“Joseph!” he exclaimed with a wide grin. “No one told me you were serving aboard the Lexington.” He practically leaped along the center walkway splitting the shuttle’s passenger section in order to reach the cockpit and his twenty-three year old son before hugging him warmly.
“We wanted it to be a surprise,” the tall, spindly Lieutenant responded pleasantly. His freckle-faced youthful vigor and enthusiasm still looked a lot like a small boy’s to Kaufield. “And since you’ve made the decision to walk into the proverbial lion’s den, I figured you would need family to watch your back.” He shrugged and continued to smile wryly. “That’s the way the Roh brothers seem to do things, anyway.”
“This could be a dangerous mission, son.” He raised an eyebrow as Joseph laughed in response.
“No, Dad,” the sharply dressed Lieutenant shot back at him. “That stuff in the Wasteland was a dangerous mission. This is a cake walk by comparison.”
The President glanced back at the seats and windows in the main cabin. “I take it this is no ordinary shuttle?” He raised a curious eyebrow. “Stealth capability, laser defensive array, electromagnetic shielding, Point-to-Point capability…”
“Pretty much all of the above,” nodded Joseph. “We’re equipped the same as the fighters now.”
Pondering the matter, Kaufield nodded agreeably. “Basically each ship receives the equivalent of a ‘brain’ implant in its communications hub.” He pointed at his skull for emphasis. “The technology is slightly newer and has a few more capabilities, but provides a fighter – or shuttle – with the same types of advantages as our growing ranks of foot soldiers.” He studied his son’s face intently. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be going along.”
“You still see that same eight year old kid from the Pathfinder mission when you look at me, don’t you?”
“Yes I do. And it’s a father’s right to do so, I might add.”
“You’d better buckle in… Dad,” suggested Joseph with a soft chuckle. “Normally I would abide by standard protocol, but the flight plan lists you as my only passenger.” He tugged lightly at the bottom of his sharp, navy-blue tunic with gold trim. Kaufield studied him carefully, noticing how much sharper and mature the lines of Joseph’s face had gotten. And yet he could still see so much of the boy’s mother in his features.
“Understood,” The President retreated back into the sizeable passenger cabin and selected a lone seat in the second row on the shuttle’s port flank.
Poking his head through the cockpit doorway, Joseph shook his head with mild dismay. “The flight plan says we’re going to the Brotherhood HQ in the Emirate of Ghuitan.” His gaze shifted from the electronic pad in his hand to Kaufield’s eyes. “Could you narrow that down for me a bit, please?”
Pulling his chosen seat’s safety harness across his torso and securing it firmly, Kaufield laughed. “Just drop us out of orbit for now and head for the border between China and India, near New Delhi,” he suggested steadfastly. “The communications console on this vessel will receive further instructions that will keep you updated as we go.” He tapped his right temple again with a curling smile. “That’s how this kind of mission works.”
“With so much of this stuff now controlled by AI,” commented Joseph dryly, “they soon won’t even need pilots. What will I do for a living?”
“We’ll always need pilots,” countered the President in response. “None of the technology gets to make any actual decisions unless you consciously request for it to do so… Proteus tech is always programmed to respond to how we interpret the telemetry it supplies us.”
Joseph nodded, brown eyes flashing. “That sounds reasonable. Stand by. We’re scheduled to disembark in five minutes. The trip down to the surface should take about fifteen minutes.” He eyed his father warily one last time. “After all of the interference we’ve run against the Brotherhood using Person-to-Point transit portals from Proteus all these years, I hope you’re not expecting a warm welcome.”
“I really don’t care any longer,” replied the President crustily. “Two members of my mission team are missing already. I’ll play this one any way they like it.” He settled into the comfortable, cushioned seat, wondering just what the Roh brothers were up to.
If only there was a way to communicate with them, he thought silently. I would be slightly less worried.
Planet Earth, the Emirate of Guitan, present day
Valiana 001 stirred slightly at the sudden electronic bleat from the intercom. Back in her underground sanctuary – or prison, depending how cynically one looked at things – she had been dosing lightly in her favorite chair. Opening her eyes and sighing deeply, she reached over to the desktop in front of her and touched a computer workstation. “This is Valiana,” she stated somewhat brusquely.
“Hobak wants you in Command immediately,” someone barked at her. After that single statement, the hiss and static from the crude, open channel faded. Whoever it was didn’t even trouble himself to wait for a response.
So, Valiana thought to herself with more than a little discomfort. It has begun.
She didn’t require any further details, as a matter of fact. Given the current, abrasive relationship that existed between her and Hobak, she wondered at times why she was even still alive. Even as she rose from her seat to comply with the request, she smiled inwardly. There’s a reason you’re still alive, she reminded herself. If he kills you, then he becomes the dictator you have regularly accused him of being. The only decision maker left in the process. And once that happens then there will be no way for him to deny that the failures are HIS. Hobak will finally have to acknowledge his own failings, and that would be too much for his massive ego to deal with.
