by H. T. Kofruk
“Gloria” he called out to the young Hawaiian, only to hear the same words uttered by her. “Gloria! It’s me!” he shouted.
This time he got her attention and she looked straight at him. “He was there. I saw him” she said looking up at him with frightened eyes.
“Who?”
“Kijung. I saw Kijung” she whimpered.
Kijung, the dead president’s aide, had disappeared after her death without a trace, so everybody naturally suspected he was the killer. For two weeks, searches were conducted under Dirk’s supervision but to no avail.
“Where is he?” he asked grinding his teeth.
He knew he had a duty to defend the perimeter with his men, or die trying. But Phuong’s death under his watch was something his pride couldn’t bear. He felt his soul wouldn’t be cleansed until he had caught and killed the assassin.
Dropping Gloria off at a relatively safe place, he went into the complex of underground bunkers where Kijung had apparently been witnessed. After the president’s death, most of the generals and admirals had returned to their posts to take defensive positions. Only the Minister of Defence and a handful of advisors remained on Saan in one of the bunkers. Dirk had insisted that the Minister leave the planet since he was so important for the war effort, especially with the president dead. But the stubborn fool was adamant that he wouldn’t run away while his men died. Now it was too late since orbit was under complete Sino-Orthodox control.
The first bunker was the largest and had robot sentries guarding the entrance. The eight robots looked at Dirk and recognized his face. In the adjacent bunker which was connected to the first with a tunnel, the lights were out. He didn’t see or feel the presence of anybody so he continued to the next room.
There he found a dead body; it was one of his men from the Secret Service. Hal Thomson was Navajo like Dirk, though twenty years his junior and much less experienced. He was, however, not incompetent. The other members of the Secret Service had gone back to Earth since their new role was to guard the prime minister who theoretically replaced the president. Dirk had ordered Hal to stay to assist in investigating the murder. But now Hal was lying with a gash in his throat that exposed his spine.
Dirk took out one of his two hyper-vibrating tomahawks with his left hand, his right pointing his pulse rifle. He continued down another tunnel to the next room where the Secret Service would have stayed if Phuong had been still alive. This room was also dark and had two more dead bodies. Upon inspection, he saw they were both soldiers.
The back of his neck felt a minute breeze that felt unnatural and Dirk instinctively used his tomahawk to shield his neck. A dull metallic sound was heard as sparks jumped in the darkness. He rolled forward then twisted his body to shoot at whoever tried to kill him. His rifle was knocked away by a long blade that almost sliced it in half. Dirk tried to strike the dark figure’s head with the tomahawk in his left hand but the swift figure ducked and then kicked him in the chest. Whoever it was wasn’t wearing an amplifier suit, so he barely budged. The adversary’s blade sliced the air aiming for his temple and Dirk only just blocked it with his second tomahawk he had taken out just in time. Though the amplifier suit and armour made him less flexible and felt awkward, it increased his strength and speed. With the right tomahawk, he dealt a vicious blow. The figure again blocked it and back-flipped into the darkness. ‘Absorbing the force of the blow by distributing it to body movements, this person is good’ thought Dirk.
Just when he was about to jump towards the figure and embed his axe, the figure said “Dirk?” It was a woman’s voice.
“Agent Shin?” responded Dirk without hiding the surprise in his voice.
She lit a small flash light and showed her face. She had a finger on her lips to indicate that he should be quiet.
“Christ, I could have killed you!” he whispered.
“Don’t count on it”
Dirk had almost forgotten about Agent Camellia Shin once the heavy fighting broke out. She had come two days after the assassination to help with the investigation. She was the only Phantom who ever had personal contact with Phuong back on Shital Niwas. Dirk thought that she had left Saan when the fighting began but she was, in fact, gaining ground on the whereabouts of Kijung. She was familiar with the training methods and capabilities of the Shadows and knew they could bring down their body metabolism to a minimum with their senses still active. She was sure that he was hiding in the bunker complex, waiting for the moment to awake and strike. On discovering the bodies, she was afraid she was too late.
