by George Olney
"Chemical or nuclear explosives?"
The scout shook his head. "No, Commander. We found and deactivated a booby trapped control console just outside the door that was set up to use nonemitting fiberoptic transmission. If you used the wrong deactivation code, it released tachyon data packets. How many and from where, we still aren't sure, but without the console, the signal can't be sent. We did find a few of the TDPs. We're guessing the destination was Central."
Claude nodded. "Probably. Good work. Are you our guide?"
"Aye. Security will pick us up at the door."
Claude motioned to the rest of his team to follow and trailed the young Gladius to a huge gaping door in the wadi wall. Looking at the door, Claude judged it was smaller than the doors to the other caches. It wasn't large enough to take anything larger than a corvette, or maybe an armed yacht if his guess about the Emperor was right. He looked back for a moment and noticed that the two Gladii on his intelligence team, male and female, had their B-42s at combat present. That looked like a good idea to him and he drew his handgun, motioning to the Fleet members to do the same. The Gladii were in regular combat armor, but the four Fleet personnel just wore Corps issue helmets for communications capability.
And something else, Claude remembered. //"Scout leader, do we have a schematic of this place yet?"//
//"Aye. Here you are, Commander."//
A wire diagram of the cache suddenly appeared on Claude's HUD. He studied it for a moment then made a decision. //"All team members. I see two large chambers below this tunnel. If this place is like the other cache, the rooms at this level are offices and quarters. Be advised, I expect at least one set of quarters will be very large and luxurious, probably with automated guards, so be careful. In fact, let's stay away from them for the moment. I want to know what's in those two big chambers."//
//"Commander, scout leader."//
//"Go."//
//"Commo's probably on the first level and probably the computer center too. Request permission to send two teams to look."//
//"Granted, but keep in mind what I said. This place may have been intended to house the Emperor. If it was, you can expect very good AIs and automated weapons traps in real depth. The AIs are probably on standby and just your presence would activate them."//
//"Understood, Commander. Been there. There were a few when we opened up Victrix base the first time. If we run into anything, we'll pull back and let CIT technicians handle that."//
//"Good luck."// Claude smiled to himself. Clearing the cache that was now home to Victrix base probably took weeks. It was amazing what Corona had managed to do right under the noses of Ettranty and his people. However, he now had a cache of his own, one he was sure was far more heavily guarded. Wake up and remember that.
Claude's eyes were constantly scanning as they combat-walked carefully down the tunnel. The dark-penetrating ability of his visor gave everything an eerie greenish cast. At least it let him see something of the scouts ahead of him, moving with even more care, their heads and weapons constantly turning as they moved. True to their nature, the scouts were slow, but that was all right with Claude. A fast and bold scout was a dead scout and he heartily approved of everyone taking their time and staying alive.
They found an elevator, but it was inactive and would stay that way until it was safe to turn on the cavern's power. The emergency stairs were next to it. The slow creep down the stairs in total darkness was, frankly, scary. The Gladii were, true to their nature in uncertain terrain, nearly soundless. His own people weren't anywhere near that, but they were also trying their best to keep quiet. It really ought not to matter, Claude thought, since there wasn't supposed to be anyone here to hear them, but he was also trying not to make any noise. A human reaction against the unknown.
They reached the bottom and Claude saw two large metal doors that looked like they belonged on bank vaults. One of the scouts held up his hand and the entire party froze in place. The scout took a device from his belt and, with the greatest of care, began scanning the walls. Another joined him and began doing the same with another device. Then they scanned the floors and the low ceiling of the stair landing. One of them took a marker from his belt and put an X on four widely spaced spots on the walls. The other motioned for two other scouts to join them. Once in place, all four drew their axes. At a signal Claude couldn't hear, the axes slammed as one into each of the spots, cutting deeply into the wall. After that, all four relaxed. //"Automated guns, Commander."//
Claude let out the breath he was holding. Automated guns. The scouts' suppressed armor kept them from being detected, but not his people. That would have triggered the guns. Then the intelligence officer in him woke up. Why were guns here? //"Understood. Can you get the doors open?"//
//"Aye. Pick one."//
Claude pointed to the one on the left. He expected more special equipment, but the scout simply sheared his way through the armored door lock with his ax. As he casually pushed it open, he asked, //"Do the other one, Commander?"//
//"Aye, smart ass,"// Claude snarled.
He could hear the chuckle as the scout answered. //"Aye, Commander. A moment."//
Claude carefully moved forward and looked through the first open door while the scout cut the other open. The chamber inside was big, so big that he couldn't see the end of it. What he could see was row upon row of large cabinets, with forty millimeasure sized disks evenly spaced across the front of each. If the whole place was like this, there could be thousands of disks. Claude tuned up his visor's magnification and saw a code number on every one within range.
One of Claude's Fleet technicians came forward with more sophisticated equipment. //"Commander, there is a heavily suppressed low level power field in this chamber. Not dangerous. It seems to be powering these banks of whatever they are. I'm also getting readings consistent with stasis fields. The suppresser is to keep the power emanations from being detected outside the cache."//
Claude began to get a very bad feeling. //"All personnel, out of here. We need to check the next chamber. NOW!"//
He didn't even need to step into the chamber or have his tech tell him there were active stasis fields. This chamber was also immense and just as full as the other. As far as Claude could see, there they were, in row upon row of blank metal coffin shapes. Thousands of them. Stasis chambers. They'd found the crews.
