Mutant Hunter

by Tobias Roote

  “ – and nothing, do we go with you in command, or not ?” Dalt said pointedly.

  Charon looked taken aback by the vehemence in Dalt’s suggestion.

  “I’m sorry, I am not averse to taking action. I sought only to protect my crew and this ship. Its value to the DIA is immensely important now it is in your hands. I just thought...,” his voice petered out under Dalt’s glare.

  Dalt considered his point. It had merit, they could lose AW Command anyway, but to lose the Dramatus would be pure negligence and waste a golden opportunity for the DIA and Alliance to update their technology. He softened his stance and saw the acting captain relax slightly as he responded.

  “I’m sorry for my words, you are partially - no, you are... completely correct in your opinion. However, the AW needs our help and without it the neutral territories will fall. The Alliance fleet is minutes away. We can hold off the Flag until they arrive.”

  Charon sighed, his relief evident. “I will give the order to engage the Flag if they seek to impede our defence of AW Command, of that you can be certain,” he nodded affirming his words. He then reassured Dalt of his commitment to the Dispersal.

  “I stand ready to support the Dispersal in any way I can - and this ship remains at your disposal.” He took a breath and smiled.

  Dalt grunted, satisfied with the younger man’s response. He had reminded Dalt of the benefit of not destroying this ship for the second time today. Dalt realised he was still upset and angry over the loss of his son, he reasoned that it was driving an aggressive response in him that needed curbing.

  “Call the Alliance fleet and advise them we will support them in defending Fording Station and their headquarters, but as soon as they no longer require our assistance we make for our own world where this ship’s new technology can be replicated and retrofitted to our own ships.” He nodded at the now relaxed and confident SIC and charged him with the carrying out of his orders.

  “I’ll be in the office, I need to talk to a few people,” Dalt explained as he made his way off the bridge. He wasn’t going far, but wanted to evaluate Charon’s skills from a distance. He also needed to check-in with his base and advise them of the change of plans.

  He sat in front of the comms console and typed in some commands that were ubiquitous to all Core and Alliance computers. The software had been secretly seeded with DIA security tags that turned any console into an encrypted communication device. As he proceeded the screens changed pushing him deeper into the secret routines until finally, a picture emerged with a login box.

  Dalt hesitated, flexing his fingers in preparation. Once he was logged in he would be under the direct scrutiny of the cult’s elders and while it was an order of beneficial objectives, the Dispersalistas had developed a hardness born of centuries of persecution. As a result they were daunting and ruthless in their search for the truth. It would not be an easy report.

  “Honorific Elders, I see you,” Dalt initiated.

  “Son of ours, we see you. Report your progress,” one of the elders images enlarged to fill the screen, then fell back again as he stopped speaking. The intuitive software could tell when someone was about to speak, and understood when they had finished. The elders also had a way of initiating and concluding their speech so the software worked faultlessly.

  “We have lost sons, brothers, friends,” he confessed to them sombrely.

  “What occurred, was this to do with your mission to protect Agent Grady ?” asked another.

  Slowly, deliberately, Dalt explained the events leading to the conclusion of the mission. He knew Grady had already sent them the data core, but he sent it anyway as well as his own records which they speed read as they talked to him. When he came to the details passed to him by Grady on the discovery of seeded life on Archon-5 there was a stir amongst the elders and the conversation was muted either by design, or from the myriad outbursts from all of the participants forcing the software to freeze.

  Dalt waited quietly, monitoring them as well as the Dramatus bridge crew who were actively engaging the Core ships in a game of cat and mouse. He muted the clarion call to ‘action stations’ as it came through and continued to wait for a further five minutes by which time the elders conversations had reduced to just two. An argument, Dalt thought to himself. He could well understand the emotional turmoil his report had created. The Dispersalistas ultimate goal of countless centuries had been to find such a planet, and now that time had come. It was a discovery of huge portent.

  The first elder filled his screen. Dalt knew him like a brother, but the severity of the situation took all of that away and replaced it with a distant, but sympathetic countenance.

  “Vargo, my son,” he said using the honorific title of the Dispersalistas tradition. “You have done well. The loss of your kin is felt strongly, here as well, for it would have been a triumph had they been able to stand alongside you at this time. They shall be remembered by a service here tonight and immortalised in the archives as heroes who participated in the discovery of our sacred grail. However – “

  The man seemed to pause to choose, or emphasise his next words carefully, as if there must be no misunderstanding.

  “However, your mission is not yet over,” the elder paused again, probably for Dalt to become receptive to the new instructions he was about to receive. Dalt was not surprised, nor disappointed for he was close to these men and women and knew their mindset. He had lived and worked with them for many, many years and thought much as they did. He knew what was coming.

  “The discovery of Archon-5, which in view of Grady’s data will be renamed Ektepoi in keeping with the natives’ own language and history, poses a new and more serious problem. It occurs to us that the discovery of a Dispersal world at this time of unrest between the Empire and the corporations will likely force their hand into destroying all evidence of its existence.

