Son of Justice

by Steven L. Hawk

  * * *

  “Two years,” Grant sighed and absorbed the information. Two more years until the ship is completed. There was nothing to be done to expedite the timeline, so he merely nodded and kept walking. He automatically shortened his pace to accommodate the shorter legs of the three Waa conducting the tour. They were in one of the large, underground facilities where the Waa engineers constructed all alliance ships. This particular facility was larger than most, having been built specifically for this new breed of vessel. Due to the secrecy around its construction, Grant was the only non-Waa to have access to the area and he stared up at the behemoth that had been his brainchild.

  The outer hull and all of the interior walls, walkways, and crew compartments were completed, which gave the initial impression the ship was further along in production. But he knew the delay was always the command and control systems—the components of the mother ship that governed the electrical, fusion, and drive systems. And—in this ship anyway—the weapons systems.

  “How are tests of the ship-born cannons coming along?”

  They have all been successful. The Waa’s “words” were accompanied by a sense of proud accomplishment and visions of the large cannons being fired, both in underground testing facilities and in the orbiting firing range that had been built specifically for the purpose of conducting the test. It was important to test the device using the real-world conditions that came along with space-based use.

  “Very good, Yuh. You and your workers have done an admirable job.” Grant stopped hiding his thoughts just long enough to communicate his feelings of pleasure, pride, and appreciation for what the Waa had accomplished. He was getting better at keeping his thoughts masked and, at Sha’n’s suggestion, was using this tour as a test of his abilities. She was trailing the group at a short distance, with the sole purpose of “listening in” on his thoughts.

  Ten minutes later, the tour concluded, and the general and his advisor were promptly escorted to a carrier vehicle. At a nod from Grant, the pilot lifted off and began the short, thirty-minute trip back to the Shiale Alliance Defense Headquarters compound.

  How did it go? he asked Sha’n.

  It went well. I could not detect your thoughts, nor could the others. She transferred a feeling of consternation and confusion that conveyed how the other Waa had felt at the unexpected situation. Grant chuckled. He didn’t have to imagine the surprise the unsuspecting Waa had felt at finding a human whose thoughts couldn’t be read. Sha’n communicated it perfectly.

  “It only works when I verbalize,” Grant relayed. “I couldn’t mask anything using mind-speak.”

  Agreed.

  “What is it, Sha’n?” He had detected a note of concern in her “voice.”

  I could not see your thoughts on the ship, but I did capture a hint of unease in your being. So did the others. They suspect it had to do with the timeline. But I know it has to do with the ship and the weapons it is designed to carry. Why does this worry you?

  I don’t know, he admitted. It shouldn’t.

  He let his thoughts wander, knowing she’d pick up on whatever crossed his mind. Sometimes it was best to just think and let her observe. It was the nonverbal version of talking out loud.

  This new mothership we’re building. It will be the first of its kind. There’s never been a ship that’s carried its own arsenal of weapons, which means we’re looking at a paradigm shift—a new way of fighting our enemies. On the surface, that seems good, because it could shift the balance of power firmly in our direction. Until now, these ships have been limited to carrying planet-bound armies and fighters. That means battles have been fought on the ground, soldier against soldier, army against army. But now we’re introducing a weapons-bearing mothership that has the ability to destroy other ships in space, before they ever reach a planet’s surface-based defenses. In other words, we win the battle before it starts. Honestly, I don’t know why this has never been considered before. I mean, I know why the Minith didn’t think of it—they’re all about the ground and pound. But why haven’t the Zrthn or some other race out there somewhere thought about this capability? It boggles the mind. Six hundred years ago, humans had funny little devices called televisions, where fictional stories told about space-going battleships. Even then, long before humans ever reached the stars, our minds considered the creation and plausibility of starship-born weapons. We gave them interesting names like photon torpedoes, plasma cannons, and neutron mines.

  Grant released a long sigh.

  Then again, maybe we’re just built that way—to keep progressing, to find the next big thing, even if the next big thing is something designed to kill.

  Grant struggled with how to express his thoughts in a way that delivered his concern to Sha’n without the overwhelming burden of the emotions he was feeling.

  But the problem with introducing a new weapon is the same problem that mankind has been dealing with since we first picked up a stick to club our enemies in the next village. Once the genie is out of the bottle—once we pick up that stick—there’s nothing to keep our enemies from reaching for their own stick. Any advantage we gain from putting a new type of mothership into service is only momentary. Once we cross that threshold, others will soon follow. Then we have a race to see who can build the most ships or the biggest ships. It opens up a can of worms that might eventually destroy the Alliance.

  I see, and I understand. Should we cease production?

  “No, Sha’n,” Grant replied and tried to rub the ache of fatigue from his eyes. “It’s too late to put the genie back in the bottle. And we might need her to survive what’s ahead. We just won’t use her unless there’s no other option.”

