchen sink, rinsing off some stalked tubers with white bulbs at the end.
“Are those green onions?” I asked, a bit surprised. It was always weird to run across an exact match of vegetables that I had grown up with on Earth.
“Close enough,” she said. “We’re eating organic.”
Another salad. I sighed, but kept my misgivings to myself. If I had been held captive by cannibals for months, I would probably become a vegetarian too.
I looked around the kitchen for the ever present Mazie.
“Where’s Rosa?” I asked.
“Mazie’s taking her for a walk. She needs more fresh air.” My wife had become quite a fanatic about getting fresh air. Another by-product of her incarceration.
Mazie had developed into a great babysitter. When Annie tended to other tasks, the mechanized nanny kept an eye on our child. The neighborhood was generally a safe place, but I still worried when the two went out alone.
Marian, confirm security around my daughter.
Sire, two direct escorts by Hogan’s police, plus four indirect guards from Division One infantry.
I went out on the front porch and spotted Mazie on the sidewalk near the retail shops. A quartet of Barbicans stood nearby, not really discreet but they did try to stay in the shadows. Everyone was safe.
Annie called to me from the kitchen. “I asked Tanner and Yeoja to come over for dinner.” Yeoja was Hogan’s new girlfriend, a local girl. She and Annie had quickly become close pals. Both had suffered at the hands of Greys. Hogan, a retired colonel from the US army even before he joined the Alliance, was a bedrock of stability. As neighbors with a common background, we made a good party of four and often spent evenings together with a bottle of local wine.
I ran upstairs for a quick shower. Even though my titanium body technically didn’t need to bathe, it made me feel cleaner by rinsing off the daily dust from working in the desert. And Annie liked it. Sometimes in bed she would take the corner of the sheet and polish my chest. She was completely used to me now; the initial awkwardness had faded.
In clean clothes, I went downstairs to find Hogan sitting on the couch.
“You’re early,” I observed.
“I know. We just received notice that Princess Carrie will arrive in about an hour.”
I had suspected that day was on the horizon. When Annie and I arrived in the system, even before we landed, Hogan had passed word up the chain. In the message, he told Carrie that I was now an android. I would have preferred that he hadn’t, of course, but bureaucratic machinery is inevitable. After all, I had been the one, back when I was still human, who established the policy of constant communication.
“Does Annie know?”
Hogan nodded. “She is going to delay supper so the Princess can join us.”
“I guess we should get over to the spaceport and make her welcome. Better call out your ministers as well. Carrie doesn’t like a big to do but for the local’s sake, we should receive her royally.”
“Already done, Your Majesty.”
*.*.*.*
At the spaceport, I ordered about thirty of my warships to return to the desert facility, but I did keep a half dozen of our most recent unmanned fighters at the far end of the tarmac. I also had two battalions of Barbicans stand at attention in parade ground formation. Their presence was only partly for security. Carrie was going to have a lot of questions and I wanted to show her how it all came to happen.
Annie and I stood side-by-side and watched the Phantom descend. This was certainly not a troop carrier. It was more modern, with a sleeker design. A royal yacht built for comfort. Not surprising, of course. Riley Stevens updated his spacecraft designs like a bachelor updates his online profile.
Hogan stood next to Annie and I, and his ministers were lined up behind us. We were observing the protocols. Or at least we did until the Phantom landed and Carrie stepped out onto the tarmac. Annie shrieked with joy and ran toward her.
For her part, my little sister screeched just as loudly and the two women embraced amid exclamations of delight. By the time I joined them, at a more measured pace, both were crying and holding hands. It was an endearing if overly dramatic reunion.
“Hello, Carrie,” I said when I reached them. I wasn’t sure how she would react to my appearance. She stepped back with an uncertain look on her face.
Thankfully, Annie immediately slipped her arm through mine and beamed at me. “Don’t give us a hard time,” she said. “It’s really him; I promise.”
Carrie shook her head and glared at me. “What did you do, you idiot?” There were tears rolling down her cheeks. I couldn’t tell if they were tears of joy from seeing my wife or sad ones from seeing what I had become.
