New Empires: Conglomerate Series Book 3

by William Frisbee

  “Falla Shum requesting access,” Shum sent.

  “Denied,” the reply came back, but he was not completely locked out. Something didn’t seem right. It was a Pral system. Was it because he was Falla? There wasn’t time for this.

  “You need to find Topa Suresh soon,” Teleklos said, monitoring the battles from the Tigress. “The Singer Bots are getting pushy and we are struggling to hold an escape route open. There are a lot more enemy bots than expected.”

  “Acknowledged,” Shum said looking at the armored hatch. It would take hours to cut through it if it did not open willingly.

  “Pral Shum requesting access to help Topa Suresh,” Shum sent.

  “Denied. Tal access only,” the system replied. Shum dropped his shoulders. He had failed. This was stupid. Topa Suresh needed a warrior right now, he needed his Tal. Where were they? Usually, Topa Suresh was the only Pral aboard his vessel. He could fight as well as any Tal.

  The fighting sounded like it was getting closer. One of his droid guardians sent more warbots back toward the fighting and Shum knew his guardians would run out of warbots to send. There were only a few warbots left.

  “Tal Shum requesting access,” Shum sent. He knew it was presumptuous of him, but Suresh needed a Tal, not a Falla. Of course, a Falla would not be allowed access to such a revered location aboard a Topa’s ship, but a Tal would. However, it was on this ship he had been demoted to Falla, the ship would know his real status.

  “Granted,” the network sent him and the door slid open in front of Shum’s surprised face. What did that mean?

  Inside the chamber, devastation greeted Shum and he could feel his fingertips shake.

  There in the center of a crystal web was Topa Suresh. At first, he looked dead, his skin was pale, his eyes open and staring at the ceiling, but then Shum saw a flicker of movement, a twitch of the Topa’s lips and Shum moved forward.

  Shum’s cybernetics interfaced with the nearby systems and Shum received an update on the Topa’s health. Topa Suresh was alive. Nanites were coursing through his system, repairing damage but the physical damage was the least of Shum’s worries. It was the mental damage that wouldn’t be apparent.

  Kneeling next to the Topa, Shum began to carefully review the data. Could the Topa be moved safely? Yes.

  “Is he okay?” Teleklos asked. “Can we move him to the Tigress? I don’t think he will be safe on that ship for long.”

  “Yes,” Shum said checking several data points. The medical system diagnosed several injuries that would be considered minor. The Topa’s mental state however, could not be evaluated.

  Topa Suresh’s eyes blinked and focused on Shum.

  “Tal Shum,” Topa Suresh said, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “We must return to the human’s home system. The last Battle Singer is there. Humanity must not be enslaved or destroyed.”

  “Acknowledged Topa,” Shum said, trying to contain his surprise and then the Topa’s eyes lost their focus to stare into the distance.

  What was going on with the Topa?

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Ceres Invasion

  “Looks like they are ignoring the Jupes,” Fry said as the Jupiter Alliance fleet decelerated. Since they were no longer coasting, they would generate more heat, and should light up like beacons for the Cereans.

  “No response?” Sonya asked.

  “Negative Captain,” Fry said and everyone watched the screens, waiting for the Cereans to respond. It was unlikely they missed the sudden flares from the Jupiter Alliance ships as they decelerated.

  “Detecting about a hundred assault transports being launched by the Jupes, along with a significant drone fighter escort. Oh,” Fry said, his hands flying over the keyboard and tracing patterns on his screens. The Jupes were coming in hard and fast, maximizing the use of their superior gravity control and shielding.

  “Cerean response?” Sonya said.

  “Looks like the Cere’s defense net was going live, but then it shut down. All active sensors just shut off and it looks like all the defensive weapons have powered off,” Fry said, tapping his fingers impatiently on his console waiting for a report to complete. “I think the Jupes shut them down somehow.”

  It would be a few hours before the assault shuttles arrived. Two of the Ceres cruisers in orbit around the dwarf planet accelerated on an intercept course with the assault shuttles but the rest of the Jupiter Alliance moved to intercept them and protect the shuttles.

