Warrior Chronicles 6: Warrior's Glass

by Shawn Jones

  He’d have killed them all. Jaifans and Tapon alike. No gray. Enemies die.

  But what would he do now? What would he think of me? Would I pass his muster? If he met Kim, he’d want to trade places with me. No thanks. What would that man from my past think of me, as he stared into the looking glass of time?

  Far above him, people who loved him realized the emotional stress caused by coming face to face with his own self, and worked to help Cort regain his composure. The image in his HUD disappeared briefly, and was replaced by a green line drawing, tracing everything in the room, but hiding the features of two people who tormented his mind. He thanked George, and went back to the task at hand. He pulled the second syringe, marked Child Sample, from his chest pack, and took a DNA sample from Diane.

  After taking scans of Diane’s clothes from the night of the wreck, he pulled his mask back, leaned down and kissed his daughter for the first time in either decades or centuries, depending on which perspective he let himself have. As he was about to leave the room, he received a message from Ceram telling him to take a full tachyon scan of Addison’s brain, and to use the spare DNA extractor take a sample from Addison as well. The medico felt that having a pre-synthetic image of Cort’s brain could aid in the treatment of his current problems. Ceram hoped the DNA sample would provide a baseline to adjust Cort’s synthetics.

  Cort left the house, ordered George reactivate the alarm, and ran back to the park to launch himself to the Remington. Once there, he donned his CONDOR and checked its systems. He needed to wait seventeen minutes for his oxygen supply to recharge, and chastised himself for his impatience and not setting it to replenish while he was gone. Surveying the area to make sure no one was around, he peeled back the FALCON’s mask again, and took a deep long breath. In the quiet silence of the moment, and with a startled cat as his lone earthly witness, he let go and allowed himself to quietly sob. Without his mask on, no one could watch him from the Remington, and Cort was able to grieve in solitude.

  He wept for his losses and gains, his decisions and his actions, his past and his future. They all replayed in his mind, as battles fought between joy and sorrow, pain and hope, strength and weakness, all raged inside him. He had faced the man in the glass; he had faced himself. He accepted what was gone, and embraced the future and all it offered him. He was ready to move forward. When his suit was recharged and ready, Cort put his helmet on, and George took control of the small backpack-size engine, to launch his father into space.

  Four

  Cort gave the DNA samples to Ceram, then headed to his own quarters. He opened the door and found the outer room dark. Motion sensors brought the light up just enough for him to see Bane on the floor near the door to his bedroom. There was a red glow above the frame, showing the bedroom was locked again.

  Cort’s fingers flexed. The enhanced power of the FALCON would make even shorter work of the door than his own strength would. Is that what she wants? Me to prove myself to her? To kick in the door and take her? Or does she need time to work through this? Even time seems to be my enemy now.

  Cort turned to walk away, but something stopped his feet from moving. He turned once more toward the bedroom door. Bane stood up and moved to his side. Cort spun his entire body, raising his leg above Bane, and the boot of his FALCON crumpled the metal of the door.

  Kim screamed, startled from a fitful sleep, and watched Cort peel back the metal panel of the door. Emotions from joy to fear rushed through her mind as he stepped past the broken opening. From his adjoining quarters, George rushed into the living room, a MAT rifle in his hands.

  Cort looked down at Kim and took a deep breath. “You don’t have to share your bed with me, but there won’t be locked doors. Bane, come.”

  The big dire wolf followed his alpha out of the room, and together they walked to an empty berth near the armory. Cort stripped and put his FALCON in a sterilizer, then stepped into the shower. As the hot water cascaded over him, he stared at himself in the mirror, remembering the likeness he saw on Earth. Who are you? Are you that man down there, or the man married to the woman on the other side of this ship? Are you either of them? Thoughts overwhelmed him, and he could no longer hold his own gaze.

  Trying to sleep was futile, as Cort tossed and turned on his lonely bunk. Bacon and coffee seemed like a better idea, so he got up and went to the galley. Afterward, he went to the armory and studied the alien ship that was on its way to Earth. The holographic model was nearly complete. George had named the ship's engine a Void Drive, but was no closer to understanding how it worked. What was known was that it allowed the ship to travel at faster than light speeds without leaving normal space-time.

  He touched his ear and said, “George, I have an idea.”

  “Yes, Father?” the AI responded.

  “What if we set off an explosion right in front of the other ship?”

  “I have considered it. I don’t believe it is prudent. I don’t know enough about the void drive’s effect on normal space-time to be certain we would not destroy the ship. It is my understanding that we want to save Bazal’s people, so I don’t advise attempting such a tactic unless we have no other choice.”

  So much for that idea. “Okay, son. Thanks.”

