The Battle for the Ringed Planet

by Richard Edmond Johnson

  Shortly later Agent Tass appeared with a shorter man in a light blue smock and silver-rimmed spectacles, one blue lens and the other red.

  “This is the subject.” The agent turned to the other, who despite being shorter, appeared thickly built with broad muscular shoulders,

  “I have over a hundred burn cases from the Titan and the Cordelia, this better be good.”

  “I would like you to give her a full examination.”

  “Why? Is she sick?” He glanced at the two soldiers guarding the room.

  “Not in the normal way, but she’s … special.”

  Sighing, the doctor stepped up to the transteel glass window and peered in. Siiri glanced back and saw that the man had the same skin and eyes like May.

  Touching his glasses he made both lenses clear, “Miss, I’m Commander Dubois, the Chief Medical Officer, I’m here to examine you, and I’m just going to do a scan first.”

  “Ok,” she said nervously.

  From above a holo image of Siiri appeared, just a basic outline in a red showing all her organs with floating annotations and numbers beside each. The commander checked the numbers against his Con.

  “She has some bruising on her 3rd and 4th right ribs, and an enlarged Pineal gland …” he frowned, “That’s unusual.”

  “I want you to do a complete physical, both scan and in person.”

  “I don’t really have time …”

  “Doctor, my job is to save lives, too. And believe me, if I’m right about her, it will make your job a lot easier.”

  Reluctantly he agreed and pushed a button to slide open the door and approached Siiri sitting on the gurney, “I’ll need you to take off your cloths and put on this gown.”

  Siiri swallowed and stared out the window at the agent’s dark eyes and unemotional stare, but the doctor turned and flicked a switch and all the windows went dark, “A little privacy. I’ll turn away if it will make you more comfortable.”

  “Thank you.”

  After a good half hour, the doctor stepped out of the room holding her military fatigues and flicked off the shading showing Siiri sitting with her head down, sleepy from exhaustion wearing a light blue hospital gown, “There’s nothing wrong with her, except an abnormality in her Pineal gland, but I have a feeling you knew about that.”

  “No cybernetic implants?”

  “No.”

  “I just received a report about a dead cyborg in the city; I am having the body transported to the ship for you to autopsy…”

  “Look …”

  “That will be your priority, doctor, above anything else.” The agent turned away watching Siiri, “You can go until I send for you.” Without a reply, though visibly annoyed, the medical officer turned to leave.

  The man in the white shirt leaned on the transteel window and watched her sitting on the gurney defensively with her knees to her chest, “I have everything Major Duncan sent …”

  “So why do you need to question me further, you have what you want. Now let me be with Torian.”

  “I know what you’re hiding. Major Duncan doesn’t have my clearance, and I know what you can do.”

  “Tell me. You all seem to know more about me than I do.”

  “A ship escaped a hundred years ago, when the colony self destructed.”

  “Good for them.”

  “There was a girl aboard, she rejoined the ‘Colonial Environmental Safety Society’. No one knew the kind of powers she possessed.”

  “Then you killed them all.”

  Kavan hesitated, “Well, I don’t deny there was a horrible misunderstanding, and yes, they all died, but by there own doing.”

  “I’m sure you had some part …”

  Growing impatient, he sighed, “They had powers, much like the holo I received showing your battle against the cyborg. They could throw objects, make soldiers kill themselves, and more.”

  “Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I can’t do that.”

  “But the cyborg did. And you conveniently blow apart his head …”

  “I saved our lives, would your rather we be dead?”

  “Then we would have the cyborg to study.”

  Siiri swallowed, “Do you really mean that?”

  “You are going to tell me everything I want to know. If we can harness the power you possess, and equip our soldiers with that advantage, one life will be of no consequence.”

  “My life?” she replied in a small voice.

  “My mission is to find out what advantage we can use to defeat the enemy, at all costs!”

  “But Torian and that admiral know!”

  “Lieutenant McCallum will be out on patrol in a few hours, days away. The admiral’s views are subordinate to this mission. It will be just you and I. You will tell me everything about the powers, and the others in the village. I have an array of methods to help you cooperate, but I’d rather you be a willing party.”