  “That will be a one-sided fight,” Harris remarked as a display of the ships came up on side screens, showing known and suspected capabilities. The ancient, crusty cruisers the Cereans were fielding had been old before New Alamo had left over forty-five years ago. Heavily armored, but not maneuverable.

  The fight didn’t last long.

  Missiles launched by the Jupiter Alliance ships destroyed the Cerean ships before they could endanger the shuttles and the attacking Jupes entered a high orbit around Ceres, using the planetoid to help reduce velocity. The shuttles broke up into six different groups, the largest group descending on the capital city, nestled in the Occator crater. The second largest group going toward a major command center and defensive weapons cluster on Ahuna Mons mountain.

  “Something has shut down the Cerean defense grid,” Goodwin reported. “Spy drones are reporting a lot of traffic, very little is encrypted, sounds like they are panicking. The Cerean Guard is being called up and issued weapons but that will take days to mobilize, it is like they didn’t see the Jupes coming and just now realized they were there.”

  “The entire defense grid?” Sonya asked. “All of it? Even the orbital ships?”

  “Aye Captain,” Goodwin said, cycling through his screens. “Looks like old Yang was paranoid and kept it under his firm control, which means centralization. I’m guessing the Jupes found out, shut everything down and locked him out. He is still giving orders though.”

  “Sounds like a flawed system,” Sonya said, her eyes flicking around the different screens, some of them only visible on her InnerBuddy.

  “No doubt Captain,” Goodwin said. “But for a despot there isn’t a lot of choice. If dissidents got control of even a part of the defense grid, millions would die.”

  Sonya nodded.

  “We are just going to watch?” Fry asked. “Shouldn’t we be trying to help the Cereans? Yang is a despot, but he didn’t attack New Alamo.”

  Sonya shook her head.

  “No. The enemy of my enemy does not make them my friend,” Sonya said, glancing at the younger officer. “Our mission is to observe and report.”

  “But we could use as many allies as we could get,” Fry said. “This is a slaughter. We could at least help them grind each other to dust.”

  Sonya agreed but had to look at the bigger picture.

  “We still don’t know enough about Ceres,” Sonya said, hoping he didn’t hear the disappointment in her voice. “They might be worse and just haven’t had a chance to stab us in the back.”

  Out of the corner of her eye she watched Fry shake his head, but he remained silent. Although she agreed with him, there were still too many variables and Sonya doubted there was anything the Cincinnatus could do without overt action.

  “Some local defenses are firing on the shuttles,” Fry reported. “But few. Looks like the fire is uncoordinated and almost random. Local control.”

  “They are doing their best to regain control of their systems,” Harris said. “It won’t make much of a difference, shuttles are almost down.”

  New Alamo stealth drones feeding information to the Cincinnatus showed Jupiter assault shuttles gliding to the ground and disgorging hundreds of Jupiter Alliance Marines and robots while the drone fighters flew support overhead. Occasional flashes lit the darkness as the Marines destroyed anything they might consider a threat, or sent the fighters to suppress anything that could be dangerous.

  “Professional,” Major Porter said. “I’m not impressed with their warbots, but they all
seem well drilled and ready. Ratio is about two warbots per Marine.”

  Sonya nodded. The Major wouldn’t say it if he didn’t mean it. He was a no-nonsense kind of guy without a sense of humor and he handed out compliments grudgingly. New Alamo averaged about fifty warbots per Marine, but with the assistance of droids they could manage many more. Most New Alamo Marine units fielded a hundred warbots per Marine, which usually had two droid assistants. New Alamo still had a large advantage in infantry combat and that wasn’t like to change soon.

  One screen showed a platoon of JA Marines assaulting a control tower that acted as a conduit to the tunnels and the cities buried deeper inside. Someone in the tower was trying to stop the Marines, but they didn’t last long and only one Marine and several warbots were lost before the attackers poured into the tower and Sonya lost view of them. Other screens from other spy drones fed her similar images. In less than two hours the Marines were inside and the shuttles were docking with the Jupiter Alliance troop transports to pick up the next wave.