  Chapter 5

  Eli exited his barracks building and turned left toward the building where Twigg and the other sergeants resided. The training complex was made up of four similar cement block buildings, set in a box pattern. A large, open space, known as the quad, resided in the middle of the building group and was where their daily formations were held and much of their training took place. He bowed his head against the ever-present wind, and hurried his steps. The gusts were always worse in what they called “morning.” Morning was such a discretionary concept when the sun never left the sky. For their unit, morning was merely the time of the day when the sleep cycle ended and the next training day began. It took some getting used to for everyone, but most were now in tune with the new normal.

  Not for the first time, he looked around at the world around him and marveled that he was on another planet. Most humans never left Earth. He had been born there, but had been relocated to Waa as a child. Now he was on his third planet, and he marveled at how different it was from the other two.

  Almost all of the differences were caused by Telgora’s rotational axis, he knew. The planet spins on a near-perfect ninety-degree axis, which means it rolls around its sun like a giant marble. The southern hemisphere resides in perpetual daylight—the north, in perpetual dark. At the sun-facing south pole, temperatures remain a constant four hundred degrees Fahrenheit, two hundred degrees Celsius. Temperatures at the bitterly frozen darkness of the northern pole are just the opposite.

  As a result of the world being tipped on its side, only the thin band of planet that exists between the two extremes is habitable. That’s where he and all the other living creatures on the planet were currently located—within a roughly ten kilometer-wide ring that circled the entire planet. Here, Telgora is a blend of green, flowing meadow mixed with wide stretches of barren dirt and rock. Orange, deerlike creatures, called ninal, roam freely between the meadows and the barren areas and represent the primary source of food and leather for their underground-dwelling cohabitants. Outside of the band, very little survives above ground for long. Native Telgorans—reed-thin, seven-foot tall warriors, with muscles like steel—live most of their lives underground, protected from the often-bitter winds and extreme temperatures that assault most of the planet’s surface.

  Eli could quote t
hese and other facts about the planet from memory. He hadn’t spent all of his youth studying only fighting and ancient battles. He had given time to other topics as well, and knowing about the planet where he knew he’d eventually end up only made sense.

  Although he considered the rotational axis, and the resulting weather patterns, the most interesting aspects about the planet, he understood—as did everyone in the Shiale Alliance—that the agsel beneath the planet’s surface is what most thought about. Telgora is a remote planet, residing on the edge of the Milky Way galaxy. To the casual observer or passerby, it would be deemed unworthy of investigation or consideration, and dismissed as another worthless backwater planet. But the casual passerby might not know that far below the catacombs where the native Telgorans make their homes, expansive deposits of precious agsel ore reside, waiting to be extracted, processed, and shipped off-world. For the majority of the scatted species and races in the universe, the possession of agsel, and the ability to incorporate it into space-worthy craft, represents the difference between being planet-locked or space-able.

  Only with the ore is faster-than-light travel possible. This made Telgora anything but worthless.

  The human and Minith workers that mine the planet’s ore keep themselves holed up in a series of giant bunkers scattered across the thin, habitable band. Totaling nearly thirty in all, each bunker is a veritable city that provides for the needs of the miners living inside. Hospitals, restaurants, bars, housing, and other necessities—legal or illegal, moral or not—are provided for the inhabitants. Life on the mining planet is tough, and the Leadership Council that has been established to govern Telgora learned early on that concessions were needed to keep workers happy and maintain production. One such concession was segregation. Only the underground communities that held the Leadership Council were fully integrated—home to both Minith and humans alike. All others were not, only housing a single species. Humans and Minith had come to an understanding in the dozen years since the end of the wars, but that understanding didn’t always lead to acceptance or tolerance. Distrust was commonplace among the races. Violence—once a criminal offense for the humans—was becoming more acceptable within the rugged communities so far from Earth.

  Except for the massive herds of the orange-colored ninal beasts, the bleak, uninteresting landscape keeps most of Telogra’s inhabitants firmly entrenched inside their living and work spaces. Few care to venture outside, and those that do, usually cut their visits short.

  The exception, obviously, are the soldiers of the Shiale Alliance defense forces. They traverse the Telgoran surface voluntarily, and they do so regularly. Housed in thousands of large, concrete buildings placed strategically near the mining bunkers, the soldiers—human and Minith—adapt to the conditions as best they can.

  Eli was thinking about his need to adapt to the windy, sand-blown planet as he followed the stone path that separated his barracks from the dozens of others that had been erected a kilometer east of Mining Bunker Thirteen. Bunker Thirteen was the official name, of course. The inhabitants not-so-lovingly referred to their Telgoran home as “Titan City” in deference to one of the main heroes of the Minith Wars. Titan was now Earth’s Emissary to the Telgorans, and lived with the natives in their underground system of caves. The bunker was one of the original five mining sites on Telgora, and it was rumored that Titan had fought there.

  Eli smiled at the thought. He was one of the few on the planet that knew the “rumor” was true. When Eli was ten, “Uncle” Titan himself had described in exquisite detail the battle plan that the youngster’s dad had drawn up to defeat the Minith on this planet. That battle had taken place just before Grant Justice and his army had taken the fight on to Waa. The need to protect his identity from those around him—human and not—settled onto his shoulders even more firmly with the memory. Now that he had begun the process of being just another name on the training list, it was doubtful those around him would understand if the truth came out. He wanted—no, he needed—to see this through on his own, without his father’s influence hanging over his every move. He hadn’t realized until just recently, that not being tied to his father’s legacy was . . . liberating. For the first time in his life, he was free from the heightened expectations and constant scrutiny that came with having the name Justice.

