Exodus: Empires at War: Book 05 - Ranger

by Doug Dandridge

  The first week out of the med facility was spent basically relearning how to do all the things he could do before the augmentation, and that now vexed him. He was now a clumsy superman, unable to control even his basic body motions. To that aim he and the others trained ten hours a day, running, climbing, practicing hand to hand. They spent another two hours in simulators, hardwiring their brains and nervous systems. And then two hours in the weight rooms, turning the massive amounts of protein they were consuming into hard muscle.

  Week two continued with more of the same. Cornelius ran around the track with the rest of the men, from all of the services that were on the station for the augmentation process. Even the slowest of them was faster than the best Empire Class athlete, and Cornelius was far from the slowest. There were only a couple of the men, both from other services, who could challenge his speed.

  In unarmed combat he was also in the top ten of the five hundred men that went through the rotation. He even held his own against the instructors, and could see the day coming when he would be their superior. The techniques were still simple, and a trained Ranger or Commando could pull moves on him that always got through his defenses. This instilled the desire to learn an advanced fighting technique, and with this in mind he approached one of the Marine instructors who practiced a very graceful form of Asian origin martial art.

  “Of course I’ll teach you some moves, Ranger,” said Gunnery Sergeant Forrestal of the Marine Force Recon. “I won’t be able to teach you much in two weeks, but I can give you the basics to start on. The first thing is the stance. This is Tae Kwon Do, and we do most everything out of a side facing fighting stance.”

  Cornelius spent two hours a day training and sparring with the Gunny, and could feel a noticeable increase in his ability in battling the other special ops trainees. At this time they were also introduced to weapons fighting, knives and clubs and staffs. The idea was to make them deadly with anything and everything that might come to hand, and empty hands if there was nothing they could use.

  Christmas came and went without a break. This Phase was too important for leave, and they all knew they were needed by the Empire they had sworn to serve. There were several trees in the facility, and everyone was given some presents by the staff, mostly things they would need on deployment, shaving kits, monomolecular blades, some personal jewelry. Even those who came from backgrounds that didn’t celebrate the holiday. Some received items from home. Cornelius didn’t think he would be one of these, until his name was called out and he found a present pushed into his hands at mail call. He checked the address, amazed that Sean would remember to send a present, then remembering that the nobility had staff to shop for them. He opened the package and found a perfect carbon fiber chain coated in platinum. The card said for your memory, and Cornelius knew this had been sent to him as a holder for his ring. And Cornelius realized that this present had been sent by a man who kept close tabs on him.

  By the fifth week all of the men were moving like dancers, perfectly balanced on their feet. Cornelius was not surprised on a weigh in that he massed one hundred and five kilos, twenty-eight kilos more than he had at enlistment. Some of that was the increased bone density of his body, reworked so that the increased muscle would have something to attach to. And he could bench over four hundred kilos ten times without problem. They told him he was just scratching the surface, that most augmented warriors saw impressive gains throughout their first year, and smaller increases afterwards.

  Cornelius was not surprised when they gathered in the hangar at the end of the fifth week to see that all of the Rangers had made it through the augmentation process. He had heard that it was rare for the process not to take. He also realized that most of these men had given up decades of living, a combined over seven millennia of life, to become super-soldiers. He had not mentioned to any of them that he had not paid that same price. It was better to let them think he had, that he would be accepted among them. And it’s not like many of us are going to make it to retirement anyway, he thought as he waited to board the shuttle.

  The flight down to the planet was uneventful, and spirits were good among the men. No one really knew what waited for them in Phase III of the training, and no one really cared. They were all sure that they would make it through from here.

  Chapter Nine

  When the war of the giants is over the wars of the pygmies will begin. Winston Churchill.

  AZURE, JANUARY 5TH- 8th, 1001.

  The first sign that anything was happening were the bells going off at school. Rebecca was working in the chemistry lab, thinking about the camping trip they had planned for her this weekend. This would be her fifth, and she was getting a good handle on how to survive in the jungle of the planet. Enough where she would be able to go into it without fear? No. She didn’t think she would ever get to that level of confidence. But enough where she was sure she would have a fighting chance of living.

  She had asked her father why they didn’t just evacuate the planet, and her dad had laughed. “There are over a hundred and twenty million people on the planet,” had answered her father. “It would take over six thousand large liners, all crammed to overload, as well as the escort ships required to get them to safety. There are over fifteen hundred inhabitant planets in this sector, some with much denser populations than Azure. You really think the Empire can turn those kind of resources, in the middle of a war, to the evacuation of planets, when they don’t even know which system is next to be hit?”

  Rebecca jacked into the planetary net at the same time as the lab instructor, Mr. Jaquari. The net was crowded, more than she had ever seen. But there was one constant message blaring on the emergency band. Ships had been detected in hyper VII. A large number of very big ships, as well as a similar number of smaller escorts. They hadn’t been positively identified yet, but most indicators pointed to them as being the ancient enemy. The Ca’cadasans were about to arrive, in force.

