She took another slug and sighed. “I hope it’s good, whatever you’re dragging me into,” she muttered.
“Aliens, new frontiers—only the best for you!” Ortiz laughed and grinned at her over his shoulder as they exited the spine of the ship where all the cryopods were located and entered one of the several cafeterias that littered the ship.
“Hit me with it,” she said. “How long have I been out, where are we, and why the hell are you the one waking me up?”
“Have another drink and watch.” Ortiz pulled out a hologram projector, set it down on the table and hit play.
The prepared video, meant to inform and prepare them, took no more than a few minutes and he watched as she did. She took another swig of his Scotch and passed him the bottle back. They sat there in silence. The video showed the fighting with the Harmony Forces, then the Maraukians showing up, coming to know about the legion, and Mark emerging from it all to pull them together and give the ex-EMF personnel a chance at a new life.
Finally, the video finished off with information on the Emarl system.
“Okay, what’s your sales pitch?” Ramirez asked.
“Simple. We can hook this ship up with one of those faster-than-light drives and head for Emarl. You are in a holding pattern with two of EMFCs—we all go together.
“Then, when we get to Emarl, you can make a decision: fight for your own future instead of the corporations, or start your own life as a civilian, with training included,” Ortiz said.
“It sounds too good to be true.”
“Well, it ain’t going to be easy. It’ll take us months to get there, and we will need to make sure that we have people who are only looking out for themselves or for their fellow troopers. Any EHC spies or the higher-ranking corporation dogs we need to get rid of,” Ortiz said.
A savage look appeared on Ramirez’s face. “With pleasure. Though, what’s to say that they won’t activate some kind of fail-safe and blow us all to kingdom come?”
“Because I’ve got the codes, making me the highest-ranking person in the ship’s system, and there’s a team of engineers working to remove the different fail-safe systems,” Ortiz said.
“Looks like you became a general and grew brain cells. I never expected such a thing to happen,” Ramirez said, making a shocked expression.
Ortiz rolled his eyes and grinned.
Ramirez pulled out a tablet and started working on it. Sometime later, she passed it to Ortiz. “This is a list of all the people loyal to the EHC that I know of.” She watched Ortiz’s expression.
“Very well.” Ortiz copied the information to his NIAI and passed the order to not wake these people, while also requesting information on what these people had done. If they committed crimes, they’d never wake up again; if they hadn’t, then he would leave them in storage until there was a time that they could do something with them or send them back to the EHC.
“Time we headed to the command deck. From there, we can wake everyone up, get them up to speed, and then start with the upgrades and head for the Emarl system,” Ortiz said.
Ramirez pushed out her chair and stretched. “Spent too long sleeping. Be nice to actually live for a bit.”
Ortiz nodded. Ramirez had been in the EMF longer than him by nearly one hundred years, but she had been asleep for most of it as her carrier wasn’t near a lot of the fighting systems.
Still, she had led her people across three worlds to secure peace, fighting all kinds of people who wanted her and her people dead.
Being a trooper wasn’t easy. It was only the hope that at the end of it all they’d be able to escape from everything that they kept going. That’s what they told themselves but it became more of the person on either side of you than that far-off goal.
“Good to have you on board, Major.” Ortiz stood and extended his hand.
She flashed him a smile. “How about once the ship is moving, we take that bottle somewhere private?”
“That sounds like a damn good plan to me.” Ortiz wanted nothing more than to blow some steam off after all the stress he had been under in the last couple of months.
There would be more shitty situations in the future, but worrying about them now was pointless. He just got a new carrier with nearly two hundred thousand people to join the Emarl system.
He checked the reports coming in from the other ships. Scratch that, three carriers of EMF personnel.
He didn’t know what would happen in the future, but having these people with him, he felt that the future was a little less bleak.
Chapter Forty-Two
Freighter O-41 (Wind Snapper)
In Transit to Hellenic System
3/3556
Moretti was pouring over reports coming from the different sources he had in the Roma Union. With the departure of Nerva from the legion, the legion had been in turmoil.
People were calling him a traitor; others were agreeing with him.
The senate and the legion were already starting to move.
No one could see what would happen in the future.
Moretti was able to use the confusion to seed a few new sources among different groups and get a greater understanding of what was happening. Right now he could only react to information; he didn’t have the power to start affecting even a slight change in the Union.
The report he was focusing on was Damus’s new orders that looked to create legions that were without political alliances.
It was a bold move but if it could be carried out, Damus would have a force he could totally rely on instead of the political mess that was involved in some of the larger legions and space legion crews.
Admiral Hesra was political poison at the moment. No one wanted to touch him.
Though Moretti saw that his father Tertius was working closer with Rimateus than ever before. It wasn’t in any kind of official capacity, but the people he had around the two of them indicated that they were organizing something.