//"Scout leader, Commander Ancel."//
//"Aye."//
//"Pull all of your personnel out of here. Very carefully. We've found what we came for. We need full scale tech teams from Niad here for this one, not us."//
The scout leader didn't argue. //"Aye. Disengaging now."//
Claude was shaking a little as they backed carefully from the chamber and worked their way back up the stairs. Lord Above, he kept thinking to himself, just what had they found?
CHAPTER 8
LEGIO IX VICTRIX
CAULDWELL
The destroyer headed for Cauldwell at 3500 lights MMS. Admiral Lane Mackinnie, now Chief of Naval Operations for the Frontier Fleet, was aboard along with SOC Shyranne Garua, Senior Officer of the Corps of Gladius.
Neither of these were hollow titles either, Lane mused as Shyranne placed her tray on the dining table across from him. He was still vastly amused that a flag officer shuffled off to a dead end command under one Fleet could find himself CNO in another, very real, one. The now officially constituted Frontier Fleet consisted of four formerly Imperial FSGs - Lane's and the other three they'd been able to find. Even now he had ships combing the old Empire, trying to find others. That brought refugees straggling in constantly to supplement the small number of ships carefully recovered from Victrix base. With the growing flow of pocket battleships finally coming from Tactinese yards, the Frontier Fleet was going to be formidable.
With cross assignments to the Victrix, the addition of the Third Augusta, the Seventh Rapax, and the Twelfth Ferrata, not to mention orphans from other legions that kept turning up, Shyranne Garua was
SOC of five nearly full legions. That was a positively scary fighting force in anyone's book. Lane couldn't recall when more than two legions had ever been used at any time in the Empire's history. All five were going back when the time came to clean out Central. Impressive, he thought with dry understatement.
Lane was Chief of Naval Operations - and Commander, First Frontier Fleet - because of the happy circumstance of seniority. However, the plan he and the Garuas had developed offered the best chance for survival and the other senior officers knew it. It was agreed he was going to be the CNO whenever the current Frontier Fleet became the Cluster Fleet. Forming a Cluster government to own that Fleet was the business of the politicians. Lane's business was to ensure every spacer under his command knew there was a big difference between themselves and the old Imperial Fleet. For one thing, he'd already changed Fleet uniform colors to gray. Other changes to follow.
Lane wasn't sure what mechanism the Gladii used to select the SOC, but he suspected the same type of common sense. In any case, Shyranne was his counterpart.
The news of the Emperor's last ditch sanctuary, and suspicions about its contents, were enough to bring both of them to Cauldwell. They were about a month behind the technical team clearing the cache, so there should be some solid information available by now. Both Frontier Fleet and Corps Intelligence had done a good bit of informed speculation. If even half of it was correct, someone was going to have to make an important decision very quickly. Lane and Shyranne were that someone.
Shyranne looked up at him with a small smile while she unclipped her fork and knife from the serving tray. "Well, Lane, any new ideas about those people in the cache?"
Lane looked at her in silent accusation. Her question was, of course, was what passed for Gladius humor outside of a legion. They'd done nothing else but endlessly discuss the cache. Stasis banks in one cavern had turned out to contain thousands of embryos. Fortunately, there were access points for standard medical diagnostic equipment on the bottom of each embryo tube so they knew a good bit about the babies inside; including the fact their DNA was different from the normal genome of the current population. Oh, they were still human, but with differences. What those differences were and why, nobody yet had a clue. The only thing they knew for sure was the embryos weren't clones.
"A fetus is a fetus," he rumbled. "No matter the differences, we can work with them when it comes time for the children to be raised. It's the adults in the stasis cabinets that bother me. We can't get any sort of medical readings from them except the standard life signs on the cabinet instruments. I suspect they are adult versions of the embryos and I'm going to order the revival of one once we get there."
Shyranne looked at him. There was a bit of unease under her Gladius calm, if one knew her. Lane Mackinnie knew her very well. "Something tells me we need to be very careful with that experiment, Lane. What kind of Fleet crewman would let himself be put in stasis for an indefinite length of time merely as a precaution? Those caches are over a decade old."
Lane snorted. "I suspect that's when the people in those chambers were emplaced. I agree, no normal Fleet crewman would volunteer for that. Oh, a few would, I suppose. There are always some individuals that would do something, for whatever reason, the rest find reprehensible or frightening, but there are five thousand stasis cabinets. I don't think you could find that many volunteers in the Fleet, and conscripts would be useless once awakened to find themselves in the final bastion of a hunted Emperor. You can't conscript reliable warship crews, especially in circumstances like a last ditch situation."
Shyranne took a bite of her food and thought as she chewed, looking off into the distance. "That speaks to me of fanaticism," she said finally. "Fanatic devotion to the Emperor, not the Empire. Did you see any trend in that direction before things started falling apart?"
