Carthage Prime

by Toby Neighbors

  “I don’t know how they sent that message, but you heard it,” the pilot said. “They need us to slow down, and we can’t. They wouldn’t have told us that if they had a plan to stop us.”

  “The Republic isn’t even in the system anymore,” the co-pilot said. “We’d be fools to think there’s hel—”

  Thump!

  The sound reverberated through the ship.

  “What was that?” Loman asked.

  “Something hit us,” the pilot said.

  Another thump was heard, followed by a grinding sound. At first Loman thought that something was trying to get inside the ship, but then the sound repeated. He thought it was louder, maybe closer.

  “We’ve got something on the ship,” Loman said. “Probably an FA Titan with one of our guys inside.”

  Another thump, scrape, repeat. Then, after a moment of silence, the upper body of a Titan MBS slid down from the roof of the cockpit to the transparent viewport. Loman would have fallen on his backside if there had been any gravity to pull him down when he saw the operator’s call sign painted on the chest portion of the battle suit. Even upside down he could read the initials “ACE” in bold, white paint.

  “My God,” Loman said. “That’s Evans.”

  Chapter 39

  Despite the pain in his leg, Alex had managed to catch the transport. It had slowed slightly just before losing all power. Unfortunately, with most of the ship’s systems down, Alex couldn’t sync with it. His ability to communicate with the ship was lost, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t help. He was beginning to hear the distant EM waves from the drop ships and his team members. Soon, he’d be able to call for help, but until then he was determined to do all he could to save the ship.

  Once he reached the viewport, he could see the shocked faces inside. Two pilots and Vice President Loman Haley looked at him with surprise. He would have waved if his battle suit had arms, but all Alex had were his weapons. Without losing his magnetic grip on the transport, he twisted around, flinging his one good leg and one damaged leg out in front of the ship. Then he fired his thrusters. The sudden power pushed him along the hull a short way, but he quickly increased the power to the electromagnet, securing him to the transport’s hull. The force of his main thruster, which was attached to the lower part of the battle suit’s legs, began to slow the ship. Alone, it was futile effort, but it didn’t take long before he heard friendly voices.

  “Ace, you are crazy, man,” Sly said. “Are you really trying to stop that ship?”

  “Don’t have a choice,” Alex replied. “They’ve lost power.”

  “Hold on, we’re coming to help,” Ash said.

  Ash and Sly had traveled a good distance to be in transmission range again. The drop ship was still too far away for Alex to make contact.

  “What happened with the freighter?” Ash asked.

  “They tried to take a passing shot at the transport,” Alex said. “I had their guns shut down, but they tried to clip the ship.”

  “We saw it go tumbling, but we couldn’t tell why,” Sly said.

  “I fired all the port thrusters at once,” Alex said. “But they managed to hit me before I could get clear. I think I broke my leg.”

  “Is your suit intact?” Ash said.

  “By some miracle,” Alex said.

  “You’re lucky,” Sly said.

  “Tell me about it,” Alex replied.

  The other two Titans joined Alex and added their own thrusters to help slow the transport. It took almost half an hour, but the ship finally slowed to a manageable drift almost a hundred kilometers from orbit.

  “What’s the sit rep, Titan leader?” Captain Chastain asked over the command channel once the drop ship was in range.

  “The transport has been stopped, but it lost all power, Captain,” Alex reported. “We managed to get it stopped, but we still need to get the passengers off.”

  “Any idea who’s inside?”

  “Exactly who you suspected,” Alex said. “Executive VP Loman Haley is listed as the only occupant.”

  “Very good work, Titan One. It’s time to get everyone safely on the ground. We’ll take over from here. Have your team stand by for planetary insertion.”

  “Roger that,” Alex said. “Titan team is standing by.”

  The drop ship performed an emergency ship-to-ship docking maneuver. VP Haley and the transport’s crew were transferred to the drop ship, which then disconnected from the transport and made its way down to the surface of the planet. Alex and his team of Titans followed. Fatigue was setting in. None of them had slept more than an hour or two at a time since the first CDF forces made their way onto Carthage Prime. Alex was looking forward to getting out of his battle suit and into a bed.