Moretti didn’t like it. The two of them both had grievances with powerful characters in the Emarl system. Left together, he wasn’t sure what would come from it, but he was sure it wouldn’t be anything good.
He turned his attention to the EHC and started to go through reports there. Unlike the Union, he had a much greater reach.
He had been close to the center of the Ministry of Intelligence. His contacts were some of the best and none of his contacts knew who he was. With his different credit accounts and aliases, he covered most of Earth and Her Colonies.
“Why is the Luyten conglomerate buying up more ships in-system? Looks like they’re also making something they don’t want others to know about in their development labs in the Luyten system.” Moretti started to dig deeper. The Luyten system was staying quiet, but they were quietly buying up a lot of shipping vessels in their system and even in the Sol system.
Moretti sent off a message to some of his sources within the Luyten conglomerate to see whether he could get more information out of them.
There’s too much moving around and we can barely stay on top of it. Moretti and his people were dealing with it, but they needed to grow out their force. Few people wanted to work in intelligence gathering. Moretti hoped to recruit some more of the troopers as their identities and loyalty could be confirmed.
His mind moved to Cronus. The young man was bold and cocky. If he could rein in that cockiness, it would be possible to turn him into a capable agent.
With him working with Moretti, Moretti could then get him to vet the people on Tricticus easier and try to build up more intelligence officers from a greater pool of people.
So much to do and so little time to do it.
Chapter Forty-Three
EMFC Doomsday
In Transit to the Emarl System
3/3556
Ortiz’s worries seemed to be all for naught. Once the troopers aboard the different ships met with the retired troopers who had come with Ortiz, they had watched the video and got updated on what had happen
ed.
They had their own doubts as they woke up their people and started to talk between ships. It took some time with Ortiz and his people, not sure what to do but sit there before a decision came back.
They were with the Victor Corporation. They would sell the ship and the different items on it to the Victor Corporation, which would give them some decent cash to use how they wanted to. If they wanted to retire, then it would be possible.
This was within expected results. After all, if the troopers retired, they would probably live on the station, the Yard, or Tricticus. If they went to any of these places, then their credits would serve to help these places. The more money moved around, the greater stability they could find within the system.
If they didn’t, then there were plenty of jobs that they could train for, pay with the money that they got and start on their own path.
If other people wanted to set up businesses in the Emarl system, then it would be only another thing that the Victor Corporation didn’t need to do.
Work had started right away as the troopers started to wake up and the trusted personnel of the ship were also woken.
They went through the lists of people, checking them with Moretti to see whether any of them were listed as spies and going through the records to see who were the corporations’ people and not.
It was a long list of spies and contacts.
They had gone through and looked up people’s different crimes. A number weren’t even woken up. Others who were spies or people from the corporations were locked down and left asleep.
Everyone else was put to work and allowed to access the recruiting systems of Emarl.
With the freighter, they had a few fabbers—one level-one fabber for each of the carriers. They had two purposes: to make NIAIs and to make more fabbers.
People who elected to be part of the Victor Corporation and join the Skill Schools were given NIAIs.
For them, their training already started as they were able to see the classroom through their NIAIs in real time. They could even participate as if they were really there.
Ortiz couldn’t help but be surprised by Esamai’s suggestion.
If they’re going to be spending months trying to get to Emarl, we best start teaching them something useful! Her words rang through his head as he truly understood what she meant. Time was limited. The troopers were all trained to deal with space and they had dealt with weapon systems for most of their lives. They understood health and safety and didn’t need the extensive training that someone who had lived on a planet all their life would need.
Instead of the regular year that it might take some of the people on Tricticus to train up for a job, it would take the troopers just five months.
With a total crew who they knew were reliable at about five hundred thousand people, including armorers, engineers, an array of technical specialists and troopers, some people were already looking for signing bonuses, bringing their expertise to the fore.
Everyone was excited. All of them thought that when they woke up next, it would be to deal with another battle, continuing the endless cycle of killing.
It had taken some time to put the different Alcubierre drives together. The Freighter B-17 had headed off toward Osdal to help there and now they were running through the final tests.
“We’re looking good, General.” The captain of the Doomsday was a young-looking man called Hurley. The command staff was filled with corporate types, so it had been hard to scrape together a command crew that Ortiz and the people aboard the ship had faith in.
“Well, let’s give it a try,” Ortiz said.
The three carriers had moved into formation. They were a dominating sight to behold as they seemed ready to face whatever might come in their future.
“Engaging Alcubierre drive,” the navigation officer said.
One by one, all three of the ships disappeared from where they had laid dormant for decades.
Ortiz looked to the sensor plot as information was uploaded. They re-entered real space, one of the ships appearing and then the others popping up.
He stopped himself from letting out a sigh of relief and continued on as if everything was normal.