  He halted outside the door and took a deep breath before lightly tapping. He heard a muted voice call out “Enter” in Minith. Eli ignored the alien invitation and tapped again. His second effort was rewarded with the appropriate English Standard, and he pushed his way inside the tall, wide door that identified the office as belonging to a Minith.

  Inside, he found Sergeants Twigg and Brek standing behind a large, plain desk. The room was painted purple—the aliens’ preferred color—but was otherwise barren except for the desk, a large (again, purple) chair, and a map of Telgora on the far wall. Eli noted the highly scuffed path that circled the entire room. It was no doubt a result of the Minith’s characteristic need to pace. Every Minith office he had ever been in—and he had visited quite a few—seemed to have a similar path. The two sergeants appeared to have been studying the map, but both turned as he entered the room.

  Eli approached the desk, whipped his body smartly into the human version of attention, and announced, “Private Jayson, reporting as ordered.”

  Sergeant Twigg released a noise that might have been confused with a kitten’s purr by most humans. Eli, who had grown up around the aliens, recognized the sound for what it really was: a menace-filled growl. The sudden, slight twitching of the alien’s right ear confirmed Eli’s initial reaction to the growl. His actions on the march had obviously raised his sergeant’s ire—and it wasn’t a slight raise, either. The Minith was—in his father’s words—royally pissed off. He took a slow breath and mentally prepared himself for whatever might come next. He was meant to feel fear, but didn’t. Unlike most of his kind, he’d been raised around Minith. There was none of the inherent fright of them that they no doubt expected—and received—from his fellow human recruits. They could try to intimidate him all they wanted, but it wouldn’t work out as they wanted. He once again reminded himself that they were the conquered race; he represented the victors. Besides, he’d done nothing he regretted, or wouldn’t do again, in the same circumstances.

  “How did these sheep ever defeat us, Twigg?”

  The question was posed in a near-whisper, meant only for the other sergeant, but Eli had no problem making out the words even though they were issued in the low, growling-grunt rasp that distinguished the Minith language. The muscles in Eli’s stomach tightened, and he struggled against balling his hands into fists. Not only were the two going against established regulations by talking in their native tongue, they were blatantly disparaging him and his race. He doubted they would be so open with their ridicule if they knew he understood what they were saying. It confirmed his decision to keep that piece of information to himself. Instead, he clinched his jaw tightly, swallowed the need to respond to Brek’s slur, and remained facing stoically forward.

  “At ease, Private Jayson,” Twigg commanded. Jayson immediately spread his feet shoulder width apart while clasping his hands behind him at the small of his back. It was a more relaxed, but still somewhat formal position. The major benefit was the position allowed his head and eyes to follow the two sergeants instead of having to focus directly forward. It also allowed him a better view of the map behind the two Minith. It was of the Telgoran landscape, the coloration revealing an area located in the livable band, though slightly more on the sun-side than the cold. The Minith markings and notes on the map indicated military unit locations. One of the units was his.

  Eli waited for the training sergeant to begin. He didn’t have to wait long.

  “Why did you assist the less-abled recruits on yesterday’s march?”

  There was no way he could tell the two Minith that he did it to spite them—to show that humans weren’t soft-willed sheep, as they obviously believed. He
couldn’t tell them that he had overheard their conversation, or that he felt they weren’t playing fair with the soldiers that had been placed under their tutelage, or that he had given up his place at the front of the march for one reason: to help his fellow humans stick it to the Minith who wanted to see them gone. No, they wouldn’t take those admissions lightly.

  So, instead of telling them the truth, he said, “I don’t know, Sergeant Twigg. It just seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “The march is an individual test, Private. It is designed to separate the weak from the strong. You cheated the test and spoiled the results.”

  Eli was shocked. How could you cheat a forced march? The rules were simple. As long as you didn’t take a shortcut, or get a ride on a carrier vehicle, all you had to do was cross the finish line in front of the pacer. It couldn’t get any simpler.

  “With all due respect, Sergeant, no one cheated,” Eli stated calmly, though he felt the kernel of anger that had formed in his chest grow hotter. He was a stickler for rules, always had been. He had never cheated at any test, game, or challenge in his life. Push the boundaries of the rules, or think outside the box of accepted norms? Certainly. That was his nature, and one of his strengths. But to disregard the boundaries to win or get ahead? Never. “Everyone finished ahead of the pacer within the time allotted.”

  “True, Private,” Brek growled. “But you carried another’s burden. And you were carried over the last segment of the course. Neither of these facts is acceptable. Corrective actions must be taken.”

  The threat was evident in the statement and in the manner in which it was delivered. These two Minith were considering removing him, and anyone else who received help, from training. He bit down on the spray of angry words that threatened to spill forth, took a deep breath, and gathered his thoughts before replying.