  But that would prove more difficult that he anticipated. His left leg was broken, and the Titan’s foot was damaged. A conventional landing was impossible. Instead, Alex had to land the battle suit on its back—a feat he managed, just not gracefully. The real trouble came when he opened the suit. Once the system shut down, the padding that had increased and held his leg tight released, and the pain increased exponentially. Moving was even worse. He had to be pulled from his suit, and he passed out in the process.

  When he woke up several hours later, he was in a medical facility bed. His leg was elevated and encased in a light therapy device. He felt sick, his mouth was incredibly dry, and his eyes were gummy.

  “Hello,” he managed to croak.

  There was no one in the room. He found the bed’s controls and elevated his head so that he could look around. There was a water bottle on a table beside him. He opened it, drank some, and splashed a little on a towel to wipe his face with.

  “Who’s out there? Where am I?”

  There was still no answer. Alex was beginning to feel perplexed and angry. Had he just been discarded and forgotten?

  “Hello!” he shouted.

  Finally, the door to his room opened. Nyx walked in, carrying a cup of coffee. She looked surprised.

  “You’re awake?”

  Alex’s bad attitude softened immediately.

  “Yeah, what’s going on? Did the Zen Tech ships come back?”

  “No, everything is fine. How do you feel?”

  “Okay, I guess. A little sluggish.”

  “You’re on pain meds.”

  “I can tell,” he said. “How long was I out?”

  “Ten hours or so,” Nyx explained. “The med bot surgically repaired your leg, but it’s going to take a while before you’re walking around again.”

  Alex sat back in his bed, grateful that he could actually relax. The threats were gone, and he had reason to be off his feet. It still felt a little selfish, but as long as his leg was in the therapy device, he really had no choice.

  “Do you feel like talking about things?” Nyx asked.

  “Sure,” Alex said.

  “Colonel Chastain and Vice President Haley want to debrief you,” Nyx said.

  “Colonel Chastain?”

  “She was promoted, which was the reason for VP Haley’s visit. Of course, all anyone can talk about is you.”

  “Us,” Alex said. “We’re a team.”

  “Are we?” Nyx asked. “You did things you shouldn’t have been able to do, Alex. I had no part in it.”

  “That’s not true. You flew for me when I couldn’t,” Alex said.

  “Yes, and you flew even when I used the kill switch,” Nyx said.

  “Are you angry about that?”

  “No, but I’m worried about you.”

  “About this,” he waved at his leg. “It’s nothing. I’ll be fine.”

  “No, Alex. I’m worried about you. What you can do, it isn’t...”

  “Natural?” he tried finishing for her, but she shook her head.

  “There’s nothing really natural about the INC, is there?”

  “I guess not.”

  “What you did was impossible,” Nyx said. “The INC chip is supposed to enhance your m
ind’s ability to interact with technology, but your mind actually enhanced the INC’s ability to connect with other devices.”

  “I didn’t mean for it to happen, it just did,” Alex said.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” she said with a small smile that made him feel light all over, as if he might float off the bed, “it’s a good thing. But you’ve been cut off from everyone who wasn’t part of the rescue mission. From what I gather, the vice president wants to keep your newfound abilities a secret. Ash, Sly, their controllers, and I are all sharing a couple of adjoining rooms. They haven’t let us out of the med facility since we landed.”

  “Because of me?”

  She nodded again. “Not that we needed to. We all got some rest. The others are finishing up breakfast. I told you things would change.”

  “But not between us, right?” Alex said. “You still want to be my controller, don’t you?”

  “Do you even need one?”

  “Yes, I need you,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound too desperate.

  She rewarded him with another smile. “Of course I’ll be your controller, if they’ll let me. We’re in unchartered territory. I wouldn’t be surprised if they sent you to a lab somewhere and ran tests to find out what happened.”