  They have a wide and effective publicity machine that would quickly reduce the existence of such a world to hyperbole and wishful thinking on the part of our organisation. Such a disastrous event must not be allowed to occur. Therefore, you must proceed immediately, with the Dramatus to the Archon system and take up protective patrols against any and all incursions into Archon space. It is now off-limits to everyone until it is officially recognised as an independent inhabited world.

  “We are sending a full crew complement, plus scientific engineers who will be able to incorporate modifications of our own into the Dramatus. Those same engineers will recover the data on the ship’s propulsion systems which are new to us and required as a priority.” The elder paused again to give Dalt an opportunity to ask questions.

  Dalt dutifully pointed out the main problem. “This ship, though new, fast, and more powerful than any other in the Empire will not withstand a concerted attack by a corporation fleet. It is also impossible for one ship to cover the planet from all directions, it has neither the speed nor the manoeuvrability.”

  The elder smiled. “We anticipated this. You will be joined by our fleet of military and clandestine vessels, some one-hundred-and-twenty-four ships, to be exact. They will be well-armed and their crews, like yours, fully trained and capable of defending the planet. They will arrive over the next few days as some of them are hidden in the Rift, while others are on missions across the system and will take longer. You will lead them. When Grady is finished with his report to the AW Command and has resolved their issue of the traitor in their midst he is to return to the fold. We have an important mission that requires his return to the new planet,” the Elder finished his briefing.

  Dalt drew his hands together in acknowledgement of his commitment to the mission. “It will be as you command, Elder Vargo,” his father smiled at the honoured title. “For humanity, wherever it thrives,” they said in unison and Dalt watched as his father’s image dissolved, the software scrubbing all trace of his coded interference and the video-stream from its memories. They had used this system for decades to communicate across space from wor
ld to world. A secret network of quantum satellites carried their messages across the expanse.

  He stood and gathered his thoughts, delaying his return to the bridge by a few minutes.

  He had been watching Charon and had still not decided if he was fit to command the Dramatus. Would he be able to manage his people until Dalt’s new crew arrived. There might be some serious battles in the next few days and he could not afford to doubt their commitment. He considered the risks and felt that he might tread a middle ground.

  Tapping his earpiece Dalt signalled his men. “Join me on the bridge, I have news,” was all he said. They would understand what it meant - a mission.

  As he walked through the door back onto the bridge, Dalt heard the captain of the Flag issuing an ultimatum to Charon. He deliberately kept out of view so as not to undermine the young officer’s position and signalled to the man with the flat of his hand that he wasn’t there to intervene.

  “...you will be tried and found guilty of treason. Your family will suffer alongside you as will your crew and their families,” the voice was saying.

  “With all due respect,” Charon replied in a manner that implied quite the opposite. “Our families have already suffered greatly at the hands of the Core with their unconditional demands for slave conscripts for its war fleet. You will not use such threats now to promote your agenda. We stand fast and any further attempts to interfere with what is happening on the surface of Fording Station will force us to seal your fate, and that of your crew without further warning.” As the screen blanked at a sign from Charon to his communications officer, he turned to Dalt.

  “They fired first, but our guns took out their missiles and also the backup fighters they launched toward Fording Station. At present they are attempting to bluff us into submission, but we are of one mind here,” he indicated the crew who were already watching the interaction between their new captain and the strange mercenary who commanded so much respect from him.

  “I see the ship is in good hands,” Dalt nodded approvingly towards the bridge crew. “Which is just as well as this is just the beginning.”

  His men, who had been arriving from all over the ship were now bunched in with Dalt and the bridge crew who were looking concerned while still managing to watch the Flag for any untoward activity that might imply a threat to them or the station.

  “Men and ladies,” Dalt acknowledged the three females of the bridge crew. “We have a new problem, one that we’re committed to resolving. You all know that in the Archon sector your ship and others were tasked by the Core with stopping our ships from reaching Alliance space. The very reason we’re here is because the Core and the Corporations don’t want the information those ships carried to become public knowledge - to the point they are prepared to go to war against the Empire over it.

  What information could start a war ? Well ! that’s a simple answer, but a very complicated issue. The planet Archon-5, which is now to be renamed Ektepoi is a human-inhabited world from the ancient time of ‘the Dispersal’.”

  Dalt paused while the murmurs from the crew grew. He understood their confusion. They, like all planetary inhabitants, had been indoctrinated with the lie that the Dispersal was just an unfounded religion, a cult with nowhere to go. Whilst they followed and sympathised with Charon and the DIA forces, they largely did so because of the method of their enslavement to the Core and the desire to be free. It didn’t mean they upheld the beliefs of the Dispersalistas, not even remotely. Now, here was a man, a legend, true, but a man nonetheless, telling them that the system they had recently been fighting in was home to a planet, not of mutants or clones, but native inhabitants from a historical children’s tale. A tale told of the dispersal of humanity carried out on a grand scale, one from which, according to the Dispersalistas, they themselves originated.

  Dalt looked at Charon. He looked a little dazed as he too fought against the ingrained perception of falsehood and compared it to the belief he held and the realisation that his ‘religion’ wasn’t a religion at all, but possibly a historical truth. He was DIA, but even within their core members there were those who believed without having to test their faith. Charon was seemingly one of these.

