Blood Honor launched its compliment of twelve dart fighters. They formed up in a spread-out battle line and charged hard to close on the target. Their intention was clear; they were on a kamikaze run. The three capital ships launched the last of their nuclear armed warheads to join in the suicide attack. In perfect execution, the missile volley caught up to the fighters as they approached the enemy’s estimated weapons range and released their own missiles.
The pyramids’ defenses jumped into action. The lead missiles vanished. By the time the fighters reached their own weapons range, they were all that remained of the attack. The group got one shot off before they, too, were wiped from the void. They’d concentrated their fire by targeting the same spot on the target ship. Twelve invisible beams plowed into the enemy shield. The only proof of their existence was a minor distortion on the transparent barrier.
Rocketing at max thrust, the three capital ships prayed against reality to inflict some measure of harm, either by the sharpness of their blades or the sheer fury of their charge.
Simple point defenses could not meet such an attack. The enemy was forced to direct massive quantities of power to their primary weapon. As the stations before, balls of light formed at the three points of the pyramids facing the attack. Rivers of pure energy shot to the center of the hull and flared out at the speed of light.
Two beams found two targets. The Coral Sea took a hit on its nose cone. The power of the strike bore straight through before the ship exploded. Blood Honor suffered a mortal blow on their port side. Half the vessel disintegrated while the lifeless remainder continued to hurtle through space, beginning an endless journey as a ghost ship.
The Siege of Taipei closed to within range and fired fruitless defiant shots. Her laser cannon scored hits on both ships. A microsecond later, dual point-blank hits vaporized her down to the last atom.
Chen lowered his head after the Siege of Taipei fell. He kept it there in quiet respect for the brave crews and in his profound shame for having sent them to their doom. He was also avoiding the display. He feared that the sacrifice was for naught, that the courage of his soldiers and sailors would be meaningless in this new chapter of the war.
Eventually, slowly, he lifted his eyes upward. The display registered the enemy acceleration at zero. He blinked and shook his head as if the data were a mirage. Narrowing his eyes, he looked closer to find the same answer. The enemy wasn’t moving.
It dawned on him. The enemy’s own computers told them they couldn’t catch the fleeing force and decided to hold position rather than follow their prey into an unknown situation, maybe even a trap of some design.
A smile, or more exactly a smirk, crossed his face. He quickly arrested the emotion that caused it to appear. No, for now, his guilt demanded he remain stone-like.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Interrogation
There were times when Dalton really wished his holo projection allowed him to choke the living shit out of someone who desperately deserved it. Today was one of those days.
The deputy directors who ringed the table wisely kept their heads down, hoping to weather the hurricane of anger emanating from a depiction of a little boy throwing a temper tantrum, a tantrum that could turn deadly for any one of them.
“I don’t understand,” Dalton said, “how you assholes allowed this to happen. After decades of keeping those amateurs at the CIA in the dark, you let them put our entire plan in jeopardy!
“Everything we’ve worked for depends on adopting the discovery on P-1425X for our sole use. Now our enemies know our greatest secret!” Dalton heaved air in and out. His face burned red hot. The program flawlessly translated these natural biological responses to the hologram. “The only reason any of you worthless pricks are going to live is because I had the foresight to assume you’d fail and took steps myself to protect our most important asset.”
***
The space around Alpha Base was clogged with vessels of every type. The combined fleet struggled to transfer displaced soldiers and restock expendable ordnance in the event the enemy made a quick pursuit. The Bearcat Galactic Armada was in a hurry to jump to their home system, to bolster its defenses. A few observers and liaison officers were exchanged in the name of future cooperation and intel sharing, but for all intents and purposes, humanity and Bearcats each prepared to meet the new threat alone. Neither expected the other to aid in the defense of their worlds at the expense of their own.
Walking the halls of the base, Trent sensed a troubling shift in the vibe of the crew. In all of his past visits, a certain ‘masters of the universe’ aura lingered in the recycled air – an arrogance earned through countless victories and an enemy on the retreat. They weren’t used to seeing the Fleet running home with its tail between their legs. The idea of defeat had never really occurred to them. Now that ugly mistress was staring them square in the face.
He understood the strategic value of morale and knew one cannot expect a military force to cheer up simply because they were ordered to. They needed something to celebrate, and he hoped his next meeting would provide the insight necessary to achieve just that.
The door recognized him and slid open. The plain room featured a boring black carbon fiber table and two chairs. What made the room interesting was the guest of honor. So far, they had only learned his name: Tyfar.
“Good morning,” Trent said to the nervous cat-like creature. Its jittery yellow eyes and flipping tail indicated serious agitation. “I trust our medical staff has treated you well. You seem to have recovered from the radiation poisoning.”
“Yes, thank you for saving me. I am in your debt.”
What a passive species. If some guy invaded my home world and nuked my capitol, the last thing I’d do is thank him for saving me just so he could question me. Trent had to remind himself that this “passive species” had just kicked his ass.