Lane shook his head in a slow, massive motion. "The opposite in fact. Witness how many Fleet units are now backing various rebellions - or revolutions - against the Empire.
"Including ours.
"No," he rumbled, his voice low, "this is something different from the Fleet. What it is, I don't know, but it's bothering me."
VICTRIX BASE
CAULDWELL
"We're about ready to move some more of the standard ships out to you," Claude commented as he and the Admiral walked down the tunnel to Victrix Base hospital. "We still haven't got a good handle on those frigates, though, so they'll stay here for a while."
Admiral Mackinnie asked, "What seems to be the problem?"
Claude grimaced. "We're not sure about the AI. There're attachments on the AI housing that look like they ought to fit a governor or supplemental device, and the controls on the boards aren't complete. There's some kind of interface missing between the ship and the crew. Those are features I didn't see on the original plans back when I was Imperial Intelligence. Someone added some things when they built the production models we found. The rated speed is a good indicator of that. Right now, nobody can say how those ships would do in combat, but I suspect they'd be damned good."
Lane grunted. "Whatever it is, we have to find out before we meet those frigates in Middle Empire. I'm not happy with the Empire having that big a technological jump on our ships."
Claude nodded agreement as they arrived at the hospital door. In one of the examining rooms, they joined a group standing around a naked muscular man lying on a hospital bed. There were several doctors in the group, along with Shyranne and Major Passant. Four young legionnaires stood, quietly watchful, in the background. Shyranne was uneasy about the man on the bed, the first they'd removed from a stasis chamber. The guards were evidence of the fact.
The supervising physician, Lieutenant Commander Jandrews, welcomed the Admiral, and began explaining. "Since we got him out of the cabinet, we've been bringing his vitals up slowly in a standard curve, just like the cabinet would do if left to a normal revival sequence, but we've also got him in an anesthesia field until we want him to wake up. Right now, the field's the only thing keeping him inactive."
Lane nodded and the doctor continued. "We've done a medical work-up and now have a pretty good picture of his body. First of all, he has a very well developed musculature, almost as well developed as a Gladius, but with some differences. Again, his genome is remarkably similar to that of a Gladius, but missing some of the features in the current type."
Jandrews walked over to the bed. "He's heavily augmented, with what appear to be subcutaneous drug reservoirs and various electronic devices." He pointed to the man's wrists. "There are tractor presser devices embedded in his wrists, and, here in his chest, what looks like communications equipment. We've got jammers already working in case he tries to send some sort of message. His head also contains receptors of some kind, but I can't guess at the purpose right now."
"You're describing someone surgically enhanced to be one of us," Shyranne commented.
Jandrews nodded. "I think that may be a very accurate guess. I'd also suspect other more subtle mental modifications, but I'm not prepared to say what their purpose might be."
Lane looked at Shyranne. "Are we ready to wake him up?"
Shyranne looked around at her guards and nodded. Quietly, Passant put his hand on his ax. "Yes, go ahead."
Jandrews looked at his monitors and brushed a sensor on a small control in his hand. "Anesthesia dropping," he said in an abstracted voice that showed his concentration on the monitor screen. "Vitals coming up. Approaching nominal. Nominal.
"He's awake," the doctor said in a quiet monotone. The man on the bed hadn't moved a muscle.
Suddenly, his eyes flew open and flipped back and forth as he rapidly scanned the room, then he leaped like an attacking tiger, straight at one of the guards. A straight arm to the chest walloped the Gladius back as the other hand dipped and came up with his short sword. The man continued on without breaking stride, headed for the door. A thrown ax smacked his legs and felled him.
The man was back up on his feet in an insta
nt, but Passant's ax was back in his hand by that time. Action slowed as the two squared off, every muscle tense with explosive power held in check. They crouched and began a slow sideways movement, the man trying to get a clear path to the door and Passant moving to block him.
"Gladio alieyo," Passant said softly, his unfocused eyes watching every aspect of his opponent as the two carefully stepped sideways in the deadly dance.
"Ave Keesar." The man spoke his first words in a mellow baritone. What he said caused Shyranne to suddenly frown in concentration.
While the two squared off, the three remaining guards had immediately taken blocking positions in front of the door, axes out. The fourth trooper was still down, although moving. One of the doctors was out of his shocked paralysis and starting to kneel next to him. The naked man slowly shifted back into the room to a position that gave him a view of the door and the guards blocking it. He smiled slightly. "Prodator. Prodator et..."
Then he leaped towards Passant, sword blade flashing in a killing stroke.
When someone speaks, most people will listen politely until he is finished. That's an old mistake in a knife fight. Passant didn't make it. As the sword blade shot forward, he leaped up and sideways, his body curved to give his right arm power as he swung his ax in a flashing downward arc completely cleaving the man's neck. As he swung, Passant turned his blade slightly to sever the man's arm in the middle of his forearm. If he hadn't, the twist the man gave his body would have kept the sword moving upward. Both had the reflexes to correct in mid strike and the naked man's blade would have slashed Passant across the torso even after death. As it was, blood from the severed arm flew in an arc across Passant's chest, showing where the sword blade would have slashed - and killed - him.