  Glancing at his cool dark eyes, she felt a chill down her spine, “I do not have any …” then she closed her eyes, and in her mind called out for Torian.

  Something on his Con spiked, and Tass grinned, “The shield works, very impressive. It’s a start.”

  Siiri’s eyes snapped open, standing behind the intelligence agent was the faint apparition of a creature with the same characteristics of the image she had seen in the alien city. It strolled around behind the man, invisible to the two guards, observing and studying the room outside. Then it stared directly at Siiri with round brown eyes.

  In her mind she heard the voice of Kayla, “Do not be afraid, Siiri, I am Kayla, I promise will protect you from harm.” Then she vanished.

  “What are you doing? The readings are off the scale!” The agent’s voice was animated.

  “I’m trying to talk to Torian. That’s all I can do.”

  “Tell me everything you know.” She did, for the rest of night, leaving out the part about Kayla and the other aliens.

  --

  The lights snapped on at 0600 hours, and the woman with the red hair slowly rolled out of bed and stood in her underwear watching the holo from the roof in the middle of the room, reading the columns of words and figures. She reached for her flight suit and pulled it on.

  “Are you McCallum?” she called over to the slumbering form on the other side of the room.

  “No, now go away,” he replied pulling the pillow over his head to block out the light.

  “Fine.” She pulled up his file, “Lieutenant Torian McCallum, LRRS officer, transfer from the C.S.S. Callisto, Combat Medal, Silver Star, Purple Heart, 1 citation for disorderly conduct, 2 for piloting without authorization, 1 for falsifying logs … nice and colorful I see.”

  “I’m a bad boy, let me sleep.”

  “You have a mission, bad boy, now get up.”

  “No I don’t, I’m short.”

  “Read it and weep.”

  He threw aside the comforter and pillow and stood up in his shorts rubbing his eyes, and then examined the floating words and numbers, “Hawkeye 221, what happened to the LRRS tech?”

  “He lost it. His family was all killed in a raid on his home world.”

  “Monica Poehler, pilot, only 3 missions, green as Hell, private academy grad, no doubt a silver spoon up her ass.” He sighed audibly.

  She folded her arms and shot him a cool stare, “This silver spoon graduated first in her flight school.”

  “Aye …”

  Her smug expression turned to one of sympathy when the young man turned to grab his flight suit and she saw the laser scars on his back, and a little more softly, she urged, “Briefing in half an hour.”

  In the coed head, he brushed his teeth while the green-eyed red haired Hawkeye pilot washed her face. Other officers showered or used the toilets behind protective screens as the shift rotation started.

  “I’ll be making a quick detour, so I’ll meet you there, and I like my coffee black.” He did not give her a chance to answer striding out of the room and into the narrow c
orridor. Navigating through hatches and up a ladder, he made his way to the sick bay, and like Siiri before him, was shocked at the overcrowded casualties, the milder cases sitting or sleeping in the steel round hallway attended by medics.

  Inside, he maneuvered around stretchers and gurneys almost slipping on a pool of blood until he found a room with two heavily armed soldiers and one reached out his hand to halt the young officer, “You can’t go in there, sir.”

  “Sure I can!” Torian peered past the defiant soldier and saw a small room with large windows and a girl in a light blue medical gown curled up on a gurney under a sheet.

  “What’s going on?” Agent Kavan Tass glanced up from his Con.

  “Let me in!” Torian growled and Siiri stirred hearing the commotion.

  Kavan glimpsed at the guard, “It’s all right,” and Torian burst past him to the window where Siiri hopped to her feet and rushed to meet him peering through the transteel.

  “Torian!” she exclaimed with a huge smile.

  “Hey!” he pressed close, “Where are her clothes!” He turned back to Kavan, the light blue gown barely reached her knees.

  “You got one minute,” the agent turned back to the columns of data on his Con.

  The young officer placed his hand on the transparent steel and she touched her hand in the same place, “How are they treating you in here?”

  “I barely slept … Oh Torian, you look some handsome in your flight uniform!”