“I hope you don’t mind, but we took the liberty of implanting a translation chip into your head.” He grinned wide, forcing the expression regardless of his own instinct to keep his face neutral. It was important to show an expression Tyfar would interpret properly, hence the grin.
“Not at all. I understand the need for smooth communications. It is an important part of my occupation.” He paused and contemplated those words. “Or at least, it used to be.”
“Oh? What did you do for a living? Can I offer you something to drink or eat?” Trent wanted him to think this was a casual conversation. That was when prisoners tended to let the most interesting pieces of information slip.
“I am fine, thank you. I worked for the community government. I heard people’s problems and tried to resolve them in an orderly and mutually beneficial manner.”
Trent leaned back. “I have to ask. You don’t seem angry with us for attacking your world. Can I ask why?”
“Please understand that I am very troubled by your actions on my world. Anger is a wasted emotion, however. What good will come of it? Just violence, and violence can only lead to more anger and then even more violence. It is a doomed cycle my people abolished long ago.”
“I see.” Trent leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table and trying to look earnest – assuming that the Kitright would even understand the expression.
Tyfar blinked. “May I ask you a question?”
Trent straightened up slightly. “Please.”
“Why did you attack my world?”
“Ah. That is a good question. I guess you could say that we attacked because you lied to us, both the Humans and the Bearcats.”
“You killed millions of my people because of a lie?” Tyfar’s tail wagged hard side to side.
So much for not getting upset.
Trent leaned back in his chair, settling in for a longer discussion. “It’s a … bit more complicated than that. You see, your people’s lies caused the humans and the Bearcats to go to war with one another. You deliberately arranged a conflict between us, where there was none originally and most likely would
not have been, had we been left to our own devices, in the hopes that we’d eventually wipe each other out. Many lives were lost in the fighting and many more were destroyed, mine included.”
“I do not know what you speak of.”
Trent tapped his index finger on the table. “For the record, we didn’t kill civilians wantonly or intentionally. Your robots, soldier drones or whatever they were, killed your people. Every time that it became clear that we were going to win, they’d start killing as many of your people as they could find.”
Tyfar’s tail stopped cold. His eyes never changed to betray emotion, but the tail certainly indicated that something was going on behind that immobile visage. “You lie.”
“What would I have to gain from lying to you?” Trent flipped his hand over, palm uppermost. “If you want proof, I can show you hours of recordings that show what your own military did to your civilians.”
“They are not our military,” Tyfar spat. “The Kitright people have no armies.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Amanda thought-spoke to Trent from the next room where she was watching on a surveillance system. He fought to restrain a smile. Keeping as neutral an expression as the Kitright seemed important right now.
“What do you mean, they aren’t your military? They’re clearly drones or robots of some kind, but surely your leaders control them. We fought them in space and again on the planet’s surface. We first saw them at one of your trading posts.” He leaned on the table again. “What I don’t get – what puzzles the … the daylights out of us is why they would abruptly target your civilian population just because we were winning.”
Tyfar’s tail sank to the floor. That, at least, Trent understood. It was the Kitright equivalent of a sigh. “Your attack must have caused many of my people to turn to violence.”
“You mean that they wanted to fight to defend their homes, their families? For that, your machines killed them?” He couldn’t keep the disgust from his tone.
Tyfar didn’t seem to notice. It was as though he had retreated some place inside, emotionally. “The Keepers are only marginally under the control of our leaders. Their base programming was written by the Givers, and that overrides everything else. If someone pursues violence, they are to be cut from society before the disease spreads.”
Trent struggled to retrain his excitement. “Now we’re really getting somewhere,” he thought-spoke to Amanda. “Who are the Givers?”
“The Givers visited my world long ago, when we still lived in the woods and survived by primitive means. The Givers found my people’s aversion to violence a most worthy quality, one which warranted their help in elevating us to a higher plane of existence.”
“You mean they gave you technology? Computers, space travel, and more?”
“Yes.”
Trent’s heart raced. “Are the Givers biological entities or machines?”
“They bleed just as you and I do. Their civilization stretched across the galaxy when we met. They told us that early in the history of their culture, they almost destroyed themselves with violence, with war. They created the Keepers to maintain peace within their own people. If one party waged war against another, the Keepers would eliminate those who perpetuated the conflict.”
“Where are the Givers now?”
“No one knows for sure. One day the Keepers appeared over our sky and informed us that the people we knew as the Givers were gone. The Keepers landed and began to maintain peace within our society through the only means we ever saw.”
Trent’s mind spun with the revelation. He remembered the words of the Kitright ambassador. “They were right to try and arrange your mutual destruction.” Obviously, the Keepers were ‘they.’ A million questions ran through his head, and he sorted them as best he could.
“The ships buried under the ground in your city – they were far more advanced than the others. Why, if the Keepers have such technology, did they not simply build more of them? If they didn’t approve of my people’s war-like ways, why not just wipe us out? Why the elaborate plan to trick humans and Bearcats into killing each other when clearly they could be convinced to do it themselves? And why employ your people in the grand scheme?” He finally ran out of breath. “I’m sorry, that’s a horrid mix of …”
Tyfar didn’t react. He simply said, “I do not know the answers to your questions.”
