Kat, Nora, Commander Gordon, Tilli, and Lars entered the room and took a seat at the table. Ryan could see that Kat’s face was stern and the muscles in her face were tense.
Ryan didn’t bother sitting in the chair but decided to walk around the inside of the half-circle. He paused, taking in the serious expressions on the faces of his friends.
Nora gave him a slight nod of encouragement before he began to speak.
“These are tough times we are facing. We lost a lot of friends, and I want to take a moment of silence before we begin.”
Ryan noticed that Commander Gordon bowed his head, as did Tilli, while Kat and Nora stared off into space.
“We have some trying times ahead of us. I’m still figuring out this CEO position and there’s a lot more to it than I had thought. I will immediately share all information with this team as I make sense of it. Only by working together will we get through this.”
“You have my full support, CEO,” said Commander Gordon.
“And mine as well,” said Tilli.
“Thank you. So, let’s get this meeting moving. We have a lot of work to do. Lars, what’s the status of the OTKE base?”
“Sir, this location is now acting as the main OTKE HQ and is performing adequately. It has evolved into a battle base. Weapon turrets have been deployed, and defense shielding strengthened. Patrols and sector mappings are now taking place in the nearby systems. Do you have any additional orders?”
“I wasn’t aware buildings could evolve into something else,” said Ryan. “Tilli, I need you to review the systems, power, weapons, shielding, and everything else. See what you can update to the latest tech. I’m sure some of the fleets in orbit will have spare parts you can use.”
“Yes, sir. I will make this my main priority,” said Tilli.
Ryan turned back to Lars. “I have a special mission for you.”
Lars hovered straighter with arms at his side. “Yes, sir. What are your orders?”
“I want you to take some of the AIs and recover all the remains of the fallen soldiers in the surrounding forest, swampy areas, what’s left around the Crystal City, and any other locations you can think of. I want them identified and returned to their homeworlds. The families that they knew are long dead, but their living relatives should have closure. If there are no families, we will handle the arrangements and honor them here. I also want all data recovered from the battlefield, and their story documented in the historical archives.”
“Very well, sir. What should I do about the Woland remains?”
“Gather their remains as well, and we will set up a diplomatic way of turning them over to the Woland government.”
“Is that all, sir?”
“Yes, and thank you.”
Lars saluted and floated out of the room.
Ryan looked at Nora. “Nora, what information have you uncovered about the attack on the OTKE HQ?”
“Based on intelligence reports and footage, a Florarien transport named the Mawar entered Gliese Major transmitting an emergency code about wounded refugees. Upon making orbit, the ship changed to an unknown configuration and released some type of energy weapon with a magnitude of power that has never been seen before. It wiped out the OTKE HQ and the surrounding area. There are millions of confirmed dead and thousands injured. No communication from CEO Klein or Jack. It is assumed they perished.”
“The orb?” asked Ryan.
“Unfortunately, yes,” said Tilli. “Based on Nora’s report of Commander Seymour’s rescue mission, the old C-Tec hermit you and I had talked to about the orb was the body she found chained to the wall. Fredrick LaRue must have gotten the information out of him. The poor man…” Tilli put her head down to clean a tear from the corner of her goggle lens.
Ryan rubbed his chin and mouth as he pondered the possible horrors the hermit might have gone through.
“Any idea on Fredrick LaRue’s whereabouts?” asked Ryan.
“None,” said Nora. “But he is now the most wanted person in the galaxies. Many major worlds and some of the smaller ones all lost people in the attack. Many delegates were lost. It will be hard for him to stay hidden.”
Ryan nodded. “And Commander Seymour?”
“I’m calling in all my favors,” said Kat. “If my uncle is out there, I will find him. Mark my words, I will find him.”
“We will find him, Kat. We will.”
“Commander Gordon,” said Ryan.
“Yes, CEO Hunt?”
“You know you can still call me Ryan.”
“I do, but that would not be proper protocol.”
Ryan smiled. “Understood. Almost all the OTKE senior military leadership was lost. I need someone I know and trust in the position of fleet operations. So, congratulations, you are now in command of the OTKE battle base fleet.”
“Thank you, sir. It will be an honor to serve you.”
“Is there anything you would like to report, Fleet Admiral Gordon?”
“Tempus and support ships are ready to act on your command should we locate Fredrick LaRue or Commander Seymour. However, the orb we currently have hooked up is low on power and growing unstable.”
“Understood. I will see what we can do about that. Any word on Commander Tucket?”
“He is resting,” said Nora. “He had some internal injuries that were mended, and the las-blast to his leg is almost healed. He will be fully recovered in another day or two.”
“That’s good news,” said Ryan. “That’s all for now, we will meet again tomorrow. Everyone is dismissed except for Kat.”
Ryan and Kat waited for everyone to leave the room and then met in an embrace. They held on to each other for a few minutes in silence before letting go.
“How are you holding up?” asked Ryan.
“I’m OK. I just wish CEO Klein had told me about my uncle.”
