Voice of the Chosen (Spirit of Empire, Book Three)

by Lawrence White

  “The director needs you here, right away,” she ordered.

  “I can’t leave. I’ll send someone else.”

  Akurea leaned into the pickup. “We know what the source of the malfunction is. If you value your life and the lives of everyone else on the station, you’ll drop whatever you’re doing and get up here.”

  Stony silence met her demand, then the man’s shoulders sagged. “I’m in the control center. It will take a while.”

  “Hurry,” she ordered and signed off.

  Akurea and Harriman had listened to the conversation. Harriman rubbed a hand across his chin. “The Chessori communicate telepathically. Any other Chessori on this station will know precisely what’s happened. They’ll probably get here before the security people.”

  He left them and went to his partner. “We’re stuck here for a while, Sean,” he said. “We need to secure a perimeter.”

  Sean nodded. “Any chance we can get help?”

  “Not for a while. We have to decide if we’re going to take over the station or just blow it up.”

  “Is there an option?”

  Harriman’s eyes gleamed. “Actually, there is.” He nodded toward the three Chessori.

  It didn’t take long for Sean to understand the plan. “Oh, my,” he breathed. “Every option in the book just became ours for the asking.”

  “Their partners will be here soon, and they’ll come armed. You and I need to get into position. I’ll brief Stor and leave her in charge here.”

  He went back to Stor and Akurea. “Here’s the plan. We’ll have visitors shortly, probably Chessori. They’ll come armed, and they’re good fighters. Sean and I need to get into position outside this room.” He lifted a hand to Stor’s shoulder. “You’re in charge. I want that door kept open, and I want those three Chessori sitting right inside the doorway. Sean and I can handle their friends, but we might be outnumbered if a lot of security people show up with them. Your job is to force the Chessori to activate the scree if I tell you. If they refuse, shoot one of them. Understood?”

  Her eyes glowed fiercely. “You want me to shoot one of them? I can’t. I’ve never shot anyone before.”

  His grip on her shoulder tightened. “Do you want to save this station?”

  “Of course!”

  “The Chessori are our means of doing just that. Think about it. We need reinforcements. We have to take over the security center and lower the shields before they can land. It’s a long way inside the station from here. We won’t make it on our own, but with the help of the scree, we can disable anyone who tries to stop us. Get it?”

  She nodded. “James, I don’t know if I could shoot one of them. They’re unarmed.”

  “They’re never unarmed. Their scree is a more potent weapon than anything we have, and as you saw, they don’t hesitate to use it.”

  She turned to Akurea. “Will you back me up, My Lady?”

  “I can get one shot off, but the moment the scree sounds, I’m gone. Go, Captain. We’ll do our best to keep this room secure.”

  Harriman and his partner worked their way through the front offices, sending everyone home for the day. After suffering the effects of the scree, no one resisted.

  Half an hour later, a voice called out. “Drop your weapons. We’re coming in.”

  Harriman scowled at his own mistake. Clearly, Chessori accompanied the force before him, and the Chessori captives in the room behind him had communicated the situation to them. He made eye contact with his partner who just rolled his eyes. He, too, had missed that particular little item.

  Both of them remained silent, and before long they detected motion. They had no interest in shooting station personnel, so they waited. It didn’t take long for a fairly large force to fill the room. A Chessori carefully made his way into the area, followed by two more. Harriman waited as long as he could, not knowing how many Chessori were actually on the station. When the advancing force neared him, he took careful aim and put three shots into a Chessori, killing it.

  The scree started up instantly. Harriman didn’t know if it came from the Chessori here or the captives with Stor, but he didn’t care. The station security people fell to the floor writhing in agony. Harriman motioned to his partner to wait. He wanted to make sure it would take them a while to wake up. His partner motioned that he had one Chessori in his sights. Harriman had a good bead on the other.

  He called out, “Come out with your hands up. You will not get a second offer.” No one moved, and he nodded to his partner. Another Chessori died instantly. “Okay, I lied,” he called out. “You get a second chance. If you want to live, come out with your hands up. Decide quickly. You are in my sights, and my finger really, really wants to press this button.”

  A blaster slid across the open space and a Chessori came out with his hands over his head. Harriman secured the creature while his partner covered him, then he secured the rest of the security detail, some twenty of them.

  “Okay, turn it off,” he ordered the Chessori. The scree stopped, and Harriman dragged the single Chessori back to Stor while his partner secured the main entrance.

  “Find out who’s in charge among the security detail,” Harriman said to Stor.

  She came up to him a while later in a crouch. “As near as I can tell, they’re all Struthers’ supporters. No one will talk.”

  “Okay, here’s our plan. We can move about the station at will with the help of the Chessori. I can disable the station by myself, but I’ll probably ruin it forever. Can you bring yourself to damage it if it saves it in the long run?”

  She did not hesitate. “Count me in. I will need access codes that I don’t have.”

  “Who has them?”

  “The security chief and the station director. Several others if we can locate them.”

  “If I leave you here, can you shoot any Chessori that approach?”

  “I’ll do whatever I can if it means saving the station, James.”