  “I swear, when I’m done I’m going to burn it,” he leaned his forehead against the transteel and she did the same. “They put me on a Hawkeye, I have a mission.”

  “Please be careful, I miss you so bad.”

  “Watch me when I launch, I’ll do something special.”

  She almost giggled, “Don’t get in trouble.”

  Glancing back at the agent who was ignoring them flicking more screens on the small black device, Torian then gazed into Siiri’s azurite eyes, “Listen …” he hesitated, and peered down at his feet, then back up into her eyes, “I love you.”

  Her mouth opened to speak, but she closed it and pressed closer against the transsteel, tears welling up in her eyes.

  “You don’t have to say anything …”

  “…I love you too, you know I do,” she whispered, choking on her words.

  Then suddenly Torian turned back to agent, “She can stay in my quarters until I get back.”

  The man with dark eyes grinned, “You can love her all you want, but she’s all mine.”

  “You don’t have the right to hold her, she’s committed no crime, and in fact if it wasn’t for her, the shields in Kaarina would still be intact.”

  “I don’t care about that, a waste of my time, and I have every right to hold her. She, on the other hand, has no rights. She not a citizen, she’s not a prisoner of war; only a detained person, so I can hold her indefinitely, and do to her whatever I want.”

  “Why? What has she done to you?”

  The agent jumped to his feet and walked casually up to Torian, “Nothing, and everything. Now your minute is up.”

  “Let her go.”

  “Time to leave.”

  Sighing, Torian glanced back at Siiri, still pressed against the window, and then he turned to leave as the agent peered back down at his Con, but anger burned inside, “You SIS people are really something. You put me through 2 weeks of Hell after I was freed from prison, constant interrogation. You are not going to do that to her!”

  “I will do to her whatever needs to be done …”

  Suddenly Torian raised his fist and took a swing at the agent, but in one swift calculated movement, Tass grabbed the young man’s hand and twisted it around forcing him to the floor. The agent was on top of the brown haired officer forcing his head into the steel while Torian grunted. Both soldiers raised their rifles aiming at the form shoved to the floor.

  Hissing in his ear, Tass roughly slammed his head down again, “I could kill you before you blink!”

  Siiri cried out, “Please Agent Tass, don’t hurt him …”

  “You need an attitude adjustment,” the agent pushed Torian again.

  “I’ve told you everything and cooperated …,” she pleaded.

  Grinning, the black haired man stepped back and released Torian, “I’ll consider it a successful test of my reflexes.”

  Torian stood up and brushed off his flight suit, but Tass wasn’t finished, and landed a fist on the young man’s cheek, causing him to stagger back, “Next time, I won’t let you live.”

  “Please!” Siiri begged.

  “Escort him out,” the agent motioned to the guards who hefted Torian up by the arms and dragged him through the door.

  Chapter 27: Inside a Gas Giant

  Rushing down the cramped metal corridors, he made it to the briefing room with minutes to spare, a small ‘U’ shaped auditorium the could accommodate fifty or so with a holo display in the center and flat screen taking up the wall behind the podium. There were three Hawkeye crews and two flights of Starhawk pilots all with blue coffee mugs with the Europa logo. Monica had brought him one with steaming brown liquid and he nodded his thanks.

  “What happened to you?” she frowned with lovely green eyes of concern over the swelling on his cheek.

  “I bumped into a cross beam,” he lied and sipped his coffee.

  Most of the people in the room were officers with silver wings over their right breast pocket, though a few were LRRS enlisted men. Torian recognized some of the faces, having met with them in the fleet before, especially a grey haired man with six gold chevrons and a star in the middle on his lower flight suit sleeve, a sergeant with an impressive array of ribbons. The tired veteran, Sergeant Blocker, nodded to Torian and he remembered they had served together in the 3rd fleet when he was with Tristan before ending up in this one.