  “No, that’s not what I want,” Alex said.

  “I don’t think what we want factors in,” Nyx said. “You’ve just become the most powerful weapon in Ahzco’s arsenal, and I don’t think they’re going to be content with just one of you.”

  Chapter 40

  Loman stood watching a monitor that showed Alex’s room. A computer showed the rejuvenation work on his leg was seventy percent complete, although he would need several days to regain his strength and ensure that the blood flow to his broken leg was adequate. And then what? That was the question plaguing Loman.

  “How’s the hero?” Colonel Chastain asked as she walked into the small office carrying two cups of coffee.

  Loman wished he could add a generous dose of strong alcohol to his, but he took the cup she offered and said thank you.

  “Healing,” Loman said.

  “What’s next for Evans?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to decide.”

  “It could have been a fluke, you know,” she offered, although they both knew it wasn’t a fluke.

  Perhaps Alex could have gained an unforeseen ability while being magnetically attached to the drop ship, but what he did was much more significant than that. Somehow he had synced his tiny INC chip with rival corporation vessels and manipulated their systems. That was no fluke. Loman had taken the opportunity to run scans of Alex’s brain while he was being worked on in the little medical center on Carthage Prime’s sole colony. Tunis was a rough place, still in its infancy, but the medical facility was more than adequate. It had a brand-new, full-body diagnostic scanner and a top-of-the-line surgical bot. Yet the scans had found nothing abnormal about Alex’s brain. Loman knew he should send Alex to Helena Prime to have his INC checked, but he doubted that there was anything wrong with the technology. Alex’s Implanted Neural Controller was the same as that in every operator in the CDF.

  “No, I’m not sweeping this under the rug,” Loman said. “He really saved us out here. The company has a lot invested in this planet, and the CDF is stretched thin. If the Zen Tech raiders had wiped us out here, we’d have been forced to hire an outside defense firm.”

  “We took our losses, but it could have been a lot worse,” Chastain said. “And if I’m being honest, everything we did once the Zen Tech operators hit the ground came from Alex and his controller, Nyx West.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I worked up the strategic plans, but they came up with the ideas,” she admitted. “I like to think I would have thought of them too, but they beat me to it, just as Alex took control of the rescue in space. He’s got a talent for strategy and tactics.”

  “This kid is mystifying to me,” Loman said. “The last thing I want is to stick him in a lab and let the eggheads poke and prod him, hoping they’ll learn something. He’s the future.”

  “Some people won’t see it that way,” Chastain said. “Some people will think he’s too powerful.”

  “I know,” Loman said. “I’m one of them. But he’s also loyal and smart. I’ve known in my gut that this kid was the future of the CDF since I met him.”

  “So you’re keeping him in the field?”

  “I’m going to try, yes. But we’re going to need to keep a close eye on him.”

  Colonel Chastain’s Flex PIL beeped and she glanced at it.

  “Good news, I hope?” Loman asked.

  “The Republic is back in the system,” she said. “They must have just come through the space tunnel. Tunis Space Control just received word. They’re inbound. ETA is seven hours.”

  Loman nodded, grateful they wouldn’t be stuck on Carthage Prime for weeks waiting for a transport. The ship that brought him to the system was slowly orbiting the planet. If left alone, it would eventually fall into the atmosphere and break apart. It was a space vessel and wasn’t built for atmo.

  “Excellent. I want a garrison built here,” Loman said. “As long as we have a presence on this planet, the locals should know we have their back.”

  “Not everyone was thrilled by our actions at the spaceport,” Chastain said. “I’m hearing word of nasty comments being pointed our way for the damage to their warehouses and goods.”

  “I’ll get it all replaced,” Loman said. “We’ll rebuild the port and make reparations. But for now, our priority is the people in that room.”

  He pointed at the small security monitor. Ash and Sly were joking around, and their controllers looked around nervously as they sat together in the corner. Nyx was by Alex’s bedside. The boy looked hale enough to Loman. Once the Republic was in orbit, he would have them moved to the carrier ship.