  “Children,” said Mr. Jaquari from the front of the class. “We have been ordered to go down to the shelters.”

  “But,” said Rebecca, looking at the teacher in horror, “they won’t even be in the system for some hours. Then it will take three days to get to our planet.”

  “They might fire missiles at us,” said Margo, giving Rebecca the look one gives an idiot.

  “And those would still take about a day to get to us,” said Rebecca, returning the look. “Twelve hours at the earliest.”

  “The administration has ordered that I take you children down to the shelter,” said Mr. Jaquari, as if that ended the argument. “From there you can meet your families.”

  “My dad is a Captain in the reserves,” said Rebecca, hands on her hips and refusing to move. “He won’t be coming down there. And my mom and little brother won’t be coming down.”

  “Why ever not?” asked the teacher, his eyes wide. “The shelters are made to protect us from attacks from space. And we don’t need to be out on the surface and in the way of the military.”

  Because those things are death traps with the Ca’cadasans coming. And why aren’t you in the militia, getting ready to stop those things from taking the planet? Of course she couldn’t voice those thoughts. Most people had faith in the shelters, and would just think she was a little defeatist for saying they were death traps. And of course on a developing world service in the militia was not mandatory, like it was on frontier worlds where manpower was more limited. There were still millions in uniform when the call went out.

  “You will come with us, young lady,” continued the man, from his body language not ready to take no for an answer. “Right now.”

  Rebecca lowered her head in resignation and followed the teacher out of the room. She considered trying to run for a few moments, then discarded that idea. Respect for adults and authority had been ingrained into her. She really couldn’t think of anything else to do than to allow herself to be herded down into the depths.

  She was silent the entire way to the s
helter landing strip by airbus. Some of the other children tried to engage her in conversation, but she had too much on her mind. The bus landed and they were herded toward the line waiting to get in. There were entire families waiting their turn to go down, the children looking scared half to death. Rebecca gave one little girl a smile, and getting one back made her feel better. The situation, almost to the level of panic, was more than the little ones could take. She knew they would feel better once kilometers of earth were overhead, and the promise of safety. Even if that promise was a lie.

  It was a little bit of a wait and the line moved slowly. Many people had their pets and what belongings they could gather. Pets were allowed, if small enough, and there were a number of dogs and cats, and even something as exotic as a miniraptor. There were still some arguments, mostly with people who wanted to take an entire lift load to bring down their belongings. The people in charge were adamant, and the citizens rode down with the allowed amount or not at all.

  Finally their turn came, and the entire class was fitted into the car. They rode the lift down, a trip that took about a minute. This shelter was over three kilometers under the ground, and was a much larger central capsule than the one she had toured with her father, that of a heavy cruiser. It was four hundred meters in length, two hundred and fifty in width, with over a hundred floors and room for thirty thousand people when packed to the limit. The outer wall was over four meters thick, seemingly impenetrable, but Rebecca knew from what her father told her that a very fast moving heavy object would tear through it with disastrous effects to the people inside.

  “I’ll stay here,” said Rebecca to Mr. Jaquari, pointing to a room that was already half full of people waiting for family to come down. “My mom and little brother will be here any time, and I want to meet up with them.” She had contacted her mom over the net after a dozen futile tries, and knew she was on the way. And then they’ll get me out of here, you jackass.

  “OK,” said the teacher. “But don’t wander. This is like a small city down here.”

  Rebecca simply nodded and walked into the waiting room, catching one last glance of Timmy. Why doesn’t his mom and dad see sense and get him out of here? she thought as he was walked away.

  Rebecca jacked into the local net and looked over the map of the shelter system. Gauge was the capital city of the planet, with over two million inhabitants. There were over forty of the shelters beneath that city, not all of them as big as this one, enough room for just over a million people. More had been planned, but the city always seemed to grow faster than the plan, and there were other population centers. All of the shelters under the city were connected by tunnels, both walkways and an underground tram.

  She watched the local net, which had more than enough capacity for the people who would use it, and was aware when the enemy ships jumped into normal space. There was still no visual of the vessels, that would not come for over three hours, the distance from the planet to where the ships had left hyper at the edge of the barrier. But the signs were clear. This was a large force, thirty battleships in the twenty-five million ton range, along with sixty-five smaller vessels, from five hundred thousand to four million tons. And their resonances matched the information they had on the ancient enemy. The Ca’cadasans had arrived.

  There was little enough in the system to try and stop them. She had studied the defenses of the system, under the commands of her father, who believed a person should know what they faced. There was a small force of interplanetary warships. All of the interstellar ships that had been based in the system on a rotating basis were gone, pulled out so that they could deploy with the Sector fleet. The only interstellar capable ships in the system were commercial vessels, and a half dozen couriers. Two of those ships were stationed out by the hyper VII barrier and had translated out as soon as the enemy ships had come in. Two more were on their way out to the barrier, while the last two left Azure’s orbit. They would leave the system when it seemed that to stay would be to risk destruction.