“Not sure it would have made a difference, but we’ll find him,” said Ryan.
“Yeah, but once I start tearing up galaxies, they will beg to give him back.”
Ryan laughed. “Kat on the warpath. The thought scares me as well.”
She lightly hit him in the arm and smiled. “How about you? Any thoughts about all that blue flame stuff you pulled off in the fight?”
“Well, for one, I’m stressed, and I haven’t had time to research that. Especially with Nora hounding me every two seconds to review something or authorize something at a CEO level.”
“You realize you have only been at this for a few hours. Wait until tomorrow.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Thanks. I appreciate the reminder.”
“You’ll be fine.” Kat kissed him on the cheek and headed to the door.
“Where are you off to?” asked Ryan.
“Someone has to sneakily go add energy to that orb. Know anyone else with an innate ability to manipulate energy?”
“Hmmm…I wonder who that unique and beautiful person could be.”
They shared a smile, and then Kat left. Ryan looked around the room and moved to a virtual map of the various galaxies and highlighted systems. He swiped his hand across the virtual display, sending the galaxies spinning.
Seymour and LaRue, you’re both out there somewhere, but where…
The virtual screens in Fredrick LaRue’s command room extended over every surface, allowing Fredrick to look like he was pacing in the vacuum of space outside of his ship.
He admired the red giant sun in the distance and the dead planets that orbited it. At one time, some of these planets supported life, but now they were cold and dark. On the bright side, it allowed him an excellent location to hide, which made him smile.
Fredrick turned when he heard the door slide open, and he smirked when his assistant hesitated to take a step in. She made eye contact with him and entered when he gave her
an annoyed look.
“Ah, my tardy assistant,” said Fredrick, placing his hands behind his back and walking toward the center of his virtual space room. “What took you so long? I was expecting to see my large Earth Consortium fleet orbiting this dead planet, but all I see are three small battle cruisers.”
The assistant’s hand was shaking when she brought up the datapad to review her notes again.
“Sir, there is an issue. I am not sure—”
Fredrick casually walked over to his assistant and stood nose to nose with her. “Spit…it…out.”
The assistant waited for Fredrick to back off. Her face turned red with anger.
“You want it, well here it is, sir.”
Fredrick’s head snapped back, and he smiled at his assistant’s surge of anger.
“You no longer have a fleet, and to be blunt, you no longer have an organization!”
“Now, this is a side of you I have never seen. I do like the feisty tone, but I may have missed something in the translation. Please elaborate on that last part.”
“Sir, your actions of revenge against Mr. Hunt and the destruction of a major corporation on an Earth Consortium planet was too much for your people. They were in your organization because they were outcasts from their societies and found a place to call home with you, not to randomly execute innocent women and children.”
Fredrick started to laugh. “You’re joking…right?”
“No, sir. I’m not. They all left and are doing their best to distance themselves from you.”
“That planet out there,” said Fredrick, pointing up past his assistant, “must have been a lush world at one time, but what is left of their sun will expand and turn it into dust.” Fredrick threw his hands in the air. “No one will know who or what lived there. Eventually, it will happen to all worlds.”
“Sir, are you not hearing me? There will be no more jobs. We are wanted criminals by multiple worlds, and—”
Fredrick held up a finger. “I like your newfound sense of bravery. Raising your voice at me. It brings a tear to my eye. How far you have come from the day I bought you, but you still have a long way to go to see the positives in the bleakness of things.”
The assistant stared at him. “Ah, sir…I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”
Fredrick sighed and shook his head. Then he went back to pacing with his hands behind his back.
“This star system, as I already have said, is dead. It was home to a long-forgotten humanoid race that is now doing quite well for themselves in a far-off galaxy. Their dying system forced them to imagine, design, and create a way off their planet. Now they have technology far beyond what they originally had.”
Frederick spun, walked up to his assistant, and stared into her eyes.
“Now take us. Yes, I still want to make Mr. Hunt suffer. I may have gone a little overboard. And yes, everyone is out for us, but not everyone will want to kill us. Think about this. There is a war, and we have proved we have a weapon of great power.”
Fredrick smiled as his assistant’s eyes opened wide.
“Now, you understand. I need you to figure out which informants we have left and have them start assessing our value.”
“Sir, are we choosing a side?”
“No, silly. We are more valuable to the small worlds stuck in the middle of two giants.”
“I understand. For our sake, I hope you’re right.” The assistant gave a slight bow and spun around.
Fredrick watched her hurry out of the room and then went back to observing the system they were in. He found the red giant intriguing. There was something odd about it, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. Shrugging, he shut down the virtual viewing screens and then sent a command for them to make a jump to the next hiding spot.
A small disk slowly spun by the edge of a red dwarf as it observed four ships. It kept this up until the four ships jumped into wormholes, and then it sent a message to its masters.
“Target located and moving. Orders?”
“Follow and observe.”
The small black cube spun up faster and vanished into a wormhole.