  Then the true test would begin. If Alex could sync to an enemy ship, he could certainly sync to one of their own. Whether Loman wanted to face it or not, if Alex tried to take control of a military ship, he would have to be stopped, one way or another.

  “Get me his controller,” Loman said. “I want to talk to her face to face.”

  Chapter 41

  Nyx’s Flex PIL vibrated on her forearm. She glanced at the message: Report to the administrative office ASAP.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said.

  Alex had been talking to Ash and Sly but turned his head toward her.

  “What’s up?”

  “Orders, I suppose,” Nyx said. “A debrief. It’s probably just the first of many.”

  “Okay, let us know when you’re done,” Alex said. “And if you get sent out, just shoot me a quick message. I want to know.”

  “Sure,” she said, hoping she would have the opportunity.

  They had been isolated since returning from orbit, and Nyx didn’t think that was a good sign. It had been a successful mission, but that didn’t mean the brass wouldn’t hit them with gag orders and ship them off to isolated planets so insignificant that they didn’t even warrant a name.

  Nyx was torn between her ambition and her desire to stay with Alex. She had strong feelings for him and was tempted to stay with him no matter what. They might even have a future as more than merely partners—but there was a risk that he might ruin her career. If the senior officers saw Alex as a replicable phenomenon, merely a happy accident, they would ship him off to the RDT division, and she would spend her days in mind-numbingly boring tests. If they saw him as a threat, which in many ways he was, Alex might get quietly dealt with, and perhaps anyone associated with him as well.

  Ahzco was aboveboard, from what Nyx could tell. She had done her research before signing with the CDF, but what Alex could do was a game-changer. An operator in a battle suit was a force to be reckoned with, which was why they were paired with controllers. Her job was to be a second set of eyes and hands when needed, to help run the advanced features of the battle suit while the op
erator focused on combat. But a controller also had an obligation to make sure their operator didn’t go off the rails. If he or she refused orders or showed signs of mental breakdown, their controller was obligated to use the kill switch, which should sever the link between the operator and the battle suit. Alex had shrugged off the kill switch as easily as one might flick a bit of lint from their clothing. She had been locked out, and he had retained total control of his battle suit and the surrounding vehicles. She couldn’t deny that it scared her a little bit.

  Colonel Chastain was waiting at the door to the administration office, which was directly down the hall from the medical center. She stepped aside and waved Nyx inside. Executive Vice President of Security Loman Haley was waiting inside. He even extended a hand to her. Nyx shook it to be polite, but she couldn’t hide her nervousness.

  “Don’t worry—this is an informal debrief, Sergeant,” Loman said as he waved her toward a rolling desk chair. “As I’m sure you’re aware, we have a lot of questions about what Alex did up there. But first, I need to know if anything happened before that, which might explain his newfound abilities.”

  “No,” Nyx said. “We were running regular missions. Surveillance, mostly.”

  “And nothing unusual happened? It could be anything. A sun flare, gamma radiation, a dissociative episode, anything? I know we’re getting into comic book territory here, but you have to admit what Alex did up there was supernatural.”

  “I won’t disagree,” Nyx said, “but there’s nothing that happened that I’m aware of that would have led to his increased abilities.”

  “What about during the fighting?” Colonel Chastain asked.

  “No, Colonel, nothing unusual happened. We came under fire and lost Corporal Kyle Newton, but that wasn’t out of the ordinary in any way.”

  “So when did he first exhibit the enhanced powers?” Haley asked.

  “Right after I used the Titan’s electromagnets to clamp him to the ship.”

  They continued questioning her for over an hour, but there was nothing Nyx could do to shed light on Alex’s newfound abilities.

  “I don’t have to tell you that this is highly sensitive information,” Loman finally said as he was wrapping up the interview. “All the Zen Tech people know is that we were able to hack into their ships’ operating systems and shut them down. They’ll be trying to find out exactly how, and if word gets out, you’ll all be in danger.”