Both men read through the information while Bob did as well, making sure that he had not missed anything.
After fifteen minutes, the brigadier gave a small series of nods and looked at the screen.
'OK, so we are here now. The nasties are all around us and have been since we started blowing up predators and their larvae. We can deal with this. It is not as though many armed forces actually got to go home after their conquests throughout history anyway. Most stayed put and settled. Right! Let us start making plans to stay here. Thank the good major and her team for an excellt report. Ask her to start work on treatments for every possible outcome of the conditions and diseases that will plague us, please, commander. Major Suzuki, do you have anything to add?'
The major shook his head. 'I fear that there will be more viruses to follow tailored exactly to the Tengu, seeing that samples were taken during the ravine probe. They are learning about us and we are learning about them. This will be a long fight. I will send all the information we have plus the battle reports to the Tengu on the Angelito orbital. As soon as Basalt and Rose Foxtrot jump into this area of space, they will be made aware of what is happening.'
Hauler Rose Foxtrot Nineteen
Storfisk
The great ship swung down into orbit above Storfisk, decelerating fast.
'Wardah, whenever you are ready, scout out the best possible place for me. Solid basalt rock. no fissures, no fault lines, no caves for at least two kilometres and a quality water supply on that boundary. You have briefed your Q that they will not be leaving the planet for the foreseeable future? Were there any dissensions?'
Wardah stood in her flight suit on the bridge of the second Thorn, making ready for a departure.
'I understand what you need. The Q are briefed and ready to go and no, of course, none of them wish to walk away from the fight. They are requesting that their standard human bodies be brought here and, yes, they know the risks.'
Rose replied, 'Good, I would have been most surprised if it had been any other way. I have sent a fast picket with a full report and a requirement that the standard bodies of our Q be sent here to the Haulers' Collective. Sub-Al battle unit detachments will orbit the planet so that there will always be one in orbit above the peninsula.'
The Thorn lifted out of the hangar in the side of Rose and slipped down towards the atmosphere.
'Whose control will we be under, Rose?'
The Hauler answered with a certain reserve in her voice. 'The brigadier's, Wardah. Just like your husband, but I wish that your Soul Saver links be given to me. Please ensure that Daisuke does the same. I dare say that before the day is out all of our combatants will do the same.'
As she watched Wardah's Thorn go straight down, decelerating hard, Rose spoke to another of her Q crew. 'Mr Wright, are your machines and crews ready?'
The Q captain was part of a special group of Tengu who were much more heavily built than the others who had departed on the Thorn. He reported: 'Yes, Hauler Rose. All equipment is loaded. We await your commands.'
'Very well. Detach and move to the Angelito orbital. Wait for Basalt and when it appears, you know what is required.'
'Very well.' The powerfully augmented Tengu grinned and looked at each of his crew. 'We good to go! Buckle in.'
His number two, sitting in the compact lander's right-hand seat, added, 'All equipment is secure, zero gravity fighters are secure. We have full loads of everything required. Airlocks are secure, locked and detached.'
Steve Wright nodded and pointed out through the canopy of the brutish machine, past the opening outer doors of the hangar and towards the distant orbital.
'OK, Valentene, let's see how good you are at flying by the seat of your pants. No instruments, only dead reckoning. Take us to, and land us against, the orbital. And don't bang the doors on the way out. Rose hates that.'
The captain laughed and extended one of her long fingers at the captain, then her digits flew over the screens and the lander lifted and moved out through the doors. Her hands then dropped down to the two control columns and she poured on the power with her mind, calculating where the orbital would be in the sky when she wanted to dock with it.
Forty-five minutes later, Valentene smoothly manoeuvred the lander with its six, zero gravity fighters snugly docked against it, to gently kiss the airlocks against the side of the Hauler orbital.
Steve looked across at his second-in-command. 'Good stuff! And nothing damaged. Right, come on, you lot, let's go see what the resident Tengu has to offer in the way of beer.'
They cycled their way through the airlock in zero gravity, which they had been designed for, to meet the much smaller and more refined Tengu who was waiting for them.
Hours later, the Hauler Rose Foxtrot decelerated so that she was hanging vertically above the planet. With her engines supplying huge amounts of energy to her massive antigravity units, which she had not powered up in decades, she sedately moved down through the atmosphere at 100 kilometres per hour. A hundred metres up, six portions of her lower hull folded out forming the landing gear as she slowed her speed to gently touch down on the surface.
Engineering drones emerged, moving away from Rose in every direction and setting up listening and observation units, which she gave control of to a sub-AI unit whose sole task was to watch everything, right down to flea-sized insects, within five kilometres of her towering bulk.
Another group of drones towed large flexible pipes from her to a water treatment plant, giving her access to thousands of litres of fresh water per minute from a large stream just before it disappeared over the cliff face into the sea below.