Commander Seymour rubbed his head and neck, trying to get out of the daze. His eyes slowly opened, and he shook his head to clear out the cobwebs. His memory was a fog, and the last thing he could remember was being jumped by the guards at the detention center.
Smacking himself in the face a few times started to jog his memory of a prison cell and a brightly colored whack job of a man pacing around mumbling about a dead puppet, Mr. Hunt, and how he needed to change his plans.
Now that his head was clearing, he struggled to move his other arm and realized he was lying down in a ship escape pod. Reaching to his left, he pulled on a manual release, and the hatch of the pod blew off. Immediately he brought his hand up to shield his eyes from the bright sunlight while pushing himself up.
A pain shot down his left arm, and he reached over to touch the sore spot. A small blinking disk was embedded into the side of his bicep, and he received a notification that a message was sitting in his internal comm system.
Using a neural command, he accessed the message.
“Greetings, Commander Seymour. It is ironic that you have a niece named Kat, for, like her namesake, you, my new friend, have nine lives. At first, I was going to kill you in front of your niece and that wretched Mr. Hunt, but as the two have proven again, they are worthy adversaries, forcing me to alter my plans.
“To cut to the chase, I am using all the assets at my disposal, which means you. You will find an embedded chip in your arm. Don’t remove it. It blocks the planetary signal that disables bio-techs. You, my friend, are on an underworld survival gaming planet. I need you to escape the game and destroy its master.
“Now, I know what you are thinking. Why am I doing this to you? And the answer is…because I can. Now, to give you some incentive, while you are playing this game, I will be hunting your niece and Mr. Hunt, and I plan on killing them when I find them.
“So, to summarize, you are in a game of death, you need to escape and destroy it, and while you are there, your niece’s life is in jeopardy. So, don’t delay.
“Have a great day! Sincerely, Fredrick LaRue.”
Commander Seymour’s jaw clenched, and he looked around to evaluate where he was.
The pod had crashed into a group of dried up bushes. Outside of that, the place was rocky and barren. Behind him, he could make out some mountains and a tree line. He had visited many worlds, but this one didn’t look familiar to him. Eventually, he’d figure it out, but there was no time to waste.
His legs buckled when they hit the ground, forcing him to grab the side of the escape pod. Whatever drug they used on him was potent, but he had many internal augmentations, and one in particular that helped to clear out drugs like this.
Seymour moved to the front of the escape pod, touched two areas on the nose, and turned them with his thumbs. Two small cylinders popped up that he pressed and turned outward, releasing the escape pod’s front cover.
Dropping the cover on the ground behind him, he started looking over the systems, and just as he had thought, they had removed the comm and identification components.
Yanking out parts and tossing them aside, he dug deeper through the internals and found what he was looking for: the power cubes. Removing them wouldn’t be too tricky, but a slight movement by his right boot caught his eye. A shadow was starting to grow larger. He counted to five and then dashed to his left and turned around. A club smashed down where he was standing, and its spiked end stuck into the escape pod.
A large humanoid stood there. It had an oval head that sat on a muscular neck, a mouth of razor-sharp teeth, and an external set of bone that outlined its form to reinforce its frame.
Commander Seymour wasted no ti
me and kicked out at the creature, knocking it back. The creature hissed at him, drew a crude-looking knife, and lunged at him. Commander Seymour parried the attack and smashed the creature in the face with his palm, forcing it to take a step back. He sidestepped away from the escape pod, and the creature moved parallel with him.
The creature feigned a few attacks and then sliced at him, but it was a distraction. As Commander Seymour went to block, the creature pulled the knife back and kicked out, hitting him and dropping him to a knee.
Over three centuries of combat experience kicked in, and he dived to his right as soon as his knee hit the ground, which saved him from getting slashed by the blade.
Landing by the escaped pod hatch, Commander Seymour grabbed the cover and, with what could only be done with augmented strength burst, swung the pod’s cover as the creature stepped in. The impact dented the cover, and the creature stumbled back.
Commander Seymour raised the pod cover overhead and smashed it over the dazed creature. The cracking sound of the creature’s skull told him the fight was over.
Tossing the cover aside, he knelt by the creature that was now coughing up blood.
“Where am I?”
The creature gave a bloody grin and died.
“I hope you find nothing on the other side, you Rapturian piece of crap,” said Commander Seymour, punching the body one last time.
A loud ding made him jump up and spin around, ready for another attack, but this time a small round AI floated down, with the sounds of cheering people emanating from it.
“You have gained twenty-five hundred points for killing a Rapturian warrior and another five thousand points for the unique kill. His items now belong to you.”
Commander Seymour grabbed the AI but let go quickly when he was shocked.
“Sorry, but system mechanics are not in play,” said the AI.
“Not in play, you hovering crap ball. What is this nonsense?”
“My apologies, Earth Consortium human. Welcome to the game! The longer you live, the greater the prizes, and the possibility of freedom. Good luck!”
Second Life of Mr. Hunt: Book 3: Failover Page 29