  “Get more spies on the ground,” Sonya said. “I want more information. I want to know how they are treating the civilians and prisoners.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” McLaughlin said with a nod, sending new commands to the Cincinnatus production queues.

  “Why don’t we bring up Staff Sergeant Berry?” Major Porter asked.

  “Good idea. Check on Lieutenant Gray,” Sonya said. “See where she is going and what she is doing.”

  “Aye, aye Captain,” Fry said.

  “The Lieutenant’s platoon and company is being held in reserve, Captain,” Goodwin said. “I have little information because I’m keeping the drone in stealth mode.”

  Sonya nodded. Partially relieved. The surface could become a mess really quick and perhaps it was better if Gray wasn’t there.

  Minutes later Staff Sergeant Berry arrived with her Marine droid escort.

  Sonya listened with half an ear as Fry informed her of what was going on. The Staff Sergeant remained silent as she listened and looked over the different displays.

  “Is Lieutenant Gray involved?” Berry asked.

  “She is with the operational reserve,” Fry said. “Probably the safest wave as far as we know. She has not been assigned a target.”

  The Staff Sergeant nodded.

  “Why am I here Captain?” the Staff Sergeant asked, looking around.

  Sonya didn’t let the smile reach her face or eyes.

  “I don’t know,” Sonya said looking at the tough woman. “You might be able to provide insight or point out something we missed.”

  Berry raised an eyebrow and Sonya smiled.

  “You can thank Major Porter,” Sonya said. “You also need to understand we are not at war with the people of Jupiter, or Earth. Just the rat bastards who ordered the attacks on us. Don’t make a mistake though, we prefer not to kill Jupiter Armed Forces personnel, since most of us once wore that uniform, but we will to keep our homes safe.”

  “Understood ma’am,” the Staff Sergeant said, but Sonya couldn’t read her.

  “Do not do anything you are not comfortable doing,” Sonya said, her eyes going back to her displays. “We have nothing to hide from you here.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Berry said. It didn’t look like she was relaxing though and Sonya turned her full attention back to the deployments.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Race to Sol

  The Topa’s room felt small as Luke entered and found Topa Suresh sitting in a human chair instead of laying on the bed. The Pral looked older and more tired than Luke could have imagined. He was wearing his glowing blue suit and it fit like normal but the Topa’s eyes held enough sadness to make Luke pause. Beside him Leonessa and Shum also stopped to stare at the Topa.

  “Thank you, Shoka Luke,” the Topa said, making to stand.

  “Please stay seated,” Luke said, his InnerBuddy revealing how weak and tired the Topa was.

  Topa Suresh nodded as Luke came to stand in front of him.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” Luke asked.

  The Topa’s eyes rested on Luke, then flickered to Leonessa and Shum. The Pral leader relaxed.

  “You must return to Earth with the largest force you can,” Suresh said. “The last Battle Singer is there.”

  “How can you be sure?” Luke asked.

  Suresh shook his head.

  “I can’t be,” Suresh said. “But that is most likely.”

  “Why Sol?” Luke asked.

  “I don’t know,” Suresh said. “But that is what I feel, and my feelings are rarely wrong.”

  “What is going on?” Leonessa asked. “Who are the Battle Singers and what is going on within the Conglomerate?”

  The Topa motioned at the nearby chairs.

  “If you want answers, this may take time,” the Topa said.

  As everyone sat down the Topa began, his eyes were unfocused and looked beyond them. Luke wondered if he was accessing his InnerBuddy but it was more likely the Topa was looking into his distant memories.

