by Saxon Andrew
Victoria snapped, “What did you just say!?!”
Teg lowered his head and said, “I asked Jon if we did that.”
Victoria leaned back in her chair and the Cat said, “You didn’t know?”
The three looked at the Cat and said, “No, we were caught up in what was going on around us and didn’t really get an opportunity to see.”
Grainer said, “How can you stand there and say something that false to us.”
Jon jerked his head around and said, “Your Majesty, we do not lie!” He paused and said, “Ever!”
Grainger stared the young man in the eyes and saw the anger in the three brothers. He was the one that broke eye contact. Victoria saw Jon’s anger and knew he meant it. She said, “Then please explain how your armor did those things violating every design built in them.”
Jon looked at the Queen and said, “I wish I could.” Everyone looked at each other and Jon knew they were in trouble. He said, “I just followed the music.”
The Cat jumped to his feet and jerked his head around so fast that everyone saw it, “What do you mean music!?!”
Jon turned to the Cat and said, “That day at the fencing room I heard a melody far off in the distance. I followed it and it led me to that cutlass. When we were selecting the weapons for our armor, we followed the different melodies to the weapons and put them in our armor. When we were fighting the Megat, I didn’t have to choose a weapon to use; they chose themselves. I simply allowed them to determine what to do. The symphony of them playing together was beautiful and almost overwhelming. Our weapons took on a life of their own. They became me and I became them.”
The Cat looked at Tegen and Dern and they nodded.
Juliette stared at Jon and knew that he was going to be her mate. She would not have another.
The Cat stared at them for a long moment and the Queen interrupted the moment, “What’s going on?”
Vremel looked at the Cat and said, “Are you sure?”
The Cat gave a quick turn of his head and said, “Mother is.”
Victoria said, “Answer me!”
The Cat turned to Victoria and said, “These three brothers are a gift from another Creator. Our Mother can hear their melodies and she knows that they are a gift of love.” The Cat paused and said, “They are ones that will make a difference in our fight to save Creation.” The Cat and the Zord bowed to the three brothers.
Jon looked at them and then at Dern and Teg. He turned back to the Queen and said, “Wait a minute. We don’t have a clue about who or what we are. We’re no different from all of those around us. We’re just three warriors fighting evil; nothing more; nothing less.”
Victoria listened to the vision being sent by the Cat and she saw everyone else in the room was seeing it as well. Everyone saw it except the three brothers, who looked at each other and wondered what was going on.
Victoria looked at the three and said, “Go and find your destiny. Whatever you need, we will provide it.”
Jon looked at the Queen and said, “All I know is that we are Life Warriors and that is where we should be.”
Vremel said, “You will return to your units.”
Jon shook his head, “Why do you want us to do that?”
The Cat said, “We need you to discover who you are. We need to see if what you have is more than you think.”
Jon looked at Teg and Dern and they linked. After a moment Jon said, “We feel that we still have things to learn. Fighting with our units is where we should be.”
The Cat looked at the Zord and had a huge smile. The brothers did see it. The Queen did and said, “Go and fight for us. We will watch your actions and hope you are what we think you are.” The King and Queen stood and left the room.
Juliette came forward and stood in front of Jon, “I want to thank you for saving my life.”
Jon smiled, “I’m truly happy that I did, Lady Juliette.”
Juliette smiled, put her arms around his neck, and kissed him. She stepped back and teleported out. Jon’s head was swimming. Dern looked at him and said, “Are you alright?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
Robert and Sarah rushed forward and wrapped their arms around Jon. Both of them had tears but Jon only felt their love.
The Cat looked at the Zord, “Thank you for restraining me over the years.”
The Zord smiled, “How do you know it was me and not the other?”
The Cat’s face furrowed and he didn’t know how to respond.
• • •
Jon returned to his unit and found that he had been promoted to Lieutenant. He stood at attention in front of Captain Debat and said he wasn’t qualified for command. Debat heard him out and then said, “Then tell me why all of us followed your order to move back four steps? I remember saying that we couldn’t give up ground but I also did as you directed.”
Jon tried to answer but didn’t know what to say.
Debat said, “We all sensed that you knew what you were doing and your tone was what made us comply. You do have it in you, Private Gee. I’ve lost one of my Lieutenants and the platoon is excited at the prospect of having you lead them. Now get out of here and go introduce yourself to your Warriors.”
“But Sir.”
“Dismissed, Lieutenant.”
• • •
Jon stood in front of the four squads of Life Warriors and slowly shook his head. They stared at him and wondered what was wrong. Finally, Jon said, “First squad, step forward.”
The twelve warriors took one step forward and Jon said, “Activate your armor and empty all your magazines and turn off your blasters.”
The twelve instantly appeared in their armor and waited.