Nevertheless, she took her sweet time making her way from one of the upper levels to the lowest. The Brotherhood’s central complex stretched almost half a mile beneath the Earth’s surface, protecting its many inhabitants from the dangers of the outside world. And essentially turning us into a race of cellar dwellars, she thought angrily as she walked to the nearest lift. She had to key in a special password in order for the elevator to grant her access to that lowest level, but she knew the ten-digit sequence by heart… even though it changed on a daily basis. There was a pattern to the shifting series of numbers, but only the three ruling members of the Triumvirate… Scratch that, she thought ruefully. Only the TWO ruling members of the Triumvirate were familiar with the tessellation.
Hobak 001 was waiting rather impatiently for her in Command, one of the cavernous rooms that lined the bottom level of the complex. To be fully honest, Valiana hated it down here… most of the caverns were natural caves that had formed from the non-stop flow of underground water over the centuries. At the beginning, the Triumvirate wanted all of the normals who chose to serve them to believe that the higher levels were all that existed. Only clones from the original three lines, Hobaks and Durgons and Valianas, were allowed this far underground. Not only could they do the necessary work much more quickly, but no one else ended up even knowing that there was a series of lower levels. Except for Drik Gyilto, the Emir of Ghuitan and one of the most snake-like men that Valiana had ever encountered. He never came here any longer, mostly because of her.
She pushed thoughts of the detestable Gyilto aside and settled her thoughtful gaze on Hobak. “Well,” she began expectantly. “Something is up… what’s going on?”
“It’s the Earth ship,” replied Hobak informatively. “There are signs that it has moved into orbit above us.”
“Signs?” She studied him with significantly less confidence than in years past.
An overhead monitor flickered and then steadied on the image of a shuttle flying across the desolated landscape beneath it. “Well, let’s take the shuttle that just dropped out of orbit, for example,” ventured Hobak much more snidely than he needed to. “Motion sensors didn’t even detect it until approximately ten minutes ago. The vessel had already entered the atmosphere by then. Intelligence experts on the upper le
vel are predicting that the entire warship is up there somewhere… similarly cloaked in invisibility.”
Valiana thought the matter over carefully. “Can we perhaps box them in?” she wondered idly. “If they’re holding course in orbit above our hemisphere – a virtual certainty – then we might be able to flood the area with heat seeking missiles and fighters.”
Dressed completely in black, Hobak swiveled in his large, plush chair until he faced her directly. “We already tried that when they passed by the moon,” he snapped dourly. “Apparently whatever shield technology they’re using to cloak their vessel in invisibility also wards them from heat detection. The missiles found no targets and some of them inadvertently ended up locking on to our own fighters.”
“I thought we fixed that problem,” said a clearly annoyed Valiana, finding herself growing somewhat irritated herself. Flashbacks suddenly began racing through her mind, of another warship’s infamous battle with the Pathfinder from fifteen years ago. The enemy United States vessel, equipped with a brand new, state-of-the-art transit drive, had flashed through a series of PTP hops and totally confused missiles, fighters and the warship that had supposedly trapped them. After that disastrous encounter, all ordnance with targeting software was swiftly reprogrammed to ignore friendly vessels. The fact that we didn’t think of that in the first place… Again she pushed aside the troubled thoughts in order to focus on the matter at hand.
We’re using primarily Russian systems now,” pointed out Hobak. “The hardware is not nearly as reliable as the American Alliance guidance systems. There is a lot of space out there, and if you truly want to ‘box’ someone in when you can’t see them then there are definite risks involved.” He trailed off for a moment, using the precious seconds to scan through updated telemetry. “If this Earth warship has come all the way from Proteus, then there’s a good chance that it is equipped with an engine system similar to that of the colony ship that evaded us in the aftermath of the original war….”
“In which case they can sit up there and drive us crazy by bouncing back and forth between random locations,” she acknowledged with a solid nod of her head. “Have they contacted us in any way?” Shrugging in response, Hobak responded by staring darkly at her. I’m not sure I like that expression, she mused silently. I’m not sure I like it at all.
“As soon as it hit atmosphere,” he told her finally, “the shuttle’s pilot transmitted a general message stating that the vessel is an envoy conveying Dennis Kaufield as passenger, the President of the Earth Alliance in the Proteus galaxy. Apparently this President would like to speak directly to us – to the ruling Triumvirate Council – regarding the long term future of this planet.”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea what that means,” noted Valiana, her attractive features wrinkling suddenly with a deep frown. “This planet’s ecosystem is spiraling steadily downhill. Your repeated use of nuclear arms to put down petty rebellions has undoubtedly prompted them to act. I expect we’re going to be asked to resign as leaders of this world, and forced out of power if we choose not to accept those terms.”
“I expect that also,” seethed Hobak bitterly, “which is why their President will never reach us alive.”
She looked at him with renewed condescension. “Have you gone insane?” she demanded to know, enjoying his shocked reaction at the new way in which she was beginning to speak to him on so regular a basis. Her dark eyes flashed with dark emotion. “Hobak, you’re not planning to fire on that shuttle just because they have chosen to offer us a convenient target, are you?”
