by Ken Pence
“This is near where I was taken to review the seized technology.
The soldiers moved cautiously. A portion of the wall ahead showed indeterminate readings. They staged around the wall and used molecular disruptors to disintegrate it. They had only disintegrated the surface for there was a layer protected by a field underneath. They called back to the ship and in an hour had a field penetrator. They had mapped the area and a field protected a huge area. They contacted Andrew and the interest in the search for resources and Allung went up a notch. The search teams on the captured trips had found one pocket of Allung and all the secret compartments had been found but, so far, nothing different from the Sesstra had shown up. Now they had this mystery on the surface.
Rett said this was near the area, he thought, where they had the store of captured technology. It was in a protected area of the administrative complex with walls that turned out to be several meters thick with an inner field that was still active. They could not find the entrance which was disturbing in itself, but they had detected no transmissions. Scans would not show what lay inside and the field neutralizer was only slowly making progress.
Captain Rich Darby was trying to keep his troops calm. It was easy for them to get revved up on something like this so he just had to keep them in check.
“Okay people,” he said. “Just stay frosty here – kill the lights behind us. Buddy check again for noise and gear. We don’t know what’s in there but they’ve got a LOT of protection for some reason. I want EOD people to peal off and hold. Set your MemDexs for mapping scans. Suits on full offensive mode but don’t disintegrate all the surrounding. There will be a lot of hydrogen released just from the wall breach when we get through the field and we’ll have a bottleneck there.”
The field neutralizer light turned green and began to expand its opening until it was two meters in diameter. It stopped when it reached its maximum aperture.
Captain Darby had the entry teams signal ready and then gave the signal. The wall exposed through the shield was disintegrated and light was visible inside and an indeterminate storage room was exposed. Two squads entered quickly and then disappeared through a door. The next two recon squads went through to reinforce the first teams. Darby’s MemDex floor plan was expanding rapidly as he watched.
“Captain,” came a call. “This place is enormous. We just came to an open area and we can see the middle – it’s occupied by Allung. We need the collar transmitter brought up now. We are on invisible mode and haven’t been spotted but we are going to need more people…watch your backs people.”
Darby acknowledged and the mapping app suddenly showed a central area almost 100 meters across. The map went down many levels and was wider in the lower levels and expanding. This was not going to be easy.
***
Everything was going smoothly – as smoothly as any tactical operation can until the transmitter to release the slave collars was turned on. The Allung who had been quietly going about their tasks suddenly became agitated and the entry teams had to eliminate their first Allung. That went well except for the Allung. They twisted and ran to no avail and were summarily disintegrated. Approximately 120 ERF were in facility now – including Captain Darby and the reason no entrance could be found became apparent.
The facility was like a pyramid and the section where they entered was the smallest – on top – and the lower sections were even larger. There was a central shaft in the center with elevators in the sides of the levels but the ERF troops just used their suit fields to drop levels. It soon became apparent that it was going to take a long time to clear all levels. Darby called for more troops and his people leapfrogged down the central shaft. An alarm went off after they were an hour into the search and Darby had the toughest units drop to the bottom to see what trouble they could stir up. His only orders were, “Kick ass…watch your backs.”
***
Lieutenant Tyler took his troops to the lowest level. There was a heavy concentration of Allung and slaves here engaged in a heavy battle. Allung were fighting Toi and other species and it looked like the Allung were starting to win back the initiative…until the Earth troops starting taking out Allung. Tyler had the most experienced troops and they switched to narrow beam lasers and had their MemDexs direct their fire through the forebrains of every Allung within range. The freed slaves didn’t know what was happening until all the Allung were dead and some of the Earth troops turned visible. There was a short interesting exchange and the Earth troops convinced the slaves to stay behind them and direct them. They were happy to oblige.