  “Father?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you and Mother okay? Your marriage I mean?”

  Cort thought about the question. While George’s avatar was that of a young man, his mind was almost a hundred million years old. Cort would never discuss this with Dalek, but George was different. Still, his instinct for privacy took over. He dismissed George’s concern, telling him that everything would work out, then turned their discussion to finding a way to print armament.

  Looking around the bare walls, once again, Cort regretted leaving so much equipment with Liz Thoms in the Gryll universe. He knew he’d messed up. Even if it was supposed to be simple, he could have at least been prepared. “We need printing material, George. Start printing more printers, then find a small asteroid that we can bring on board.”

  The armory door opened and George’s avatar walked in. He paused for a moment and said, “That should not affect paradox. I can compare maps of the Ares system and find common asteroid bodies. Then I will select ones that are small enough, and have not been mapped or studied, to take on board.”

  There wasn’t an ore processor on the ship, so they decided to the use the one on Cort’s HAWC to begin processing raw material, until a larger unit could be printed. Cort also decided to use the massive suit’s strength to break down the asteroids that George brought on board, to make them more manageable.

  When the plan was made and George had found his targets, Cort climbed into the belly of the suit, and plugged its interface into the Atlas port on his neck. Before activating it, he strapped his legs into the control couch, then his head, and dropped his arms in their places. With a blink at his HUD, he ordered the suit to lock his arms down, and disable his somatic nervous system. The crouching giant awoke, and Cort walked to the edge of the shuttle bay. George captured the air in the bay, then deactivated the atmosphere barrier, and guided the ship toward asteroids that were small enough for the HAWC to control.

  As each jagged boulder came into view, George gently maneuvered the Remington close enough to it that Cort was able to grab the rock and carry it inside the bay. Once the giant area was filled with enough space rock for their plans, George closed the bay doors and repressurized the bay with air. Cort started pounding the rocks into smaller pieces, much to the chagrin of crewmembers and refugees trying to sleep in nearby areas of the ship.

  For Cort though, it was cathartic. He pounded the asteroids into pieces much smaller than he needed to, but as each piece of the universe crumbled before him, his resolve strengthened, and he found his own rhythm once again, letting some of the weight of the cosmos fall from his shoulders.

  When there was enough material in the bay for anything they might need to print, George returned the ship to its pursuit
of the enemy, and began printing armament and medical equipment.

  It was strange that using the HAWC left Cort exhausted. In theory, since the suit was controlled by nerve impulses, and not actual movement, his body should have been rested. Instead, the task of breaking the asteroids into pieces small enough for Marines in CONDORs to handle left Cort physically drained. He mentioned it to George as they were walking to their quarters, and George told him it was because his brain believed that his body was supposed to be tired.

  “More science. Great.”

  --

  George gathered the members of Cort’s command counsel in the officer's galley, where he announced that the enemy ship had changed its velocity and would intercept Earth three days and two hours after the accident that would kill Cort’s daughter and her mother.

  Ceram clicked, “Should we consider making the rescue of your daughter and her mother before we intercept the alien ship?”

  Cort said, “I’m hesitant to rescue them first. It would limit our time to stop the other ship, and we aren’t even sure we can do that yet.”

  As they deliberated the best approach, it became apparent that if they could not stop the ship within two days, then they would have to put the attack on hold until they could rescue Diane and her mother. After that, if there was a reasonable belief that the ship could be stopped, then the Remington would resume the attack plan. If they were uncertain that the ship could be stopped, then they would try to evacuate as many humans as possible prior to the arrival of the enemy ship.

  Ceram clicked, “Based on the best information we have, I believe our plan is good. Your daughter’s clone is ready, and the adult is nearly so. The cloning process, as well as their accelerated growth, has gone flawlessly, so you can proceed according to your schedule. I assume you will order Prince Dalek and your current family off the Remington before the attacks begin?”

  “Yes, and that includes you, Ceram.”

  “Of course,” Ceram acknowledged. “That will provide for the highest expectation of survival on the present Solitude.”

  “Father,” the avatar said. “Of course I agree with you, but Mother will be very angry with me. If you are lost, how would you like me to handle her displeasure?”

  Cort reminded George that protecting Kim and Dalek were the avatar’s main priority, then steered the meeting back to the planned assault.

  He activated a hologram, showing the enemy ship. “How can we stop that bastard?”

  George transferred information to the flexpads the others were using. “Gravity generators disrupted transition jumps during the Cuplan War. I believe they will do the same here, because the Remington sensors are detecting gravitational variances from the enemy ship.”

  “The ship uses transition tech?” Cort asked.

  “No, but gravity is utilized in some way. In all known forms of travel that are faster than light, the force plays some role. The void drive used by the enemy seems to depend on it much more than our drive systems do.”