With a hand gesture, she told Dirk to follow to the next room. Dirk felt slightly vulnerable without a gun as he followed the Phantom into the next room. No matter how softly he treated, the amplifier suit made a hissing noise every time he moved while Camellia was silent and sure-footed as a panther.
They passed two more rooms and discovered three more bodies. Camellia recognized the killing patterns of the Shadow since she had tracked and killed a couple herself. When they reached the final room where the situation reports were fed to a giant holograph projector, they found the Defence Minister tied up on the floor.
Dirk instinctively approached the minister to see if he was alive before Camellia could stop him. A knife came flying out of nowhere and struck Dirk in the shoulder blade and then a part of the darkness detached itself to form a black humanoid silhouette. Camellia took a defensive pose with her knife while straining her eyes to see the outline of the Shadow. Dirk had fallen on the floor with the blade embedded in his back.
“What have we here?” said a voice familiar to Dirk. “If it isn’t the incompetent Dirk Jones and a Pacific assassin?”
Dirk struggled to get up while hugging his right shoulder with his left hand. Camellia was forcing herself to control her breathing and stretched out her muscles. She knew the Shadow would be faster than her but her training had taught her that speed could also be a weakness.
“You treacherous bastard!” shouted Dirk. “How much did the Chinese pay you?”
Kijung merely laughed. “I always knew you were slow and stupid. But I think I may have even overestimated you.”
Dirk usually prided himself in his calm demeanour and sharp judgement but he couldn’t keep the rage coming up from his guts. He imagined how terrified yet dignified the president would have been when she faced her killer, how he slit the throat of the best leader the Pacific Federation had in decades without the least remorse.
“Stay calm, Dirk” said Camellia. “He was never on our side. He’s a spy and an assassin.”
“Look who’s talking, Phantom” said Kijung as he swept towards her at a speed that almost made him look like a black blur.
Camellia had become accustomed to the darkness and slowed down her senses. In this way she saw the Shadow advancing and could distinguish his limbs and weapons, something impossible for most people. The half a second it took for him to reach her slowed down to five seconds, ample time for her to analyse his attack path and weak points. She decided to parry the blade with her own and give him a blow to the lower stomach with her fist, hopefully strong enough to keep him immobile for a second.
When his blade was a few inches from her throat, however, he twisted his wrist and stabbed down towards her chest. Camellia was caught off guard and didn’t know if she had enough time to switch the trajectory of her weapon. Instead she inched backwards and inhaled deeply, just enough so Kijung’s blade only penetrated her thin body armour and scratched the surface of her skin. Her training had taught her to always combine defence and attack, so without even her noticing her left foot went up and struck the Shadow in the waist.
The two assassins backed off from each other. This time Dirk, who had managed to get up, threw one of his tomahawks at the Kijung but with his right shoulder injured, it was a clumsy attack easily smacked down by the Shadow. Camellia didn’t waste the split-second distraction and continued her attack with a stab to Kijung’s eye but found she was stabbing thin air. The Shadow had
disappeared and materialized in front of Dirk who only just managed to block a blow.
The Phantom threw her blade at him, only to see it deflected by the other assassin’s forearm and embedded in the wall. Dirk swung his axe but the Shadow bent backwards and did a backflip, kicking the bodyguard in the chest in the process. Camellia darted towards him and picked up Dirk’s other tomahawk on the way.
Kijung could feel the fatigue in his muscles. He knew the Phantom was the more dangerous of the two but the bodyguard was also much tougher than he expected. He hadn’t eaten in days and he was not fully recovered from the low-metabolism mode. He decided to risk a couple seconds to kill the bodyguard first. The amplifier suit and the thick armour he was wearing gave him fewer options for attack so he decided to go for elbow and knee armour joints to slow him down more and then slit his throat. He dodged another clumsy blow and went for the gap in the armour where the chest and shoulder pieces met. The old oaf was too slow and the blade penetrated him, making him drop his weapon.