Jon said, “I am going to call out a combination of weapons. I want you to bring them out as quickly as possible.” Jon paused and said, “Shoulder cannon.” All twelve had their shoulder cannons on their armor in less than a second. “Hand Projectile and main blaster.” Jon saw that it took almost two seconds for them to activate the two weapons. “Spark launcher, shoulder cannon, hand blaster, hornet.”
Jon saw half of them were still unable to get all the weapons out he requested. “Al right, return your weapons to your armor and turn on your weapon command center. Once you have that pulled up, activate the learn mode on the shoulder cannon.” Jon waited and saw on his command circuit that they had all complied. “Now, enter the command DET for your shoulder cannon.” Jon waited and then said, “Now, use that command to activate your cannons.”
All twelve members had their shoulder cannons immediately appear.
“Now do the same thing for your hand blaster and enter the command E.” Jon waited and then said, “Shoulder cannon and hand blaster.”
The two weapons instantly appeared on every squad member.
“Now program AH for your helmet laser.”
Jon spent the next two hours reprograming his platoon’s armor to the short Cainth terms. Once all four squads were familiar with the terms he said, “I am going to start sending you various commands for weapon combinations and you will activate them as quickly as possible.”
The platoon found the exercise difficult at first but a week later, after they had worked on the commands ten hours a day, they were blazingly fast in activating their weapons. All of them knew that their Lieutenant had made them even more deadly. Their confidence in their commander was high. They were ready to follow him into their next assignment.
Mandel looked at the programmer and said, “Explain to me how D Company was teleported in alone when a battalion was supposed to arrive at that location?”
“Someone went into the main computer and changed the programing protocols. The only changes done involve that particular company.”
“Can you determine who did it?”
“No Sir. But I can tell you that whoever it was; they were able to do things that very few in the Realm could do.”
“That limits the suspects; does it not?”
The p
rogrammer shrugged, “We don’t know when it was done and our best hope is to go through all the videos of the portals where the commands could be entered to see if anything turns up.”
“Can you determine if any other entries were made?”
“There were. It appears that someone wants every Warrior in that company killed. The commands would only kick in when a major drop is made. Once I found the pattern, I was able to find the others.”
“How certain are you that you’ve found them all?”
“I wish I could say I have no doubt, but whoever did this is really good. I would recommend that you change the unit’s designation and use the old one as a ghost unit and see if it happens again.”
“I’ll handle that and you let me know if it happens again.”
“Yes Sir.”
• • •
William Dodd stared at his son on his display, “It looks like your wizard failed.”
“No, that company was dropped in on a regiment of Megat without any support. No other units were able to come to their aid.”
“The target is still alive.”
“The Wizard takes that survival personally and assures me that there are still a few traps waiting to be sprung.”
“You better be careful communicating with him. You could be compromised.”
“I’m not using the normal communication channels and I’m certain he doesn’t know who’s directing him.”
“You better hope so.” The display went dark and the son wondered if the Wizard had a way of getting around the safeguards. He thought about it and pressed a button on his console, “I need you to take care of a little problem.”
• • •
The young Algean stood at a restaurant on Ross and waited for the waiter to bring the box of golden soil out. It arrived and he tipped the waiter an extra twenty credits. He moved to the box and sent his feet into the golden soil. He extended his roots from his feet and sighed. Oh that’s good. He felt his roots reach the bottom of the soil and suddenly something stunned his nervous system. He tried to move but found himself paralyzed. In less than three seconds all his branches turned black and he died withering in horrible pain. The waiter watched from inside the restaurant and then went out the back door and boarded a small speeder. The crowd gathering around the dead Algean never saw him leave.
Chapter Eight
Jon inspected his platoon before the drop on Belwen. The Hagrem had taken the planet three months earlier and the Realm’s forces were tied down pushing their fleets out of the sector. The last of their ships had jumped away leaving the occupation forces still in control of the planet. They were heavily dug in and their planetary guns made it too dangerous for a fleet battleship to come close. The only way to take control was to teleport the Life and White Warriors in to take out the heavy batteries.
The Hagrem Warriors were dangerous and were technologically ahead of the Realm’s forces in their blasters. The beams would rip through a Life Warrior’s armor if they were closer than a hundred yards. The batteries were protected by thousands of their warriors and Jon knew getting close enough to get through the huge gun’s force field was going to necessitate coming into range of the defending forces.
He looked at the map of the area his company was assigned and saw that there were thirty of the giant gun emplacements within visual sight of each other. The regiment had been told that those guns could also be lowered to fire at anything on the surface as well. This was not going to be easy.
Sgt. Dominick Calso looked at the map of the terrain and said, “Why are we doing this?”
“Huge numbers of the population went into the forests when the Hagrem landed and they’re running out of food. If we don’t move in soon, most of them are going to die of starvation.”
“Why haven’t the Hagrem gone after them?”
“They’ve had their hands full getting control of the cities. They took this planet because of its Rexite deposits and most of the cities are located close to the mines. They could care less about the inhabitants.”
“This is impossible. How do we get close enough to take out the guns?”