The great otter ACE, Madeye, luxuriated in the river, rolling and frolicking, thrilled to be in a real river. She found everything intensely interesting and started to fill her own data files with information about all the flora and fauna she could find, sending the data back to her private computers onboard Rose. Swimming across to the far bank she ran up the bank. standing on her hind legs to look out across the plains, sensing the distant herds of animals and shivered in delighted anticipation that her work was about to begin in earnest. She would bring back as many of the animals as she could to full health.
At dawn the following morning Rose was satisfied with the area and activated the landing legs' feet which drilled anchors down into the rock. locking her in place against any storm that the planet could throw at her.
'Brigadier Mortlock. Commander Thompson, I am now established as the semi-permanent base here on this part of the planet. All equipment and facilities are now at your disposal.'
The great ship then programmed all the drones that she carried, sending them out to the surrounding areas to start preparing the gardens and orchards, wondering if Storfisk would be her final resting place. As her presence gazed across the landscape and up into the mountains with the rising local star bathing them in an orange glow, she smiled to herself, knowing that it was as good a place as any she had visited in the last few hundreds of years.
Basalt
Above Storfisk
'Major. Just had a message lasered to us from Rose Nineteen and relayed from the Hauler orbital Angelito. To say the least, we have a situation.'
Michael looked across at Jasmine and raised his eyebrows. 'Open it up to the whole crew.'
Jasmine nodded and proceeded to broadcast the message. 'Basalt,this is Rose. I have established abase on the southernmost peninsula of the Haulers' protected reserve. I have the Tengu Qwarriors and the carriers Haast and Berkut down here on the planet with me. We are conducting a holding action against the octopoid army building predator. It is imperative that you do not enter the atmosphere. Everything here was a trap to infect my crews, and those of Haast and Berkut, with a whole group of tailored bacteria and viruses. I have effected a quarantine on the entire planet. Nothing is to depart from it.'
A chill went through every member of the crew and in particular, Marko, who thought immediately of his family in their village of Waipunga.
Michael slowly shook his head and Stephine was livid, with a look upon her face that frightened Marko and Veg. Veg reached across and gathered Stephine to him, hugging her close. He said: 'Rose. This is the general. What would you like us to do?'
'Please dock with Angelito. The AI core of the Hauler is missing. I need you to establish a new one to control the orbiting sub-AI platforms. Also, find the landers that the predators used to deploy here and, just as importantly, find and neutralise the carrier that brought them here. I have detached a squad of Q3s to assist you. They are the best of the best and come with their own equipment. Stephine, I am sending you the files of everything that the guardian ACEs and medical Major Aydon learned of the chemistry of the predators and the infective agents she has identified. I need to know what they will ultimately do and if we are, in fact, seeing another derivative of Infant.'
Michael Longbow spoke quietly. 'Patrick, dock us with Angelito. Clone a control segment of yourself, please. Harry, Marko, Topaz, create a housing as soon as you can and liaise with Patrick. Lily and Jasmine, sort the accommodation of the Q. Julie, Minh, sort their equipment, please. Fritz, ACEs, as soon as we dock I want you on that orbital checking every single data log going as far back as the weeks before we know that predators turned up. James, record and edit everything from everyone so when we get around to attributing blame for this debacle we will have the records. Let's go, people!'
He then turned and looked at Veg and Stephine as Veg said, 'Well? What do you need us to do, Michael?'
Michael grinned. 'Sorry, you being a general and all, I am not sure if I should be giving you orders?'
The huge man laughed. 'You have been doing so for the last eight years. Why change now?'
'OK, start on the biological threat files. As soon as Marko, Topaz or the ACEs come available, put them to work as well. But don't you two have a delivery to make?'
As the crew moved to their various tasks, Michael contacted the orbital. 'Angelita orbital, this is Major Longbow of Basalt.'
On one of the screens appeared a Q with more powerful facial features than the ones that Michael was familiar with.
'Major, this is Steven Wright. We are expecting you and are to give you whatever assistance you need. Specifications of our equipment and capabilities are now sent.'
Michael saw the file come across and flicked a copy to Veg and Harry. The major nodded at the staunch reptilian face.
'Good! My thanks. We shall be there in about an hour.'
'All crew: I am powering down the gravity systems in two minutes. Will have them back up in fifteen.'
Veg smiled at Marko as he caught up with him on the stairway going down to the hangar decks. 'Is he ready to go?'
Marko nodded. 'Yeah, short cycle antigravity systems, propulsion and a comms unit have been attached to the chimera's cylinder. Four engineering drones are also helping to move him into Blackjack'supper hold.'
He tapped on his wristscreens and gently slid the gravity controls until they were at zero. The two men then pulled themselves hand over hand down the walls of the spiral staircase, arriving in time to look through the transparent wall beside the airlock to see Blackjack'shangar seal itself off.
'How long before she is back, Veg?'
'Couple of hours tops I should say, Marko. Enough time to drop the creature in through the atmosphere into a nice moderately shallow part of the sea. You done with the new AI housing?'
'Yeah, done my part, the others can handle it. Shall I go make us some tea? Just baked a tray of shortbread.'
Veg grinned and gently clapped Marko on the shoulder. 'Yes, good, I shall go fetch Stephine and you tell Topaz to meet us in the mess.'