The ships’ positions weren’t the same when they had activated their Alcubierre drives but they were still within a few light-seconds of one another.
Ortiz looked to Major Ramirez, now Lieutenant Colonel Ramirez.
“Well, looks like someone much smarter than you made it,” Ramirez said in her all-wise and seeing tone.
Ortiz shook his head as he saw a few grins on the bridge. Ramirez looked close to laughing as Ortiz didn’t know what to say.
“We’ll be fully charged in a couple of hours,” Hurley said.
Nice save. Good man. Ortiz shared a look with the captain, who smiled slightly.
“Good. It won’t be a short journey but in nine months we’ll be in Emarl system.” Ortiz was looking forward to it as much as the people around him.
Now that the technology had worked, even those who had been denying his words and calling him a liar found it hard to argue with him.
If this was possible, then why shouldn’t the Emarl system be the utopia it sounded like?
Chapter Forty-Four
Legate Nerva’s Estate (Aegean Gardens)
Departing Hellenic System
3/3556
Farus never doubted that the engineers had kept the station in fully working condition, but hearing and feeling their multi-engines start up and thrum under his feet settled any nerves he had.
He had gotten his orders a few months ago. It had taken time to pass this information to everyone. In that time, there was no communication with the outside world. Families made requests, with their members being sought out in-system.
All of the residents who had left to pursue higher schooling or working at other places were called back.
They weren’t sure what was going on. When they arrived, they received a shock: the gardens were moving.
Everyone had to make their own decision. Some wanted to stay; others wanted to leave. Farus didn’t pressure them either way.
He focused on making sure that they had everything they needed.
It had gone on for a month and a half before different groups started to think something was up.
The Aegean Gardens had been one of the centerpieces of the Hellenic system. People from all over the system bought and traded goods with them. With the sudden shutdown, a lot of people were confused.
Farus had made the excuse that there was an issue with the water on the station but they were looking to sort it out themselves. That had gained them another two weeks, with people watching the station closely.
People started asking questions but Farus and the people of the gardens were too busy to care.
Ideas, conspiracy theories, and experts were called in to debate what was happening. Finally, the gardens gave their response. Engines across the gardens started up, as the gardens began to push out of its orbit.
Everyone was in uproar, they’d forgotten that the Aegean Gardens had the capability to move.
Calls came in but Farus let them go without responding, instead checking on the people under his command and in the Aegean Gardens.
When Farus had made the announcement initially, there had been a lot of talk. The council he aided to run everything was very concerned, not only for their safety but for those they also had planetside.
To his surprise, of the station’s staff and occupants, not one family had wanted to leave. The opportunity had been there, the chance to stay with the legion and leave. But not one of them had wanted to.
This made him very proud, proud to have fought alongside these honorable men and women and proud to have their families now with him—workers, training troopers, and more. The fact that they were sticking with Nerva meant they’d back him no matter what. Respect due to the great leader who had over time made this station what it was, and the workforce what it became.
> It was time to move, and standing in his office now, he felt more like the ship’s captain he thought he might be one day as a fresh legionnaire.
Yin knocked on his door and then stepped inside. “Everyone is waiting your final order.”
Farus looked to her. “The moment we move, they’ll know.”
She nodded. “Yes, there are several ships we might encounter pushing away from orbit.”
Farus knew this. He’d been watching their trajectories and had timed it for the least involvement from the legion, but he expected something to happen. Someone would track their engines as soon as they ramped up. He just hoped that no one would open fire. This station was not shielded enough against any weapons nor would it withstand any kind of attack. This maneuver had to be quick as possible—get out of orbit and then fire the Alcubierre drives.
Sounded much easier than the actuality of it.
“I’m ready.” He motioned to Yin.
His image projected across multiple screens the station wide; his voice echoed along with it. “All hands, this is Cilo Farus. Secure yourselves. We are commencing orbital push in five minutes. I repeat, we are leaving orbit in five minutes.”
Yin smiled at him, and he nodded. “Shall we watch this from a better view?”
“Yes, let’s.”
***
Cilo watched as Roma grew smaller in their viewer. Pushing off from the planet itself was a huge feat. He knew the engineers would be working full throttle to get her out into space so they could use the Alcubierre drives that she was built with.
This time he wanted everything to go well, but he felt in his gut something was bound to go wrong.
He turned to Yin, who also had a frown on her pretty young face. “What is it?” she asked.
Farus moved to a comms panel and pushed for engineering. “How’s our trajectory looking?”
“We have intercepting carriers moving in,” came the stern reply.
Cilo and Yin looked to each other. Moving as quick as his old bones could carry him, he and Yin fled below. They would no longer watch from above. He was needed below decks, to manage what was inevitable.
An Empire is Born (Maraukian War Book 3) Page 20