  A couple of the men and women in the briefing room sported blue and white diagonally stripped decorations on their ribbons, the Distinguished Flying Cross. If a Starhawk pilot shot down five enemy fighters, in space and not sitting on the ground or in a hanger, they became an ace, awarded the medal. Hawkeye crew only earned the medal if they completed thirty missions. Enlisted medals were a slightly different design, mostly earned by LRRS techs and Sergeant Matthew Blocker had one. Torian completed twenty-five missions, and probably would have finished all thirty, but got captured instead. Tristan used to joke that they could earn a DFC faster by shooting down enemy fighters.

  Voices at the door to the briefing room drew his attention away from the pilots and LRRS techs. A senior officer, the CAG, or Commander Air-Space Group, entered with another man that Torian recognized immediately, sporting an unkept frock of blonde hair was Lieutenant-Commander Declan ‘Dekker’ Stronn, the pilot who had flown the blue vertically striped Starhawk showing off his dog fighting skills planet side. Torian could not remember exactly, but Dekker had somewhere around fifty kills, which made him the ace of the fleet, though there were pilots with higher counts in other theaters of the war. The CAG, older and more experienced than any other pilot on board the cruiser, despite his round coffee colored baby face and cropped black and silver curly hair, eyed everyone suspiciously, striding in front of the room.

  “Attention!” Commander Marshall Skylin barked behind the podium and launched a holo of the star system while Dekker sat down near the front. “Good morning and welcome to Lieutenant McCallum, from the Callisto, I hope you enjoyed your tour as a grunt, and we’re sorry for the loss of your pilot and the Callisto crew.”

  Torian nodded at a few eyes glancing his way and as the CAG paused checking his screens and orders, a tall sandy haired pilot beside him offered his hand, “Nathan Johnston, glad to have you aboard.”

  Then the CAG began, “Bravo Flight will join the hunt for the unaccounted enemy battle cruiser. Two escaped our last encounter, and we believe one of them has sustained severe damage to their engines, so their tunnel drive is out. As for the other, we picked up the creation of a wormho
le large enough for an Imperium Sword class cruiser. Hawkeye 211, you are assigned to Bravo and you will be replacing your tunnel pods with extra shield generators for more protection. Be careful Bravo pilots, we believe the damaged cruiser is rigged to blow, so if you spot it, keep clear and let Hawkeye 211 do their job and scan it before getting close. We would like to board it if possible, though I doubt the Imperium will abandon that cruiser without some sort of trickery.” He paused while the mission details downloaded to their Cons.

  “Delta flight, planet side to replace Alpha. Hawkeye 228, you will load electronic warfare and intercept pods. There is heavy fighting in the streets in the city down there, let’s give them air support. Check your sectors.”

  Then he glanced over to Monica, “221, Survey Mission, Krallas system, check for that missing cruiser and any other suspicious activity, 72 hours, so stock up. That is all, check your orders, mission details, and be safe. Dismissed!”

  The tall lean black pilot from Hawkeye 228 grinned at Monica, “Did that system two months ago, all gas giants.”

  She smirked, “Then I guess we’ll find what you missed!”

  The he stuck out his hand for Torian, “Lieutenant Mark Senzo, I haven’t seen any LRRS officers on missions before; usually they’re on the bridge.”

  “I don’t like brass.”

  Mark chuckled, “I hear you,” he grinned again at Monica.

  She watched him leave and muttered, “I hope he gets his ass shot off.”

  “No love lost?”

  “He thinks he’s the hottest Hawkeye pilot in the 4th fleet.”

  “Yeah, knew one like that.”

  Then the red haired pilot with her hair in a bun glanced at Torian, “This must be old news for you, what 25 missions?”

  “I downloaded all the hockey games I missed last season.”

  “Good, I’m from Minnesota, I played right wing, we’ll have lots to talk about.”

  Torian rolled his eyes.

  After a quick breakfast of bacon and eggs in the tiny officer’s mess, the pilots and crew headed to the hanger bay for preflight checks while technicians charged the fighters and scout ships and loaded supplies. When all was complete, the Starhawks revved up their thrusters and floated along the colored lines to the launch square as the giant bay doors slid open. A 30-degree ramp angled down facing the stern of the battle cruiser and each fighter launched downward clearing the bay opening into space.