  He left her and went back to Akurea. After a brief conversation, they approached the director.

  Akurea laid her cards on the table. “You have a choice, sir. This station will never make another power bottle for Struthers. We will either completely destroy the station, and we can definitely do that, or we can disable the station. On the one hand, the station is gone. On the other, it survives and can become operational again in the future. To disable it, we need certain access codes. Will you supply them to us?”

  He stared hatefully at her. “Never!”

  She nodded. “So be it.”

  She and Harriman went to the station’s security officer and made the same request of him. He, too, refused.

  Harriman didn’t hesitate. He led Akurea to Stor and said, “I’m not going to give up that easily. Surely we can find someone who will help.”

  “The second in command for security will be in the main security office. It’s a long way from here.”

  “Do you know the way?”

  “I can figure it out. These stations all bear similarities.”

  “We’re going deep into the station, My Lady,” he said to Akurea. “We might never get out again.”

  “We have more stations to visit after this one,” she said. “If we fail, we fail the Queen. Don’t let that happen. Just remember, I’ll be useless to you whenever the scree sounds.”

  “Then we’ll just have to limit its use,” he said grimly. “Stor, you’re in charge of the Chessori. We’ll lock everyone else in here.”

  His partner, Sean, closed and locked one entrance to the area, then shot out the controls. He and Harriman led the way out the remaining door, and Akurea secured it with her blaster. A long, difficult trek lie ahead of them. The two Protectors had to complete a cursory check of every room they passed.

  They reached a transfer station and had to decide whether or not to take a sled. “They’re watching us from the security offices. I can feel it,” Harriman said. “We could have a reception party on the other end. How long will
it take on foot?”

  Stor had to think. She had never before contemplated travel through a station on foot. “The rest of the day and all night,” she finally decided.

  “That gives them a really long time to secure themselves. I don’t like that.” He turned to Akurea. “Sorry, My Lady.” To Stor’s horror, he stunned her. He caught her and lowered her to the floor, looking up at Stor as he did so. “It’s going to be a long scree. This is better for her.” He holstered his stunner in preparation for picking up Akurea, but Stor placed a hand on his shoulder and stopped him.

  “I’ll do it. You deal with the Chessori.”

  He watched in amazement as Stor leaned over and picked up the unconscious Knight with almost no effort. She cradled Akurea in her arms and directed a look at Harriman that demanded he get on with it. He ordered the Chessori to activate their scree, but nothing happened. He pulled his blaster from its holster and fired a shot between two of them. That did the trick. The scree started up instantly.

  Everyone boarded the sled and whisked off toward the security offices. Harriman had Stor stop the vehicle one stop short of their destination, and they worked their way on foot the rest of the way. He and his partner knew that if there were any remaining Chessori on the station, the ones in their group would be communicating telepathically with them. Ambush was never far from their thoughts. When they entered the last corridor leading to the security center, their worst fears materialized.

  Harriman took a shot to the chest that flung him backwards. His partner returned fire, hit his target, and raced for all he was worth down the corridor. Stor set Akurea on the floor and followed him, her blaster not aimed at anything in particular, but anyone trying to look around a corner would think twice. Sean reached a crossing corridor and threw a stun grenade each way, waited until they went off, then peered around the corner to his right. He saw a Chessori, but it was down.

  He checked the other way just in time. A shot ricocheted off the wall nearby and he returned fire. He didn’t miss. He turned back to the other Chessori and finished it off with three shots. He waited, but there didn’t seem to be any more of them.

  “Check behind us,” he yelled to Stor and raced back toward Harriman and Akurea. His warning was none too early. Two Chessori heads peeked out from a corridor. It was a long shot for Sean, but he took it. So, too, did Stor. Both Chessori died.

  Sean charged up to them and cleared the corridor, then returned to the captive Chessori. He said one word: “Stop.” The scree stopped instantly.

  Stor bent over Harriman. She removed his shirt, then released the vest and worked him out of it. When he stirred, he kept his eyes squeezed shut. Stor gently cradled his head and upper torso while Sean examined him. Angry bruises had already formed, but his skin was still intact.

  “Lousy timing, Captain,” Sean said to him.

  Bloodshot eyes opened to stare at the ceiling, then they moved to Sean. “They won’t have their wits about them for a few minutes but when they do, they’ll call for reinforcements. See if you can get into the office.”

  “They’ll be locked up tight.”

  “Probably. Go.”

  Sean took off, and Harriman stared up into Stor’s eyes. “How bad?”

  She brushed beads of sweat from his forehead. “Bruises on the outside. Your vest is ruined. I don’t know about internal injuries.”

  “I need to sit up. Sean might need help.”

  She lifted him effortlessly, though the price he paid was not small. She set him up against a wall, placed a blaster into each of his hands, then left on the run. He stared after her, amazed at her grace and speed.

  Akurea was still out from the stunning. He stared at the four Chessori who were huddled together.

  “Why? What did we ever do to you?” he asked.

  One of them stood up. “Who are you that you defy the K’tiri? No one defies the K’tiri.”

  “Oh, is that what you call yourselves?”

  “Free us.”