  Missile launches were detected, from both sides, as the graviton emissions of the fast accelerating weapons sped through hyper VIII. The insystem ships fired first, their missiles moving at the enemy at five thousand gravities accel. The enemy fired back as soon as they located the launching platforms, their own weapons accelerating at eight thousand gravities. Theirs would strike much sooner than the human weapons, and the Imperial ships would never know if they scored a hit or not. Rebecca almost cried as she thought of those brave men and women who had to know they were already dead when they fired at the enemy.

  “She’s in here,” said the voice of one of the shelter staff, and Rebecca looked up to see her mom hurrying toward the waiting room.

  Rebecca smiled to see her mom, a small woman who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Her father was a large man, and it looked like she and her brother were going to be much larger than their mom.

  “I want to check her out, immediately,” said her mom, looking up at the staff member.

  “You’re both safer here, ma’am,” said the staff member, looking semi-military in his black uniform. “The shelters will fill up, quickly, and if you leave here I can’t guarantee you’ll be allowed back in.”

  “We don’t intend to come back,” said her mom, crooking a finger at Rebecca.

  “I must insist for your own safety that you stay.”

  “And I insist as a private citizen that we are going to leave,” said her mom, pointing a finger at the man. “Look, my husband is a Captain in the Imperial Army. Do I need to call him away from what must be important duties just so he can tell you to back off?”

  “No, ma’am,” said the staffer, his look telling Rebecca that he thought they were both crazy. “I just need you to acknowledge a release, specifying that you understand the risk of leaving.”

  Her mom gave a nod and closed her eyes for a moment, linking with the local system and giving her authorization. “Come on,” she said the Rebecca when she opened her eyes, then led the way to the entrance and out into the lift.

  It was empty going up, and Rebecca could feel the stares of the people they pushed past at the top, those waiting to get on the lift so they could go down to what they supposed was safety. They walked quickly to the landing lot, past a long line of concerned looking people who seemed to want in as soon as possible. Even though the earliest the missiles could get here is over half a day, she thought, shaking her head.

  The aircar was a standard civilian model, using high speed fans to lift from the ground. Grabbers used rare supermetals, and those were required for military applications, as well as civilian space shipping, from surface to orbit to interstellar.

  “I’ve got her,” said her mom into a com, and a small holo popped up over the car’s dash. Her father was on the holo, in light military armor. In the background she could see other men in the same armor moving.

  “You know what to do,” said her father, looking out of the holo at her mother. “I’ll join you if I can.”

  “And do you think you can?” asked her mother with a catch in her voice.

  Rebecca knew he wouldn’t be able to come, not while he was fulfilling his military duties. Later he might not be alive to come. And she realized that her mom and dad really loved each other. Still, things had appeared that might separate them forever, things that were bigger than all of them.

  Her dad shook his head and grimaced, and Rebecca knew he didn’t want to lie, or to tell a truth that might hurt them both. “I’ll try,” he finally said. “That’s all I can promise. Now get to safety before too many other people get the same idea. I’ve got to go. I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” said her mom as the holo went dead.

  “Where are we going?” she asked her mom. Her parents had talked about several options for sheltering, but she had never been apprised of which one they thought the most likely.

  “We’re going to your Uncle Saul’s cabin,” said her mom, setting the coordinates. She was trying not
to cry, and not completely succeeding.

  “I like Uncle Saul,” said Rebecca, just to break the silence. She did like her mother’s brother Saul. He and Aunt Esther and several cousins had a getaway cabin in the Jagged Range, about a hundred kilometers from Gauge. They had several children, and all were fairly well behaved.

  The bright sun glinted off the glass of the skyscrapers of Gauge, the tallest on the planet. Rebecca had seen vids of the megascrapers of the core worlds, to which these were as babies. They seemed big enough to her, reaching almost a kilometer into the sky. And she wondered what they would look like after the city was hit from orbit.

  They swung by the house on the way, their dwelling in a smallish suburb ten kilometers from city center. They picked up her little brother there, and relieved a nanny who looked like she very much wanted to be on her way back to her own family.

  “We’ll be there in forty minutes,” said her mom, letting the autosystems take over as soon as she gained altitude. Rebecca looked back at the city behind them, wondering if she would ever see it again.

  * * *

  “Get those lines hooked up,” called Captain Joseph Goldman to his soldiers, all reserve engineers called up to active service. Around them stretched the forest of Azure. Several clearings had been cut into the woods with robots that ignored the attacks of animals and plantimals. A several thousand ton mobile shore gun was lowering itself into one of the clearings, while two more were on slow approach to the other clearings, each five kilometers from this one along an equilateral triangle. In the next valley were a pair of portable missile launcher and the fire control center for the battery.

  The men were hooking the hard wired lines to a three ton jammer unit. The control center would be able to use the device no matter how much other static was flooding the atmosphere. It might give them a couple of more shots than expected, he thought, looking up the hillside where an electromag projector was being installed. Or it might not, and then that screen will handle a shot or two.