Jon continued to stare at the map and finally said, “Whatever we do, it will have to be done extremely fast.”
“Why don’t we just teleport a nuke in on them?”
“That would destroy the mines and the population needs them to provide the energy for their civilization.”
“Surely Fleet knows there is no way to do this?”
Jon sighed, “All we need is a clear space over the planet for our ships to come in and take out their forces. I think they hope one of our units might be able to do it.”
Dominick shook his head and said, “How do we get through the force field if we’re able to make it through the defenders?”
“A life Warrior is assigned to our unit and he will teleport through once he gets next to it. He’ll then take out the gun.”
Jon stared at the picture of the huge gun and thought, “Teg, will a mini-penetrator make it through the gun’s force field.”
“I’m afraid not, Jon. That force field is stronger than the ones used by our fleet. It also recovers extremely fast, so hitting it multiple times won’t do it.”
Jon thought a moment and pulled up the map of the gun his unit was assigned to destroy. “Teg, do we have a detailed depth scan of the defender’s bunkers?”
“I’m sure one was done; why do you ask?”
“Well, this map indicates that they aren’t staggered but done in aligned rows with the back of them being covered by those closer to the gun.”
Teg pulled up his map and examined the Hegrem’s positions, “It’s the same for the one we’re going to take out.”
Jon thought a moment, “Dern, you might want to join this conversation.”
“What’s up?”
“Take a look at the positioning of the Hagrem bunkers. Do you see anything significant?”
“They’re murderous if they’re taken head on.”
“I see that as well, but what is the limit of their fire coverage?”
“They can cover six bunkers in front of them. Their apertures are not wide enough to cover more than that.”
Teg said, “I think I see what you’re thinking about, but I don’t know if you can pull it off before the big gun can be brought to bear.”
“Isn’t fleet going to start moving in just before we attack?”
“They are but they’re stopping just outside the gun’s range.”
“That may be all we need to make it work.”
“It’s still got to be done at a speed that I’m not sure we can do?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“No, but getting this set up in the two hours before we attack is not going to be easy.”
“Then we need to get to work.”
Jon went to the computer and pulled up the positions of the bunkers his platoon was going to attack and began downloading coordinates as fast as his internal system could manage. Once he had them locked in he called his platoon together and began issuing assignments into their helmet computers. They watched as the down loads were done and they began looking at each other. This was going to be a very tricky exercise to pull off. Jon contacted the White Warrior that was slated to penetrate the gun’s force field and showed him what he was planning.
“This is sure suicide.”
“That’s something we’ll deal with; will you be ready to make your move if we pull it off?”
The Warrior looked at Jon and said, “I’ll go when you send the word.”
Jon thought a moment and said, “You need to come in as soon as the first three jumps are made. Don’t wait.”
The White Warrior looked at the plan on his helmet monitor and said, “Just give me room for my unit.”
“Just remember; after the third jump.”
Jon turned off his communicator and began talking with his platoon.
• • •
The regiment’s freque
ncy activated and the Life Warriors heard, “We will be teleporting in to our assembly locations in ten minutes. We will launch our attacks as soon as all personnel are on the planet. Good luck, Warriors.”
Jon went to Captain Debat and said on a private channel, “Sir, my platoon is going to use a different tactic than the one in the attack program.”
“What are you talking about, Lieutenant? You will follow the attack profile.”
“Sir, you know as well as I do that we stand no chance of getting through those fortified positions. I just ask that you give me this leeway. It might just save the lives of our Warriors if it works.”
“Why haven’t you discussed this with me before the last minute? You’re putting my head on the line if we violate our orders.”
“Our company is putting their lives on the line, Sir. I’ve just been able to get this plan organized. I want you to give it a chance.”
Debat stared at Jon and swore. “Lieutenant, you better hope this works.”
“I need the rest of the company to distract the bunkers in front of their positions without penetrating the enemy’s lines.”
Debat stared at Jon and said, “Do you have the plan?”
“I do.”
“Give it to me.”
Jon sent the plan to Debat and went back to his platoon. Debat looked at the plan and decided to do it. He hit the command company for Zeta Company and said, “I’m sending you new orders. Officers, make sure you follow them.”
Debat knew his career was over if this failed but his life would probably end if the company hit those installations head on. Perhaps Lt. Gee could make it work.
• • •
Jon said, “We don’t have long to pull this off so don’t hesitate. Carry out your orders.” Jon watched the countdown and his platoon and the rest of the battalion teleported to the planet’s surface a mile from the giant Hagrem gun.
• • •
They arrived and Debat discovered that the program that linked all of his warriors was not functioning. He also discovered that the communication line to Fleet was also inoperative. This was just like the attack at the spaceport. They were cut off and had no way to call for help. Jon saw the failure of the main link and immediately contacted Captain Debat, “We can’t wait, Sir. The gun will turn and fire on us if we don’t go now.”