I chuckled at her angry words. “I saved my wife from a world full of cannibals, and you know it. So ease off. You’re lucky I at least look like myself and not one of those Barbicans.” I pointed to my soldiers.
Carrie looked me up and down before pinching my cheek.
“Go ahead,” I said. “It doesn’t hurt. The design isn’t perfect by a long shot, but I was in a hurry.”
Her eyes narrowed. “When was the first time we met?” she asked. She cast an apologetic glance at Annie for interrogating me.
“I did the same thing,” Annie allowed with a wry smile. “For about a month. One thing I can tell you is that his memory is like all men. He doesn’t remember how many things were his fault, but then he never did, anyway.”
I laughed at their inevitable man-bashing. “You wore a plaid shirt and denim overalls. You had a ponytail and I told you to sabotage NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Observer.”
Carrie nodded slowly and glanced at Annie. “I wore a thick pullover, but yeah. I see what you mean.” She looked straight at me and her eyes filled with more tears. She banged on my chest with a balled-up fist. “You dummy!” she cried. “How did this happen to you?”
I waited until my punishment was over and then gently embraced my little sister. “I’m sorry, hon, but if I had to, I would do it all over again. It was the only way I could save Annie. Another few hours would have been too late.”
Annie was in too good a mood to be sad. “Cheer up! I’ve got dinner waiting. Come home and tell us everything that’s been happening in the rest of the galaxy.” She took Carrie’s hand in hers and introduced Hogan. “This is the man taking care of my family. Governor Hogan, please say hello to Princess Carrie, Luke’s little sister.”
Hogan bowed low. He had adapted well to having royalty around. “Welcome, Your Highness. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to see you. May I introduce my ministers?”
I walked behind Annie as she and Carrie went through the reception line. At the finish, Hogan dismissed everyone and Annie tugged on Carrie again. “Time for dinner,” she said. “And you still have to meet Rosa!”
Carrie grew excited all over again at the prospect of seeing the new baby.
In short order, we were at the house where Hogan introduced Yeoja. Annie brought Rosa out from her bedroom and both women gushed over our daughter. All the noise made her cry so Mazie was called in to return the infant to her mobile crib.
Carrie pronounced that she was duly impressed with our royal offspring. We toasted each other over dinner and had a perfectly enjoyable evening. It was one of those times when my hope grew that someday I might actua
lly fit back into Nobility’s society.
After the meal, Annie brought out another bottle of wine. We sipped our drinks and moved into the living room. Once Carrie was settled she took a deep breath. Clearly, something was up.
“I brought some bad news,” she said. “Just before I left, we got news that a massive force of Bakkui is on its way here.” She paused for the information to soak in. “Grant suspects the Greys went behind King Haejeog’s back and made a deal with the Bakkui. It sounds feasible because the timing of their appearance doesn’t make sense otherwise. We think they’re planning to meet up right here, where the Greys used to have a foothold.”
I put down my wine glass. “I’m not surprised.”
“How do you mean?” asked Hogan.
“I’m biased against the Greys, of course. They are an evil species. If I had my way, I’d wipe out their entire race. And of course, the Bakkui have no morals at all; just corrupted programming. So it figures the two of them would seek a joint alliance. It’s a natural fit, when you think about it.”
“What do we do?” Carrie asked.
“Good question,” I said. “Because we have some bad news of our own. Tanner informed me yesterday that we’ve spotted a large Grey force moving toward this system.”
“How big?” Carrie asked.
“We think it’s huge,” Tanner said. “Probably in excess of three-thousand ships.”
Carrie nodded. “I’d call it a blessing if it’s that small. The Bakkui fleet is about two-hundred-thousand warships.”
That shocked me right down to my toes. If my skin wasn’t already titanium white, I would have turned pale.
Annie was just as stunned. “That many? Are you sure?”
Carrie shrugged. “Well, estimates are estimates. But give or take a few thousand, yeah, we’re sure. The question is what now?” She looked straight at me. “Annie and Rosa need to get out of here.”
“Not so fast,” I said. “And not without me. We stay as a family. We’ve already talked about this. Every time we get separated things go wrong.”