by Mark Wandrey
"We wish to be less of a burden."
"We've had this discussion before, but I don't know what I can do. We cannot allow you uncontrolled access to a Portal; this was a condition on our alliance set down by the Chosen council."
"I hope to one day prove that this precaution is unnecessary. But I fully understand, at this point."
"Then how do you propose to do anything more? By agreeing to fight for us and help train our army you are more than carrying your share of the load."
"We would like to grow some of our own food."
"Oh… I wasn't expecting that. What kind of crops would you grow?"
Var'at smiled, or rather opened his mouth slightly to display rows of needle sharp teeth. "You misunderstand. Not crops, food."
"Oh, right," Minu said nervously. Watching him sip fruit juice it was easy to forget their nature. She dispelled the image from her mind of that first time she'd run into the Rasa and their preying on one of her team. "What animals do you wish to grow?" she asked, cringing against the thought of him suggesting humans.
"We would most prefer Faka, from our own world. But considering our dispossession, we find it unlikely to be able to obtain a breeding stock on any legal market. Your native Tuck, while tasty, are too large and prefer the lower plains. So we were thinking of sheep."
"Really?"
"Yes, we find the adult female sheep very tasty indeed." Minu swallowed, remembering an old Earth horror movie she'd watched a few weeks ago, crying lambs was the central theme. "Your logistics people have provided us some of this meat, but it is always old and tough. We would like to grow our own to have it young and tender."
"Well, the sheep is grown primarily to harvest its fur to make clothing on our world."
"A need we do not have," he pointed out. The Rasa wore only utility belting and body armor. The only time she'd ever seen them wear anything approaching clothing was for vacuum or very cold climates.
"True, but this is why you are getting old sheep. They are too old to harvest their fur anymore."
"Would we be able to breed our own? We would even allow them to have their fur cut off before consuming them."
"I think that could be arranged. I'll get with logistics to purchase a breeding stock of twenty or so." The Rasa force of one thousand lived in a settlement just over the ridge from Fort Jovich. It was considered remote enough to be no threat to the neighboring community of Peninsula tribe, not that Minu thought they were a threat. The Rasa had followed every rule the humans set for them. Even though that was the case, their presence remained a carefully kept secret. "Is there anything else?"
"Yesss as a matter of fact. I would like to know if we are to be allowed to train with your new Shock Rifles?"
"Ah, right. Well, that determination has not been made yet."
"Very well," Var'at said and turned to skitter out of her office. In a human she would take that for a hurt response. In the reptilian alien, it was just his way of taking his leave. The conversation is over, time to go. She shook her head and dictated an email to Cherise, her friend from the trials and one of only eleven current non-soldier female Chosen. She was in the Logistics branch and in charge of keeping Minu's army supplied. The Rasa fell under that heading. On the end of the message she tacked a post script saying she would be at the Chosen headquarters of Steven's Pass next week and was looking forward to one of their now considerably less common knife and martial arts drills. The much taller black girl from the Desert tribe was a natural, and the best teacher Minu could ask for. Without her help in learning knife fighting during the trials, Minu would likely be dead.
Lightning flashed outside, the storm was growing in intensity. Minu yawned and considered heading to her billet. Her chronometer said it was twenty hours since she'd last slept.
Suddenly her phone squealed for attention. "Chosen Alma," she answered.
"This is Portal operations," the Chosen answered, "we have a scout team coming through!"
Minu was instantly alert. "What?" Their Portal code was relocated from Steven's Pass. That location was still the center of off world operations until her facility was brought fully on line, but the Fort’s Portal address was unique. Any scout team coming through here was one which must have left more than six months ago. "Christian," she said quietly, then out loud "I'll be right there!"
The drop tube deposited her just outside the operations center. The building had a maze of them, the Concordia made hover fields allowed for fast movement of men and equipment. The operations center walls were one meter thick, made of the Concordian metal, dualloy. The fantastic ceramic steel was amazingly resistant to all forms of radiation and able to dissipate heat at a miraculous rate. Inside was a space twenty meters square where the Portal sat. A meter thick moliplas viewing window was set in three of the four walls, and all six sides supported emitters for energy shields and force fields. It was the most impregnable Portal room they could design.
As she ran through the ready room into the adjacent viewing room, she could see a very travel weary looking team of five Chosen standing outside the Portal looking around in amazement. This was not where they expected to arrive, having dialed the Steven's Pass Portal code. Four robotic beamcaster turrets, one in each corner, were trained on them. All the walls shimmered from obvious energy shields.
"What the fuck is this?" she heard one of them yell through the speaker. It was Christian, no mistaking his chiseled features and short cut blond hair.
"Clear them through," she said, knowing the Portal monitor would hear her from his armored location some hundred meters away (another security precaution). The shields winked out and the meter thick vault-like door began to swing inward. Minu jogged around to that side and was standing there when it opened enough for him to see her. "We figured you were dead!" Minu cried, her voice full of relief and concern. She knew her eyes were shining from unshed tears and it took all her willpower not run into his arms.
He led his team through the huge door, eying the room in wonder. "Who's the Chosen in charge?" he asked, all business, like any Scout coming in from off world.
