Frost laughed. “You might as well get up there, Chief. Otherwise she will just run away from us!”
Before I jumped, I looked back at Frost. “How are you going to get up there?”
Frost again laughed. “Don’t worry about me, Sir. I’m taking the stairs!”
By the time I had made it through the hole and into the hall, York was halfway down it in pursuit of fleeing Colossuns. Frost checked each room to the side as she worked her way up the hall.
Frost spoke as she reached me as I checked a room. “Kind of sucks being on cleanup duty, doesn’t it?”
I replied as I moved to the next room, “I guess we are going to have to get used to it. This seems to be working far better than I expected. And the sad thing for the Colossuns is that she will not get tired.”
Frost cleared a room and responded, “I’ll have to admit, once she started showing me the specs on that chassis she is now sporting, I got a little jealous. But you know me, Sir, I’m a lover, not a fighter. All that cyborg stuff… it’s just not my bag.”
I chuckled as I moved back into the hallway. “Well, you just need to convince yourself that cleaning rooms makes you happy, because I see that in our future for the rest of this ship.”
As York turned a corner, a loud thwump could be heard as an ion bolt from a larger cannon impacted her center suit. She was thrown hard into the corner hallway wall, where she left a deep impression in the surrounding metal. She fell forward onto her face shield as the next round blasted the wall where she had been. I dove forward, grabbed her arm, and pulled her back around the corner.
I fired a blaster bolt around the corner and then turned back as Frost rolled York over onto her back. “Yorkie? You still with us?”
York blinked twice and then offered a slow and somewhat garbled response. “Whoa, that was, that was a rush.”
Frost smiled. “Just give her a minute to reset, Sir. I think she came through that OK.”
York spoke as she attempted to sit up. “Sorry, Sir. That was a bit like getting hit by a heavy shovel in the face. Give me a sec and I’ll be back out there.”
I replied, “How about this. You and Frost can clean rooms for a few until you are back to 100 percent. I’ll take point.”
Frost looked on with a scowl, but she knew it was by far the best plan.
I peeked around the hall end and pulled my head back just before another powerful bolt impacted the corner wall. “I think I’m going to have to use York’s tactics. I’ll be going through a couple walls. Just try to keep pace with me.”
I stepped into a side room and sent three bolts of ion charge into the wall. When it glowed red hot, I put down my shoulder and charged ahead. My impact did not break through, nor did it go as planned. The concussion of my brain slapping against the inside of my skull, and from my internal organs impacting my ribs, sent me sprawling back on the room’s floor and writhing in pain and confusion.
As the fog of the event began to clear, York was standing over me. “You best leave this kind of work for the big girl, Sir.”
With that, York fired three bolts and charged headlong into and through the sparking metal wall.
Frost reached down a hand. “Looks like you are back on cleanup, Chief. But I have to hand it to both of you, Sir.”
As Frost pulled me to my feet, I replied, “Why is that?”
Frost laughed. “The entertainment value you both add is priceless, Sir. And I bet it will be equally priceless on the replays. I have been recording every bit of this!”
I struggled to keep up with Frost, as my guts felt like I had swallowed a live, angry Borak whole. There was no letup in York, and the final decks of the Modis Mar were finished off in short order. The three dozen Gonta soldiers who had followed us in arrived on the bridge, three minutes after the fighting was over. Each of them was breathing heavy breath. Captain Meecha was among them.
Meecha spoke. “What just happened here, Mr. Grange? Every Colossun we came across was already dead.”
I pointed to York. “We used our secret weapon, that’s what. York here practically took this whole ship by herself.”
After making that statement, I once again had the eerie feeling that we were somehow being manipulated by the Duke. I wanted to believe it was because of York’s new abilities, but a nagging voice in the back of my head said otherwise.
I spoke. “Frost, get that worm loaded into the ship’s systems. We probably only have a few minutes before we go back and then get sent onto another ship. If they figure out this ship has been compromised, they are likely to blow it up with us still on here.”
Meecha stepped forward. “Mr. Grange, we were not briefed; what does this worm do?”
Frost replied as she connected a universal connection device to an input port, “The worm seeks out the Duke’s virus and attaches itself to it. We couldn’t figure out how to kill it off, so we latch onto it and clean up as we go. If it works properly, there will only be one system affected at a time. If we can then isolate that system and pull the hardware, the virus is done.”
Meecha nodded. “Ingenious, Miss Frost. Thank you for the explanation.”
Once the worm was in the system, we had to wait for it to clean the virus from all points but the active one. We could not use our comms until the comm system on the ship had been cleaned and shut down. Several minutes passed before Frost gave the go-ahead.
I pressed the comm button on my arm pad. “This is Grange. The Modis Mar has been neutralized. We are ready to move on.”
Only a few seconds passed before a meter-wide wormhole opened on the bridge and a roller-covered rail was shoved through. Several minutes later, we were sliding into a newly formed cavity on another cruiser. This time York was the first through. After a brief period of fighting by her side, I was resigned to the fact that she was more than capable of clearing decks on her own. If anything, I was slowing her down.