Five minutes later, Marko saw on his wristscreen that Blackjack had cleared the hull, so after he gave everyone the warning, he re-established the gravity, then put the water jug on to boil, pulled his large iron teapot out of its wooden box and went about making oolong tea.
Stephine and Veg arrived, closely followed by Topaz. They made small talk for a few moments, sipping their tea and munching on Marko's shortbread.
'Seeing that you are all now fed and watered,' Topaz said, 'I wish to show you a rather startling series of discoveries.'
The three augmented humans looked across at the cobalt blue machine as she unfolded herself, displaying the large screens so that they could see the data.
After some long moments of reading, then digesting, the news, Stephine finally said angrily, 'Fucking idiots! Those stupid stupid idiots, what were they thinking? So this is a soft probe by the Administration against its own to see how they will cope.'
Marko felt cold. A cold that seemed to creep into his bones, even his augmented chain-linked ivory ones.
'Oh, shit. So they have taken the information from the library that we so gleefully handed over to them and the octopoid tech that we also had a hand in finding, and some of the material that was recovered from the Infant conflict, plus the nastiest experiments that the supposedly destroyed Games Board scientists were working on, and they have combined it all and dropped it onto Storfisk.'
Veg nodded slowly. 'Yes, and some human Gjomvik Corporation has made a fortune for themselves by creating the predator. A new weapon for them. So this is just another stinking weapons test. Well, this is a challenge for us, eh? Let us see if we can wreck this game for them.'
Senior Hauler Chrysanthemum
Cygnus 5
'Well?'
The massive Hauler, regarded by most as the leader of the Haulers' Collective, hung in orbit above the planet that was surrounded by hundreds of weapon platforms, orbitals and interstellar ships of all kinds.
'Well what, Chrysanthemum? We are doing what is required. The Storfisk system is the closest to where we know the outer edge of the octopoid areas of interest lie. They will come. They will eventually seek to gain back control of Old Earth as it is their cradle of existence. Would you deny the rest of humanity's interests, to step aside for them?'
'You are deliberately putting a great number of people that I care for deeply in a horrible situation, Epsilon. I, and the rest of the Haulers' Collective, will hold you and your fellow Administration Orbitals accountable if things do not go to your plan.'
The huge spherical AI machine, which administered the local star systems, gazed out across the 100 kilometres to the Hauler, watching as Chrysanthemum started to power away towards the closest Lagrange point. He gave a mental sigh, seeing far ahead of the Hauler another two of the Collective also powering away from the planet.
'Do not interfere, Chrysanthemum. I am warning you. Leave Storfisk alone. 'It is a good plan.'
He could not bring himself to say please.
'We will do what we need to do, Epsilon. They are all trapped on that planet due to you and various Gjomvik Corporations wanting to make more money. We need to help them as they are our families. Goodbye.'
Epsilon opened a comms channel to Gamma. 'They have taken the bait. They will clean up your mess.'
Appendix One
GLOSSARY
ACE (Artificially Created Entity)
An ACE is often a pet or helper. An ACE may have animal or human DNA, in any combination, and is frequently cybernetically enhanced. They are normally fully sentient, serve their creator in an indentured capacity for a fixed time period, then are free to make their own way throughout the Sphere or beyond.
The Administration
The governmental military forces and bureaucracy of the Sphere of Humankind. Bureaucracy everywhere, even in the far future, is the same.
The Games Board
The media group concerned with the procurement and production of reality audiovisual. The Games Board was created to stage strictly regulated Conflicts and to promote them through their extensive marketing and broadcast channels, notice boards and other media. The Games Board controls everything about the Conflicts, from weapons development to final approval of the Conflict itself. If the Conflict is sanctioned, the Games Board will provide fun
ding. Unsanctioned Conflicts are also overviewed by the Games Board, broadcast and marketed, with the understanding that should they get too big, the combined forces of the Administration, Gjomvik and Games Board forces will end the Conflict with overwhelming force. Small controlled Conflicts are encouraged as they are good for business and keep all humans entertained.
The Gjomvik Corporations
The business and trade corporations of the Sphere of Humankind. Big business in the far future is the same as big business today. The Gjomvik Corporations are controlled by large family groups or appointed individuals. They provide the main source of funded mercenary groups which participate in the sanctioned Games Board Conflicts, plus most of the weapons, craft and support.
The Haulers’ Collective
The long-range carriers of all trade and information. Huge ships capable of transporting great quantities of trade goods or whatever else is required. They also actively map the Lagrange points and collect fees from all ships using those navigation points. They explore far further out from the Sphere and are humankind’s first line of defence.
The Humans
Unaltered humans are Type S (Standard), but the heroes of the Conflicts are often augmented humans (Type A). Some AI (Augmented Intelligence) units are human, and may look like machines or even like Type A humans. Other types of humans include:
Type AM — Type A human, military
Type AE — Type A human, explorer
Monitors and Expeditors — Type A humans augmented to fulfil specific functions required by the Games Board.
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