  “Eons ago, when the first stars were born, so was life. It is not the life you see around you now. Heavy elements did not exist in that ancient universe. What we see around us now, the ships, the flesh we wear, clothes we wear, is all formed by the dying of stars. In the beginning were the light elements, hydrogen, helium and others. The violent collapse of stars continues to forge heavier elements. Life existed even in that time and has continued to evolve. Our souls are ancient, not even the Pral know how old our souls are. Like the stars, our souls undergo changes. Our souls implode, explode, they divide, they merge, they drift through different planes of existence and states of being. Like the physical matter we feel beneath our hands. We are all linked together by threads, just like the very cells in your body which are composed of ancient stars that have died. Life evolves like the galaxy. Gaining substance and form.”

  Luke took a deep breath. What the Topa said made sense but Luke wanted information he could use now, not ancient mystic history that could be proved or disproved.

  Topa Suresh smiled weakly as he looked at Luke, possibly reading his mind.

  “Like organisms that have evolved in an ecosystem there can be predators and prey,” Topa Suresh said. “There are beings that feed on the energies of others, like suns or black holes that absorb suns, planets and other galactic objects. The Battle Singers are one of these life predators. They do not seek to feed because they have to, life force does not work like that, they feed because it gives them pleasure, because it keeps them from going insane.”

  “If they don’t feed they become insane?” Leonessa asked with a glance at Luke.

  The Topa nodded.

  “Many seek immortality because they fear death, they fear letting their life force move to the next stage,” the Topa said. “But there has to be more to life than just living. One of the most glorious things is to accomplish one’s life goals, but then what? What if those life goals are unattainable? What happens when you have gained the knowledge you seek? Why continue living?”

  Topa Suresh let his shoulders sag.

  “That, more than anything, is what destroys a culture. When a culture becomes self-centered, focused on itself, on personal satisfaction, on the individual, it spirals into oblivion, it dies and begins to rot. When the questions end, so does life. Look at your own culture, your own people. The greatest empires do not fail because of a stronger empire. They failed because they stop looking outward and spent more time looking in. They stop having children and the younger, more aggressive races who are still ambitious, drag the old empire down.”

  “This is happening in Sol,” Leonessa said thinking of lower birth rates among the colonies off Earth.

  Topa Suresh nodded.

  “Sol is not so far gone it cannot change. Fear is a powerful motivator,” the Topa said. “When people fear they seek solace in the arms of another. In the large majority of species, fear of death leads to procreation and childr
en. It is hard wired into the makeup of many species, if it isn’t, then those species will be destroyed by others where it holds true. There is strength and safety in numbers.”

  “And the Battle Singers?” Luke asked.

  “The Battle Singers thrive on the conflict between living beings,” the Topa said. “Conflict sparks emotion and can color the threads of life. This pattern pleases them and they feed off the transitions.”

  “Feed off the transitions?” Shum asked. “Please explain.”

  “Like most advanced species feed off the remains of super novas, mining the asteroids and planets, the Battle Singers feed off the spiritual residue of violent transitions,” Shum said. “They can harness it and use it.”

  “They feed on the souls of the dying?” Leonessa asked and even Luke shuddered.

  Suresh said. “No more than you feast off a camp fire on a cold day.”

  “They don’t collect the souls?” Luke asked.

  Suresh shook his head.

  “No,” Suresh said. “I do not think so. But this transition of the soul, altered through violence, is what they relish. The prey does not even have to die. A soul can undergo a change while linked with a mortal shell. This also releases energy the Battle Singers can tap.”

  “Is there a God?” Leonessa asked.

  Suresh smiled.

  “There is much we do not know,” Suresh said. “But I believe there is. The threads of life go somewhere and there is purpose, which we are just barely beginning to understand. There is a source of life, and if there is a source, then there will be a destination. There were many schools of spiritual thought within Pral circles but we could not prove our theories while tied to the physical realm of existence. It is a popular concept among Pral theologians that our life threads go in two directions. One direction is toward Val and the other is toward Nress. There are no exact word for these concepts in the human language, but they are opposites, like yin and yang, love and hate, peace and war, good and evil. The Pral seek to guide the threads toward Val and the Battle Singers guide others toward Nress.”