"You're looking at her."
He started and looked at her sleeve. Three gold stars rode there, similar to his own three black stars. He came to rough attention, obviously confused but doing his job. "Chosen Christian Forsythe reporting. We lost one member, Derick Benedict. Now, can you tell me where the hell we are? What happened to the courtyard?"
"This isn't Steven's Pass," she said and gestured around, "this is Fort Jovich."
"Fort Jovich? Are we at war or something?"
"You better come to debriefing," she said and gestured for his team to follow, "there is a lot for you to catch up on. And the Council will want to know what happened to you over the last six months!"
Chapter 2
Octember 3rd, 520 AE
Fort Jovich, Peninsula Tribe Territory
"We declare Fort Jovich, operational!" The fresh bottle of mead exploded against the dualloy structure drenching several dignitaries in honey wine. There were laughs and smiles all around, no harm done. Minu snorted, as if they would be offended? Most of the old bastards had made thousands of credits during the fort’s construction. Operational? Not close yet. There were still a dozen problems with major systems, and hundreds of smaller glitches. But, when the Chosen Council wanted a party, you threw a party.
"And here is the Chosen in command of the fort," Minu heard Jacob saying and put on her best ass kissing smile before turning. She recognized several planetary council members and a swarm of buzzing reporters. "Two years of intense work and we are very proud of what she's accomplished here, and with the new soldiers."
"Thank you, First Jacob," she said and effected a bow. Cameras clicked and whirled. Several council members shook her hand, some more enthusiastically than others. Then the press shoved forward and she prepared for battle.
"How does it feel to be the first female Chosen to reach three stars in such a short time?" one yelled over the o
thers.
"It felt very humbling, a year and a half ago when it happened," she mumbled the last. She needn't have bothered. No sooner had she said humbling than more questions were being yelled.
"Do you attribute your success to your father, First Chriso Alma?"
"Of course I do, my father made me who I am today. He was the greatest First humanity has had so far." Jacob stiffened slightly but said nothing.
"So you wouldn't be where you are today if your father hadn't been First?"
"That's not what I said."
"But it's true no woman has ever made it as far, as fast, as you have."
"We've been over that already."
"And you are the first three star female whose father also happened to have been First..."
It was a typical ploy by the press, trying to corner her into a box. "Don't be an asshole," she growled. Jacob's eyes got big and he stepped forward to intervene.
"What the Chosen was trying to say is; that while her father was indeed a great First, she accomplished all her promotions in the Chosen after he had disappeared and was declared lost in action."
Minu took the chance and made good her escape from the reporters. She would rather have mud wrestled a kloth than talk to those bastards. A short distance away under a bright yellow pavilion, Dram was drinking from a massive tankard of mead and laughing loudly. She set her course and he saw her approach, his shining teeth offset starkly against his jet black skin as he smiled hugely. "Ah, the Chosen of the day."
"Shut the fuck up," she said and snatched up a somewhat smaller mug of mead. It was a good batch, Pip's favorite brand unless she missed her guess. She took a deep drink and tried not to think about her good friend, still lying in a coma after being critically injured during the vendetta a year and a half ago.
"Now is that any way to talk to your boss?" he asked. She glanced at the two shiny gold stars on his sleeve then the three gold stars on her own.
"Out ranking is not the same as boss."
"Technicality," he said with a dismissive shrug and a deep drink of mead.
Her eyes were drawn to his stars again. "When do we get new colored stars?"
"When the job is done."
"At this rate it will never be done."
"Nonsense."
"Damn it, Dram, don't screw with me. I want to be in the field when my people go out there."
"You will, don't worry."
"Yeah, then how come Terrence has been spending all that time chewing on my ear about how things are run in his branch?" Terrence Pegalio, the two star Chosen in charge of the training branch, was notorious for his outspoken dislike of the new soldier branch. The animosity originated when it was decided that the training branch would not be directly in charge of training the new soldiers, only assisting. Since then he'd been doing everything he could to get Minu to join the blue star designated training branch, thereby hopefully bringing her to heel. "If you think I'm putting on blue stars you have another thing coming to you."
"Even if it's two blue stars?"
Minu spat and got a fresh tankard. "There is no way in hell the council will let a twenty-one year old wear two stars. Besides, there is no way you're shoving me in that closet of a branch. If there is any more of a dead end than training, I don't know what it is."
"Two stars a dead end? Where can you go after that anyway?” She glanced up from her mead quickly to see him intensely watching her. She cursed under her breath for taking the bait. “What, you planning on being the next First?” She refused to nibble the hook any more. “Be realistic, Minu. You joined to serve."
"Don't give me the speech, I know it by heart. I've been teaching it to a thousand new Chosen Soldiers, remember?"
"Then try thinking about it yourself a little. You've done such a wonderful job getting this fort operational and training those boys-"
"And girls."
"Yes, and girls. Anyway, you've done such a good job that to many, training is starting to look like what you are best at."