He sat there, seething with barely contained rage. “Not only am I going to fire on them, but I’ve already ordered our Combat Air Patrol to turn it into molten slag!”
For a moment, she considered simply shooting him right there on the spot. But if she did that, all the witnesses in nearby chambers would execute her for being a traitor. She instinctively knew this to be true. Durgon’s death was more easily explained, because – as Hobak had put it – he sadly chose to visit Cuba at a tragic moment in time. No one would have expected him to know that rebellious members of a resistance group were also meeting there. Durgon was now being painted as a martyr, killed in a tragic accident to cover up his deliberate and cold-blooded assassination.
“Hobak, think this through for a moment, will you? Not only did these people originally evade us with a new, revolutionary engine system, but they have since found alien allies in a distant galaxy. Aliens who are very technologically advanced,” she practically spat the last words in his direction. “If their President is indeed on board that shuttle, then he obviously feels completely safe in approaching us in this manner and is outright daring you to provoke their government further. Don’t be a complete, egotistical idiot Hobak. For God’s sake, there isn’t much left on this planet to screw up. A ship that can make itself invisible…”
He glared daggers at her. “God has absolutely nothing to do with this!” he practically shouted at her. “If any representative of that government of traitors and refugees wants to speak with me on my planet without an invitation, then he or she is going to have to fight their way through everything we have!” He pointed toward the visual of the streamlined passenger shuttle as it cruised methodically toward them on the overhead monitor. “They’re the ones who chose to abandon their world rather than stay and fight for its survival.”
Yes, and they would have been fighting for what remained of that world with your boot on their throat, thought Valiana heatedly. Just like everyone else who stayed is currently doing. She watched the shuttle’s image curiously for a moment, wondering what secrets it held that Hobak was conveniently choosing to ignore. After years of trying to run a global government despite his constant, egotistical interference, she wasn’t even trying to visualize things from his point of view any longer. Supposedly a genetically enhanced clone with an improved intelligence that matched his physical build, there was nothing left of Hobak’s common sense… if he had ever possessed any.
In the beginning, his ambition drove most of his decision-making; this despite the fact that nothing in the universe was at all predictable. He had chosen to push for a ‘quick and easy’ limited nuclear war without understanding that there was – in reality – no such thing. The Earth and most of its inhabitants ended up paying the ultimate price for his lack of wisdom. Regrettably, Hobak’s mind was nothing more than a broken wreck of a psyche now, leaving him an angry, compulsive zealot desperate to find a way to prove, once and for all, that he had in fact been right all along. Good luck with that idea, thought Valiana cynically. We followed you unconditionally, and for that sin we have sacrificed an entire world.
She leaned toward him. “Call back the CAP patrol, Hobak,” she pleaded with him as gently as her anger would allow. “Call them back while there is still time to solve this problem without additional violence. We always seem to come out on the losing end of that, or haven’t you noticed?” The last statement came out a bit too snidely, and she bit her lower lip with regret. Too late… you’ve provoked his fragile ego yet again.
Hobak stared defiantly back at her. “No!” he stated bluntly.
*
“Hang on back there Dad!” shouted Joseph Kaufield from his seat in the cockpit. “We’ve got company!”
He banked the shuttle sharply to starboard, allowing Kaufield to spot at least three enemy aircraft as they flashed briefly past the windows. They were moving at high speed as opposed to the shuttle, which had been slowing in preparation for a landing. The President smiled upon hearing the urgency of his son’s tone – even when the odds were in their favor, adrenaline and the urge to survive tended to take control over the inexperienced. His son would learn an awful lot today, as a pilot, and Kaufield had worked hard with Noah and the other members of the Pathfinder team to make certain that his son learned those lessons safely.
“You know what to do,” Dennis called out sharply to his son. “We’re not here to obliterate everyone we encounter, so
take it easy on them, will you please?”
“Aye sir!”
Kaufield’s stomach slid sideways as Joseph rolled the shuttle and then swooped into a steep climb. He glanced out the trio of small windows next to him and watched the ground fall rapidly below. His son kept the clumsy shuttle rocketing upward until the pursuing aircraft flashed past them again. Smoke and flame appeared briefly in the view through the windows, but the vessel’s hull didn’t even tremble. Its protective shielding was similar to the kinetic-absorbent, personal defenses worn by Kaufield’s implant team. Even air-to-air missiles couldn’t penetrate that kind of electromagnetic barrier. The shuttle slowed noticeably, leveling off at a much higher altitude. Glancing out the windows, first toward the bow and then astern, Kaufield noticed a parachute opening. “What did you do?” he shouted over the roar of the ship’s engines.
“I sliced the wings off of two of them with our laser array,” said Joseph in response. The kid sounded slightly rattled, but in control. “The other one is retreating as fast as his engines will carry him.”
“Those pilots should be grateful that you climbed higher into the atmosphere before disabling their fighters,” noted Kaufield softly to himself. “Otherwise they wouldn’t have had the time needed to eject safely.”
The Pathfinder Trilogy Page 92