After the second cruiser had been taken and neutralized, I had Meecha and his men reassigned to another team. They had done nothing but chase us from one end of the ship to another, only catching up to us once the job had been done. They were of better use elsewhere.
The fighting on the other ships, especially the battleships, was slow going. The Gontas were pouring soldiers through the portals in a continuous stream until it was evident that the ship in question would be taken. At that point the portal was opened on a new ship and a new team sent through.
After two days of fighting, the remaining Colossun ships began to turn and run. More than 400 had fallen to our portal assault tactic before the remaining 355 had fled. When the Gonta fleet arrived, there were no Colossun-manned ships remaining. It was a great day for the Gontas, as it was the first time victory could be claimed in a battle with the Colossuns.
The captured Colossun ships were flown into Gonta space to be disassembled and studied. Whatever system was left running with the Duke’s virus was pulled from the captured structure and destroyed. For the Gonta, they had gained a more efficient environmental controls system along with a slightly more powerful ion cannon, all without risking any of their own ships.
During the encounter, estimates placed the number of Colossuns killed at nearly ten thousand. Two hundred seventy-six Gonta had perished, along with one Human. The crew of a Colossun destroyer had managed to set off their self-destruct when they realized they could no longer defend their ship. Sergeant Juan Valdez would no longer be bringing a morning cup of coffee to my office on the Suppressor.
With the imminent threat to the Gontas now gone, our efforts were turned to finding a way to rescue the Humans and to recover the Grid. With the two now separated, it was a task that had become exponentially more difficult.
We had the exact location of the Human prisoners, and I was toying with the thought of opening a portal to try to sneak Ashley out.
I spoke to Frig and George. “I know, it wouldn’t be fair. But she has information on the Duke and what happened when he took control. It would be either
her or Dr. Touchstone that has that knowledge. Her knowledge would be along the lines of tactical intel. Jon is brilliant, but I don’t think he collects data with that in mind.”
Frig replied, “Don, you do not have to feel guilty about it. Ashley is the logical choice to bring back, if we are able to find her.”
I sat forward in my chair. “In order to find her, we would have to open a portal and scan. Can we do that without being detected? I don’t want to risk reprisals on any of our people should we get caught snooping around.”
Frig nodded. “This lab has complete signal isolation from that portal room. It was one of the things that were added during the rebuild effort. If we only perform passive scans, we should be able to go undetected. What we do not have data on is whether or not the portal itself gives off a detectable signature. I have run a few tests, and they have not yielded detectable results. That does not, however, mean that it cannot be detected.”
I sighed. “Nothing is ever clean in this world, is it. There is always some level of risk with everything we do. How long would you want for continued testing before you would be somewhat confident that a portal would not be detected?”
Frig thought and responded, “If I can have a week of uninterrupted testing, I would place the odds of remaining unnoticed at no better than… two to one.”
I spoke. “Is this something we can have the Gontas working on in parallel? They might even have a few new ideas or different sensor equipment to make use of.”
Frig stood and began to pace the room. “I think that is an excellent suggestion, Don. I will have my counterpart on the Orienta begin work on that when we conclude this meeting.”
I replied, “OK. Take your week, along with the Gonta, and see what you can do. And by the way, when did you start pacing?”
Frig shook his head. “It is a nasty habit that I picked up over the last year. Sadly, I have to admit that it helps to somehow focus the mind.”
I nodded with a smirk. “Hmm, sadly, huh. That must get you right in the gizzard.”
Frig stopped and looked at me. “Gambits do not have gizzards, Sir. I, however, know what it is that you were implying, and as I said, I have picked up a nasty habit.”
George stood. “Well, this meeting is obviously over, and I have other work to attend to. I will be pacing out that door on the way to my office; let me know what you two have decided.”
The next six days of my week were spent thinking about an eventual rescue attempt of Ashley. It was decided that after locating her, we would attempt contact using a microwormhole. We needed more information about where she was and if she was being watched before any other plans could be put in place.
The portal opening and closing remained undetectable by every test conducted by Frig and the team of Gonta scientists on the Orienta. With only one day left for experimentation, my anxiety level was building. I spent my final evening in the makeshift lounge that had been constructed on the Suppressor. I sat at a table with my chin firmly planted in the palm of my hand, looking at the highly alcoholic beverage sitting before me, but never taking a sip.
Chapter 20
The testing for an open wormhole had yielded only inconclusive results. On three separate occasions, the data appeared to suggest the tiniest of changes in the gravity field surrounding a wormhole’s endpoint. Frig felt that it was an avenue that merited further study. The changing field had only been detected in close proximity to the endpoint and as such was deemed unlikely to be a useful data point unless a wormhole was suspected of being open in the close vicinity. I took that as a safe go-ahead to attempt to make contact.
Frig commented as a microportal was opened, “I will use this scan to map the rooms in this area of the facility. From there, we will have to do a section-by-section search to determine if any Humans are present, followed by an intense bio-scan to narrow down the detected Humans to a smaller set. I believe we should be able to identify Ashley by her prosthetic foot.”
I replied, “Well, let’s get cracking. I suspect that this might take some time given the fact that we are searching through six hundred million Humans.”