  He added to the image of the ship. Around it, he projected the lines of a grid, and near the ship, the grid bent into a funnel. “I believe if I can activate a sufficient network of the generators, the ship will drop out of its drive envelope.”

  A network of dots appeared in front of the ship. When they changed color, the funnel around the ship disappeared, and the dots changed positions, enveloping the ship. “If we envelop the ship once the drive is disrupted, I don’t think they will be able to stabilize and restart a warp field.”

  “Until they can disrupt the generators, anyway.”

  “Yes, Tur. However, in simulations, I have been able to keep the enemy ship disabled long enough to carry out our plan.”

  “If there is any kind of bow shock from my jump, that might disable them completely, right?”

  George did not think that it was safe to jump to the enemy ship, because the bow shock Cort wanted to count on could also kill Bazal’s friends. After more discussion, they decided Cort would use printed thrusters to push himself onto the hull of the enemy ship, then attempt to breach it manually. If he was successful, he would attach tethers for the other Marines to follow him, then begin the assault.

  George’s eyes glossed over, and both Cort and Ceram recognized he was either making calculations, or searching his core for information. While the AI worked, Ceram made an urn of sweetwater and Cort poured himself some coffee. When the two sat back down, there was new information on their flexpads.

  George showed them the locations on the enemy hull that were safe to breach, so long as the warp field was disabled, and reminded him that if the field was re-established while Cort was on the outside of the ship, Cort could be lost.

  “So I’ll have to work quickly, or at the very least, find a way to secure myself to the ship.”

  “No, Father,” George said. “As we do not understand the ship’s drive system, I cannot be sure if you would be safe on the outside of the ship if it begins to move again. You must be inside the warp field, or you could be torn apart at the molecular level, separated by the void drive’s energy.”

  “That sounds pleasant. What about fighters? Who do we have?”

  George said, “We have as many as one-hundred and three fighters depending on the force configuration you decide on. I will send the list to your flexpad. Clem is acting as a liaison with the abductees, and is already talking to them about participation in what he is calling an upcoming military operation of great importance.”

  Ceram clicked, “What do we know about the enemy?”

  An image appeared in place of the ship. It was a tall thin, amorphous humanoid. Cort complained about the clarity of the image, but George told him the octopods were housed in a salt-based brine that kept them from clearly seeing their captors. He projected the best guess image of the enemy, based on octopod interpretation of how the aliens saw each other. They were tall, appeared thin, and had some sort of an exoskeleton.

  “They grow their own armor?” Ceram asked.

  “It appears so,” George answered. “We don’t know the properties of the exoskeleton at this point. We only have the rough images of it until we have samples, or at the very least, direct contact.”

  “If you get me samples,” Ceram clicked.

  Cort looked at the insect coolly and said, “Regardless of what happens, if we can stop the ship, you’ll have samples.”

  George said, “I can have three dozen gravity generators printed in four hours. I recommend they be deployed two dimensionally, like a wall. If the ship stops, they can use thrusters to envelop the enemy. By cycling their frequencies, we might be able to prevent the enemy from re-engaging their drive.”

  --

  After the meeting ended, Cort found Kim staring at the enhanced image of the ship they were chasing on a viewscreen. He put his arms around her from behind, but she twisted from him and moved away.

  He said, “Sooner or later you have to talk to me. I’d prefer it be now, because I need your help.”

  “I’m not leaving you alone to go back to her.”

  Cort was shocked by the admission. “Do you really think I’d do that?”

  “She’s prettier than me. You could go back and kill Addison and never worry about us again.”

  Cort didn’t dare tell her he’d played out every imaginable scenario in his head. He said, “I could also take over the Earth and keep us all here. Very few of our people would question me, and no one could stop me.”

  “You could begin building your empire now. With her,” Kim replied.

  Cort considered telling Kim his plan to abandon the future and go to Solitude. But there were still too many variables. When do I tell her? Not now. I’ll worry about that later.

  “I never wanted an empire. I wanted to be left alone. But when everything started happening, someone had to keep Atlantica from subjugating Mars.”

  Kim looked at him for the first time. “You wanted it. No one makes you do something you don’t want to, not even
me.”

  “If you believe that, why are you fighting me about this? If what you say is true, you know you can’t win.”

  Kim waved her arm at the door. “All of them. Every single one will follow you anywhere. Everyone who ever stood up to you is gone. Rhodes, Clare, JJ, even Dar. All gone. They’re dead, or in another time. I’m the only one left who can influence you. Not even Bazal can touch you here.”

  “Is that what this is all about? You think you are my conscience?”

  “Aren’t I?”