Dirk growled from the pain but he couldn’t let this golden chance go. He drove his body along the blade and grabbed Kijung by the throat who looked at him with surprised eyes. Kijung tried to loosen his grip by twisting the blade and increasing the pain. Dirk shouted at loud as the blade grated his bones.
Kijung instinctively knew the Phantom would be almost on him. The blade was almost twisted to a ninety-degree angle, parting the shoulder and chest armour plates. The tenacious bodyguard held stubbornly to Kijung’s throat but he could feel the loosening of his grip. The twisting stopped when a tomahawk embedded itself in the Shadow’s head.
“Son of a bitch!” growled Dirk as the Shadow slumped down with his eyes showing only white.
Camellia was breathing heavily as she caressed her slight wound. “You can say that again.”
Chapter 36: Utter Destruction
‘First bronze and then steel weapons, the medieval mounted knight, the long bow, the musket, the rifle, the warplane, the missile, the nuclear missile, the laser cannon, tailored bacteria, the fusion missile and so on. What drives us to invent increasingly ingenuous instruments to kill each other?’ – Alexander Dmitrov, Chief Scientist at Kalashnikov Defence Lab
When Rick gave the order for battle stations, the crew looked at their admiral in astonishment. Walker was about to say something but then decided against it after seeing the look of determination in Rick’s face. He instead repeated the order to the communications officer.
“Those wormholes weren’t created by the stations around Lordsphere. The motherships arrived from Chinese territory through Chinese wormholes.” Rick explained quietly to Walker. “That could only mean that they were boarded and taken over by Chinese forces. At least one of those motherships was taken before the crew could destroy any sensitive information, including the exact coordinates of our wormhole stations, mines and key planets”
With a look of realization, Walker merely nodded. Soon there were twelve Atlantic motherships around Lordsphere. The burly commander thought of the consequences if the old admiral’s suspicions were true. A mothership was generally accepted to be able to hold its own against three cruisers. Twelve motherships equalled roughly thirty six cruisers, probably more. Twelve motherships against eight beat up fleets…
“Aim a nuke at each of the twelve ships that just emerged” barked Walker through the central communications to the armoury.
“Sir, we only have eight fission missiles. We do have ten more tactical nukes but we have to launch our Tiger Sharks. Our fleet has another twelve strategic missiles between them” was the reply from the arms officer.
“Eight on the closest eight. Don’t lock on since they will be alerted to weapons locks. Have our lasers fully charged and aimed at the next two closest” intervened Rick. “Don’t forget the decoy missiles as well.”
“Should we have the other ships aim their nukes as well, sir?” inquired Walker quietly. Rick shook his head. He didn’t know who to trust anymore. His voice permission was necessary for any nuclear launches within his fleet. For all he knew, if he authorized any nukes on the other ships, they could well aim at the Virgin Mary.
Lordsphere had three wormhole stations. The main station built on an orbit station had two wormhole creators that were powered by one huge fusion generator and a host of solar panels. A second station was built at the opposing end, on one of the planet’s five moons. The last station was one of the few civilian-owned stations, built on a luxury space station above the equator. No orders were issued from Command on the surface or from the wormhole stations. They were most probably trying to communicate with the crews of the lone motherships.
The main holograph projector abruptly came to life, showing the head and torso of a relatively young Chinese officer clad in a black amplifier suit. Strangely enough, he was a Caucasian with light brown hair.
“Greeting” he said in the One Tongue with a standard North American accent. Rick and Walker threw a glance at their communications officer.
“It’s coming from the Devil’s Repent, sir”
“I’m afraid that we’ve found some of your ships gone astray in our territory” said the Chinese officer again.
A second holograph appeared, this time showing Major General Dennis Fitzpatrick from the Command on the surface. “Identify yourself, soldier” he said.
“My name is Captain Qin Huei of the Imperial Special Intelligence and Defence Organisation.”