  Dalt signalled to his men, who quietly moved into positions that gave them access to the consoles. Their attention was not on him or the bridge crew, but instinctively realising that they were vulnerable to an attack whilst the crew’s attention was completely taken up with the revelation, they were checking the navigation, weapons and defences, ensuring the Dramatus was still free of immediate threat.

  ‘Sir, the inbound Alliance fleet has arrived and is taking up positions between the Flag and its support ships and the station’ came a voice in his ear from his man at the navigation console.

  He spoke again ‘We’re being hailed by the AN Freedom, advising us that they are taking over defence of AW Command. They proffer their thanks and advise us to depart as soon as we’re able.'

  'I think they’re telling us to ‘Frig off’, sir,' came a voice from comms.

  Dalt deliberately said nothing, just nodded to the man at the helm who gently pushed the bridge crewman aside and began plotting a course to take them out of system. The crew were still arguing amongst themselves and oblivious to what was going on around them. Other men of his stood by in case they were needed to subdue the crew. Dalt hoped that they were going to be rational, but he wasn’t going to hold his breath. Time to bring them under control, he decided.

  “SILENCE !” he shouted clearly and authoritatively and was rewarded with an immediate quiet as the crew suddenly realised that much had changed in the minutes they had been distracted. The ship was getting under way and Dalt’s men had taken over their stations. The confusion deepened as they felt fear and uncertainty.

  “Whilst I realise that this is a shock for you, it isn’t for us. As you can appreciate we have been working towards this revelation for hundreds of years since humans arrived in this system, settling and terraforming the planets. Yes ! this is what occurred, not the evolutionary twaddle they teach you in school.

  What we have here is evidence of the third dispersal, one of a special kind that took a friendly planet and modified humanity to exist in harmony with its natural flora and fauna. The ecosystem on Ektepoi will have been maintained as naturally as possible and the humans that have evolved there are as indigenous to the planet as they are related to us. They are a new branch of humanity. However, they are still our brothers and sisters.

  This is the reason the corporations and the Core navy risk war with the Empire. They cannot afford for this information to be spread as it will completely undermine the hold they have on the worlds and the people on them. Imagine how those people will react when they understand that it isn’t just themselves and the one-hundred-and-forty-two planets of the Empire, but possibly THOUSANDS of other human inhabited worlds out there. All potentially reachable with an interstellar system such as is installed on the Dramatus.” He paused while the gravity of the information sank in.

  Looking around at them all, trying to draw them in, he used his abilities to gain their trust and cooperation. “We have an immediate problem that needs our attention, we MUST protect that planet, with our lives if necessary, because they represent the truth we have sought all of these hundreds of years. However, if the Core get their way the people will be eradicated or worse, if they cannot have the planet, it will be destroyed. Our mission is to stop the Core and the Corporations.”

  Dalt waited while the crew absorbed the information. They would have questions, they would argue against the truth, they would fight him and his men if they could not accept that truth and he and his men needed to be ready. Now though, they were quiet, absorbed in their own thoughts and fears. Their confusion had no outlet - yet.

  “As you can see, my men have taken over your stations to maintain our defences whilst your thoughts are distracted. You can resume your positions at any time, but only when you are good and ready. Do not
attempt to do so while your mind is muddled you will only get us all killed. Are we clear ?”

  The murmurings were sufficient acknowledgement for Dalt and his men to take his sub-vocal command to remove the crew to safe quarters until they had an opportunity to digest the news. He knew that some would not be able to make the transition from non-belief to belief on such short and unproven notice. However, all he needed was an opportunity for them to see the truth first-hand, then he would have converts for the cause, or have them removed and repatriated somewhere out of harm's way.

  Chapter Thirty

  Back at AW Command

  Grady and Shrilla walked toward the damaged entrance of the AWC. The repair crews were already busily addressing the establishment of a new more formidable barrier set further out into the immediate apron of the landing zone. It wouldn’t stop an inbound missile, but would make it difficult for a direct attack on the entrance tunnel. Range was standing amongst the Core bodies waiting to greet them.

  “Let’s get inside and get off the radar for a bit,” he suggested immediately to Grady.

  Grady watched out of the corner of his eye as Range and Shrilla said a quiet hello, avoiding any outward display. Satisfied that he’d been right, he smiled and moved ahead giving them both a bit of space.

  “Good work, men,” he called to the soldiers that were defending the entrance way from further attack. He was satisfied when he got an acknowledging nod from several who had been around when the fight kicked off outside Kildark’s office. They were certainly seeing some action these last few weeks. They might yet see a lot more once the news got out.

  His ear-com buzzed and he tweaked it to take the call.

  “This is the Dramatus, Dalt. Grady, you got everything under control down there now ?” the DIA agent asked.

  “Yes, we’re clear of immediate threat, Dalt. It seems they don’t like an enemy that can fire back,” he answered.

  “Well, that’s good because we have to go. New mission. The AWA fleet is here and has forced the Flag to remove itself to the edge of the neutral zone on pain of destruction. It seems that we got here just in time to stop a missile assault on the AW Command complex. Close call, Grady. VERY close.”