Trent sat back in his chair to digest what he’d heard.
***
The rest of the questioning went in circles, because fundamentally, Tyfar was a nobody who knew just enough to tantalize, but overall, didn’t know much. Spent and frustrated, Trent left him sitting at the black table, not sure what would happen to him next.
Amanda met him outside the security checkpoint. “Well, that was something.”
Leaning against the wall, thumping his head on the metal plate, he ran open hands over his sagging face and sighed. “You really think so?”
“Well, yeah.” Her eyes widened at his question. “We learned the Kitright aren’t the masterminds behind this whole thing.”
“Exactly!” He threw his hands in the air in frustration. “Once again, we attacked the wrong enemy. Once again, we have more questions than answers.”
“It’s not like they’re innocent in this whole thing. They did play a pretty big role in tricking us.”
“Did you see that guy in there?” He hooked his thumb at the door. “He’s a schmuck. The prick barely knows the difference between a bulkhead and his asshole. He isn’t any part of this, and I’m guessing his superiors were scared shitless of these...these Keepers. They’d probably have done anything they were told. But what the hell am I saying? I’m a schmuck. Heck, we’re all a bunch of schmucks playing to the tune of someone else’s cosmic flute.”
A little sheepishly, Amanda said, “At least we know who’s really behind it all now – for sure, this time.”
“Oh, please.” He swatted the air. “That entire conversation was nothing but a drawn-out lap dance. All tease and no action. Who are the Givers? What happened to them? Why didn’t their machines just wipe us out in the early days of first contact with the Kitright? I left that room with more questions than I had when I entered it.”
“You know,” She rubbed her temples. “You’re making it really hard to be the supportive girlfriend here.”
Trent reached to pull her close as she nervously looked side to side down the hall. “You’re making a scene,” she said quietly. “People are looking.”
“First, you’re not my girlfriend.”
“I’m not? Hm?”
“No, you’re my Bond Mate. Secondly, screw ‘em all. I really don’t care anymore. You’re all I have left in this universe. You and Susan, that is. I don’t even have my quest for revenge anymore. The final assault on their capitol, that was my last revenge.”
Amanda melted a bit in his arms. “Not really. You now know who you need to fight. This time there’s no doubt.”
“Oh, I’ll fight them and we’ll win. But revenge against a machine just doesn’t have the same satisfaction to it. Destroying a lifeless robot, a machine that feels no emotion as it mindlessly fulfills its programming, lacks the … romance of seeing the terror in the eyes of your mortal enemy when they realize you’ve come for them.”
She let a girlish giggle slip, although so quietly nobody but Trent could have heard it. “You’re such a romantic at heart.”
“Let’s retire to my quarters for the rest of the day. Tomorrow we go to war again. Tonight is about us.”
“That’s the best idea you’ve had in a long time.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Next Steps
The mood of the brass assembled around Admiral Chen’s conference table didn’t reflect the same confident attitude Trent remembered from his last meeting, before the launch of the grand offensive. His eyes locked with Chen’s, he could tell they both felt the same way.
General McBride, Admiral Sennet, Grand Armada Leader Bonoti and Gra
nd High Commander Fonto each tried talking over one another. The frantic discussion ran thick with unexpressed but perceptible worry under a fine layer of bravado. The leaders of the allied forces were, frankly, scared. Chen and Trent didn’t blame them, but this was perilously close to the talk of a defeated people.
Chen rose, leaning on the wooden table with both hands. “Enough!” he boomed. “This is not helping the situation.” The admiral’s command presence arrested the table’s emotion. The bickering group settled down.
Sennet brushed a lose clump of red hair back and cleared her throat. “That’s better. Now, let’s review where we stand. Bonoti, what is the state of your armada?” she asked, her eyes glinting like steel.
The mane-less lion steadied himself. “I’m afraid the Galactic Armada is in a poor state. We began the operation in a difficult position. In order to take part in such a broad offensive so soon after our losses resulting from our own unfortunate conflict, we had to strip our home world and colonies’ defenses bare.” Bonoti’s eyes fell to the table. “Now we have hardly enough to meet our commitments to our people.”
“Sennet?” Chen said.
“We are in … somewhat better shape, sir.” She looked around the table. “We have several battle groups we can spare for an attack. I’m not sure what good that will do against this new class of enemy vessel, however. The data from your engagement is troubling, to say the least.”
“Not so much troubling as it is Goddamn frustrating,” Chen replied in a growl.
“Exactly, sir,” Sennet continued. “You throw everything at them. We even had a couple of nukes get through, but nothing made it past their shields, at least nothing that we could see. We can deal with their firepower with our numbers. You proved that, sir. But if we’re going to destroy them, we have to get through those shields.”
“The lab techs have all of our data and are currently knee-deep in analysis mode,” Chen said. “God only knows when they’ll have something for us to use in the field.”
The Last Revenge (The Last Hero Trilogy Book 2) Page 31