‘A Shadow’ thought Rick. This was the first time a Shadow had identified himself, the first documented sighting of one and the first formal recognition by the Chinese that the notorious organization existed. The ship’s computer did a quick scan of the Shadow’s face. Shockingly, it found a match in the military personnel roster.
“Sir, the computer says that he’s one of us. Navy Lieutenant Derek Wurth, security officer of the IGN John the Baptiste” reported the science officer.
Rick remembered the name of the Atlantic mothership that had disappeared from the orbit of Janpu. “What’s his background?” he asked.
“Boston University, majored in chemistry, joined the Navy in 2907, served as a marine liaison officer on the IGN Uriel, then in a pre-invasion intelligence team on Valumia. Joined IGN John the Baptist four years ago, two of which he spent as security officer. Has one son and one daughter in Boston, Atlantic America, where his wife lives.”
Cultural, linguistic training, official past fabrication, military infiltration… The thought was terrifying. The Chinese officer was probably older than he looked. Rick pictured how the he would have arrived in Boston, some months after his cosmetic surgery, possibly posing as a recent college graduate. He had surely picked out his wife out of hundreds of potential targets, someone that would give him maximum legitimacy as an officer candidate. The poor woman and the children still probably had no idea that their husband and father was a Chinese spy with the highest training in combat and intelligence-gathering.
“Your intentions were easily predicted by our priests, and our Emperor has chosen to withdraw all mercy from his dealings with you infidels” declared the Shadow.
The holograph zoomed out, showing the speaker’s entire body as well as an Atlantic officer kneeling next to him with his hands tied behind his back. The officer wore a tattered uniform, stained by smoke and blood. The Chinese assassin grabbed his head and lifted it to show the audience his face. A gasp came from the Virgin Mary’s crew as they recognized the face of Admiral Regis Perrin. His nose was obviously broken and he had a bandage wrapped around one eye.
From his sleeve, the assassin who identified himself as Qin produced a small knife. The dull grey colour indicated its edge was made of geratinium. Just before he had his throat slit, Admiral Perrin managed to shout out “For the Lord!” After that, blood seeped profusely from his throat and mouth. His eyes soon showed only white and within a minute he was drowned in his own blood as the assassin held back his head to facilitate the flow of blood.
The crew, i
ncluding Walker, was dumbfounded at the bluntness and viciousness of the enemy’s action. This was much more than a declaration of war; it was a declaration of war to the death. The audience was as much shocked by the action as by the evil smirk on the executioner’s face as he effortlessly sliced his prisoner’s windpipe, the look of contempt and even hatred firmly imprinted.
But since the appearance of Perrin in the form of a prisoner, Rick focused his attention instead on another holograph showing the movement of the twelve presumably enemy-held Atlantic motherships. He noticed that they were quietly manoeuvring themselves to better attack the principle targets: the three wormhole stations, the Command headquarters on the surface, a defence satellite station, and the other motherships.
While the crew members were still digesting what they just witnessed, Rick suddenly barked “Fire all weapons at all targets!”
The order got the crew off guard and they looked at him as if they had just come out of a trance.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” roared Walker.
The bridge suddenly bustled with movement and shouting.
“Relay orders to the fleet. All the Atlantic motherships that arrived in the last five minutes are under Chinese control and are to be considered hostile. Protection of the wormhole stations is a priority.”
The communications officer relayed his commands the other ships in the fleet. “All the captains have acknowledged your order, sir.”
Just as the first weapons were firing from the Virgin Mary, the enemy motherships all simultaneously started doing the same to their pre-designated targets. The main wormhole station started being attacked by two motherships, the IGN Holy Spirit and the IGN Judgment Day, who started hurling all their weapons. Within seconds of firing their arsenal of missiles, the two ships suddenly started getting peppered by pulse cannon and laser fire from Rick’s Virgin Mary and her fleet. Bizarrely, the crew of Holy Spirit, which was nearer to the Virgin Mary and her fleet, didn’t even attempt to defend itself and when a nuclear missile tore into its hull without getting any of the force absorbed, it started spilling machine parts and liquids.