Frig was soon working on an algorithm to speed the search process. His early estimate was that it would take at least two days to gather and sort through the data before a full list of Humans with a prosthetic foot would be ready for further dissemination.
A comm call was placed to the Orienta, where the Gonta portals would be used to hasten the search. After two hours of collecting data, a list of forty-seven Humans emerged that had the prosthetic attachment on the correct leg. After another twenty minutes of checking and rechecking with a much-narrowed scan, we came to the startling conclusion that Ashley was not there.
I spoke. “If she is not there, then we have to go back to the Grid; she must still be there!”
Frig replied, “Our last scans indicated that all of the Humans had been removed. We will do another sweep. However, if she is not on the Grid, our task has become much more difficult. Scanning an entire planet is a daunting undertaking, to say the least.”
I stood and began to pace. “We have to find her, Frig. We need to find her. I need her to be found.”
Frig stood and placed his hand on my forearm as I paced past his chair. “Sir, we will find her. I don’t see any reason that she would be singled out from six hundred million other Humans. I will begin scanning of the larger cities, with the Orienta following my direction. We will find her, Sir.”
I stopped and sighed. “I know you will do your best. I will be in the lounge if you find anything.”
Frig replied, “I will see to it that you are promptly notified. And, Sir, remember that the night is always darkest just before the dawn.”
I walked out of Frig’s lab with a dejected look on my face. Ten steps were taken before I turned myself around and headed back.
I poked my head into the lab as I leaned on the doorframe. “Hey, our first priority is to rescue all of our people, is it not?”
Frig replied, “Yes, Sir, of course.”
I let out a long sigh. “I think our best option from here might be to search out the Colonel and the Admirals. Maybe even Michael Felix. They are the next in line for the importance of the information they could offer. Have the Gontas search the Humans for them while you search the places you feel are the most likely to tell us Ashley’s whereabouts. If we find the Colonel and Admirals first, we can begin forming up plans for a rescue.”
Frig spoke. “I don’t know of any other Humans who would have offered such when it was their loved one who was missing. You are and have always been a fair and honorable man. Those are leadership qualities that have served you well, Sir.”
I tapped the doorframe with my hand as I began to turn away. “Yeah, they are quite the blessing, aren’t they.”
The lounge was empty of everyone but the lounge staff. A cook, a bartender, and a busboy were all that were there for me to trouble with my issues.
As the busboy wiped down the table next to me, he stopped and pointed at my half-empty glass. “I can fill that for you if you like, Sir.”
I looked at the glass and then back at the busboy. “Thanks… uh, Falco. I’d better pass. That would just encourage me to get plastered. If I am going to drink, I would prefer it be for celebration and not for depression.”
Falco stuffed the cleaning rag he had been using into a pocket on his plastic apron. “Seems to me we just kicked the crap out of the Colossuns again and found the Grid and our people. I would call that cause for celebration, Sir!”
I slowly nodded. “It should be, but unfortunately my wife is still missing. We scanned all the Humans and came up empty. I can’t help but think that I put her in whatever situation she is in because I didn’t recognize the Duke for the danger he was.”
Falco sat across from me at the table. “You can’t beat yourself up over things you possibly could have done in the past, Sir. We all go down paths in this life that may not turn out to be the best for us. Look at m
e; I’m a busboy in a crappy lounge on the Suppressor! Had I chosen differently, I would be a captive on that Colossun planet with everyone else. I don’t know, Sir, I like to dwell on where I am and where I want to go rather than on what I might have done differently before.”
I reached out and pushed my glass to the center of the table. “Yeah, I’ve been in need of a little perspective lately. It’s just hard to focus when you have one basic thing on your mind 24/7.”
Falco stood as he pulled his rag from his apron. “Sorry about Miss Ashley, Sir. But if it was me, I’d be looking for the Duke if I wanted to find her. He would know where she is.”
Falco collected my half-empty glass as I stood to head back to Frig’s lab. I nodded a thanks to him as I left the lounge. He was probably right in that we were now taking the wrong approach.
As I walked into Frig’s lab, I raised my hand as I spoke. “I think you and I should focus our efforts on the Duke. We find him, and I think we might just find Ashley. The Duke likes to talk, and that means he likes to have people around who listen. Ashley was listening to practically everything he said over the last few months, so it only stands to reason that he might like having her around. Find the Duke, and I think we find my wife.”
Frig replied, “Brilliant suggestion, Sir. You have been on fire with the suggestions of late. What brought on this epiphany?”
I half smiled. “Yeah, well, it wasn’t me this time. It was the busboy Falco in the lounge. He kind of pooped on the little pity party I had started for myself. Finding the Duke was his suggestion.”
Frig nodded. “Hmm. Perhaps you should pity yourself more often, Sir. It seems to be yielding good results.”
I slapped Frig hard on the back to show my appreciation for his sarcasm. Our efforts were turned towards finding the Duke. The fleets surrounding the planet had the Duke’s personal cruiser amongst them, but our scans did not yield any data that said that he was there. We instead picked the most opulent building in the most opulent city. I instantly recognized it as what the Duke had referred to as the King’s palace. After an hour of methodical scans by Frig, we had our answer: the Duke was there!
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