  He blinked, suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to kill these Chessori. But he couldn’t kill them - he still needed them. “Surely you know who you’re dealing with,” he said angrily.

  “No one can defy the scree. How do you do it?”

  “You don’t know?” he asked incredulously.

  The Chessori just stared back at him, its expression as bland as always. He had to wonder: did some of the Chessori not know of Earth’s existence? Had their leaders withheld such knowledge from general circulation? He couldn’t know the answer, but he could wonder.

  Stor returned. “Surprise, surprise. We’re in. The security section is secure.”

  He stared at her in amazement, then a winning smile lit his face. “We’re in the home stretch,” he said.

  Stor bent down, picked up Akurea as if she was a child, and headed back up the corridor. When she returned, she held a blaster on the four Chessori and escorted them to the security offices. She locked them in a small office and returned for Harriman.

  She knelt down on one knee before him and reached out a hand to trace old scars on his bare chest. Two rows of six dots, each painted white, stretched from his left shoulder to his nipple. She fingered them, asking, “Who are you, Captain James Harriman?”

  “Where I come from, people refer to me as an Aborigine. My people trace their ancestry to the very earliest of our species.”

  “You are known as great fighters?”

  “Actually, we’re not. We thrive on competition, but we live simply. The land shapes our existence. Mother Nature cradles us within that existence. Outsiders will never understand, but it is so. I embrace that existence, my spirit is part of it, but I embrace more. I stared at the stars and they called to me, so I came. It has been a long path, but I do not regret my choice.”

  “The easy path for you now would be to destroy this station. You have chosen the more difficult path.”

  “Destruction is a last resort. You told us, and I heard your words.”

  “Is it possible that we four have taken over a whole station?”

  “We’re not done yet,” he answered. “Even if we succeed, they’ll never appreciate what we’ve done for them. We’ll always be the bad guys.”

  Still kneeling, she leaned back on one foot and looked up and down the corridor. No fresh threats showed themselves. “I do not know my people well,” she said, staring directly into his eyes. “I was taken by slavers at the age of twelve, but I remember a song, a very old legend actually, that speaks of disaster and escape.”

  He shifted uncomfortably. This was not a great time for conversation, but he felt her need to talk. “From what did you flee?”

  “I don’t know. I’m beginning to wonder if it was from the Chessori.”

  Suddenly very focused, he stared into those eyes, eyes that had lost some of their fire. “You’re immune to their scree. I was told that no other species in the Empire is immune besides my own.”

  “My people are not part of the Empire. We chose against.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I know that they pay a heavy price for that decision. I am not the only one to have been sold into slavery.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “I’m not sure. The legend of which I speak contains a word spoken by you earlier today. The word is Atlantis.”

  He stared into her eyes, dumfounded. What did this mean, if anything?

  She reached out and traced her finger along the two rows of scars on his chest again. She paused thoughtfully, then reached up and pulled her body suit from her own left shoulder, exposing a pattern of scars identical to his own.

  He reached out and touched each one of them with a look of wonder on his face.

  “This was done to me just before my people released me to the slaver.”

  “What does it mean?”

  She pulled away from him and repositioned her body suit. “I don’t know, but I want to know more about this Atlantis of yours. We’ll talk later. Let’s g
o save a station, shall we?”

  He struggled to stand, but she placed a hand on his shoulder. “Your ribs are damaged. Are you hurt inside?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She leaned down and picked him up as gently as she could. There was just no way to avoid jostling his ribs, but so amazed was he at the ease with which she picked him up that he just grunted.

  “I’m sorry, James,” she said, her breath warm on his face.

  He’d never been so close to her. He breathed in her smell, and he liked it. “Don’t be sorry. Be proud. You’ve done well today, and you’ve found a new friend. Just . . . please! You can’t let Sean see me like this. I’ll walk into the security center on my own two feet.”

  Her eyes just rolled in their sockets. He knew what she was thinking, but she was kind enough to not verbalize it.

  * * * * *

  When Akurea awoke, she spoke to the security people, informing them that she was a Knight of the Realm. She gave them the same choice she had given the director and their security chief.

  “Help me save your station,” she implored, ending her speech.

  One stepped forward, the assistant head of security. He gave Stor the codes that she needed, but he refused to help her. Stor used the codes to lower the station’s shield, and Akurea contacted her ship via tightbeam.

  Captain Arrits responded, “We’ve been worried. The local squadron and three Chessori military ships are moving in on the station. We haven’t moved yet, we don’t want to give ourselves away, but we’re ready to back you up. All your forces are in position.”

  She knew what he meant. Her own heavy squadron loitered near the planet with their beacons off. “How much time do I have?”

  “About an hour, no more.”

  Harriman spoke up. “Tell him that Rebel squadron cannot be allowed to link to the station. They’ll send in Imperial Marines if they do.”

  Akurea grinned. “You’ve found a strategy for defeating them, James. I’ve suffered through the scree too many times, but in this particular case, since it’s in our favor, I welcome it.”

  “Too many times?”

  “Hmm. Maybe I forgot to tell you. I accompanied Lady Krys through three star systems and three major battles.”