"They said the same thing when I ran a science team, now I've done this. Maybe I'm just the best at whatever I do." Minu was taken aback by her own bravado and took a drink to cover the bright red of her cheeks. The mead was making her ears buzz. If she didn't break off this conversation soon she would be too drunk to control herself. She found her mind wandering to where that annoying reporter went. Maybe punching him out would end this bullshit of being in the training branch.
"Maybe you are," he said with a shrug and finished his huge drink, "but this is where the Chosen need you now." He wandered off to talk to someone else, and that was when Minu spotted Christian. He stood a few meters away talking to a couple civilians she didn't recognize. She smiled and nodded to him. He smiled back, but the smile never reached his eyes. Things hadn't been the same between them. After the debriefing he'd been shocked to find out she was the savior of Bellatrix and inventor of an entire new weapon system. Compared to that, his six months of escape and evasion in the frontier against hostile Tanam counted for little in the big scope of things. He'd even brought back terabytes of data on worlds in the F sector of space and many minor species who lived there and were willing to trade with the young humans. It barely got noticed. Then word came down that the scout branch was to be absorbed by the soldier branch. The scouts would get to keep their black stars, but now they took orders from the soldier’s military commanders, themselves Chosen from command, like Minu. He was technically outranked by Minu. Since then, their relationship was just as technically dead.
An hour later the civilians were gone and more Chosen arrived. Minu picked at snacks and nursed her third mead. "What thoughts trouble you?" hissed a voice behind her. Minu turned and smiled at Var'at. The reptilian alien stood with a plate full of various meats in one clawed hand and a flute of fruit juice in the other. With the civilians gone, he no longer needed to stay out of sight. The Rasa didn't care for alcohol, but fruits and juices were to their liking. For carnivores, they possessed a surprisingly deep sweet tooth.
"Just wondering at what might have been."
"That is like contemplating an unfertilized egg." The Rasa commander used his long tongue like an extra hand to snap up a piece of turkey. His teeth worked the meat and his tongue licked juices from his inflexible lips. "Delicious."
"Unfertilized eggs aside, I'm glad you enjoy the food." I'd rather not have any of my eggs fertilized anyway, she thought. At the other end of the pavilion Terrance stood with several others from the Training branch. As her luck held he spotted her looking at him and raised his glass in salute. With little choice she raised hers in return, even though it was now empty. He favored her with a huge smile and thankfully returned to his conversation without taking her salute as an invitation to conversation. It was the politics and intrigue of the Chosen that she despised the most. A strong wind shook the pavilion where it was moored against the lee of the fortress. Clouds chased the horizon. The celebration would need to wrap up soon or the weather would end it for them.
The rain storm hit three hours later. More like a fall shower for the local weather, it still sent the pavilion out to sea like a huge brightly colored kite. The departed guests were shown the interior earlier in tour groups of a dozen gaping politicians each. Each saw the workout rooms, dormitories, firing ranges, tech training rooms, and of course the huge central mustering field. The finale of the tour was the offices and finally one of the five armories where she was forced to answer more annoying questions. “Were the other six forts going to be this big?” Unlikely since two others were already finished and neither were even half the size of Fort Jovich. “Why such a large facility?” Where else do you train, equip and house five thousand soldiers? “Isn't a military installation sending the wrong message to other species?” What kind of a message do you think we were sent by the Rasa Vendetta?
By the time the questions were done Minu was considering taking them on a tour of the combat course located near armory three. That was the live fire range,
and classified, so she contented herself with only the thought. Now Minu was meeting with other dignitaries for a few more minutes in the command center. These people were in on the Rasa secret, unlike the average civilian. Located many meters below the thick ceramic concrete floor, the CIC was a near duplicate of the one deep under Steven's Pass. The various council members, politicians, and contractors were dutifully impressed as they were shown the massive wall sized liquid display, powerful stationary computers, redundant network transmitters, and of course the Portal in its own vault-like chamber separated from the CIC by many meters of living rock.
"So many precautions," one councilman spoke up from the meager Peninsula tribe. They were also known for their dislike of war of any kind. Of all the surviving tribes, they had sent the fewest to the Chosen over the years, and very few to the new Soldiers trials. Their land was purchased to build Fort Jovich. Later they had complained vociferously when it was discovered that the anonymous contract would be to build a military fort. "It would seem better to make ourselves known harmless and thus no threat to other species."
"If only the galaxy were so simple," Minu said from where she stood at the back of the group, "then we could spend our credits exporting flowers to the Concordia." Minu could see Jacob scowl and look at her darkly. She was known to be even less diplomatic than the former director of the science branch, Bjorn Ganose, who'd once blown out a wall of his own office to demonstrate the need of a new weapons testing facility. Dram stood next to First Jacob, his rightful place as the Second, and gave her a little smile.
"We would expect nothing but dire warnings from the infamous Minu Alma," the Peninsula representative said with a sneer. "Already planning to get us into another Vendetta?"
"Not at this moment,” she said with a smile. The councilors and dignitaries looked somewhat taken aback, so Minu pushed on, “but the day is still young.”
"It is indeed a dangerous galaxy," Jacob jumped in, trying desperately to pull the conversation away from Minu, "these forts are a good defense, and can't be taken as aggressive in any way. They are just forts, how can that be threatening?"