The slaves could tell them in Trade where they should go and armed themselves with retrieved weapons from the many dead Allung. They sent freed slaves up several levels where there were other critical levels. One group directed the Earth troops to a central control complex that while impregnable to freed slave with simple weapons – proved highly vulnerable to seasoned troops. They stunned some of these Allung and scanned their bodies for weapons. They taped their mouths and explained why they did so to the incredulous slaves.
One area of the lower level had an enormous vault and gun emplacements. Lieutenant Tyler took two casualties because the gun emplacements overloaded even their suits. The return molecular disruptor fire was heavy and disintegrated the vault door, silenced the guns and killed ten Allung defenders. The ERF troops had been surprised here because the slaves knew nothing of the lower vault area.
Five hours later, the Pyramid was declared secure. There were only seven Allung survivors who attempted to appear haughty though they had been strip searched, scanned and probed and left with no clothing. Darby thought they might want to talk with some of them but figured the freed slaves would be more useful. Four hundred seven slaves were liberated and they were all intelligent and helpful. The inventory of what had been contained in this facility had just begun. The mystery of no visible entrance was found when the slaves related the long corridors that came into the complex near the middle levels. The Allung had purposely collapsed all but one entrance and there were no entrances near the top levels.
Reserves
Darby and team went into the vault area, which was enormous…what the hell is this place, he thought and went over to one of the plastic bins on shelves.
He had his men open one of them. “Oh my God!” he exclaimed. “Seal this place down as I call Williams. This changes everything. Don’t any of you people say a word to anyone else,” said Captain Darby.
***
Captain Darby’s call came in while Andrew was coordinating housing with Susan for the freed slaves and the debriefing of the Allung prisoners with Desiree and Fran. Andrew took the call and appeared stunned for a few seconds just as Captain Wright came stomping into the conference room.
“What is going on, Williams? My troops will not even talk with me. I demand to know why. Why are you talking with these women about my prisoners? You know I have specialists in interrogation who have experience in this sort of thing,” demanded Captain Wright.
“Excuse me, Captain. Where do these men have experience interrogating alien prisoners? I wasn’t aware of that,” Andrew stated.
“They have experience from the Pan-Asia war eight years ago,” he said.
“Excuse me, Captain but there were no aliens in that war,” Andrew replied.
“It’s the same thing,” said Wright as if it was obvious.
Andrew sighed deeply and said. “I’m very busy right now Captain. You had better prepare our troops to defend this system as I expect we will have more company sooner than later. Xilatoi?” Andrew said seeing him standing patiently in the doorway behind Wright.
“Why do you say that?” demanded Captain Wright.
“This system was more important to the Allung than we thought and we may have just surprised them when a small force was here. They will be back and we will need reinforcements. Our only advantage is the slow communication between systems,” Andrew said.
“There’s more to it than that W
illiams and you know it,” Captain Wright said.
“Yes there is Frank. Look after defense of this system,” Andrew said. When Captain Wright didn’t say anything else – Andrew said. “You have your orders… Dismissed.”
Captain Wright turned beet red and his jaw was clamped so hard that Andrew thought he might break some teeth. The blood vessels in his neck stood out as he stomped out of the room.
Xilatoi looked on and came into the room.
“One second, Xilatoi. Desiree, you and Fran interrogate those prisoners. I don’t care at all what you do with them…at all. Don’t keep them around if they’re not cooperative,” he said and turned back to Xilatoi. “What is it?”
“Captain Andrew Williams, we have almost 500 freed slaves when you combine the ones freed here and the ones with us. We want to do more. We understand you lost your lamlee to pay us when you lost your ship but we want to fight these vile beings that imprisoned us. Is there a way we can join this fight. Many of us are skilled technicians and can pilot and operate/repair all the devices the Allung use.”
“I have been giving that a lot of thought recently. We cannot operate half the ships we captured without more people. Would your people work under the supervision of our people? I am sure we can work out a method of payment. You would only need to work with us until this war is ended or four Earth years – that is typically what we do,” said Andrew.
“That is an attractive proposition. I will propose it to the leaders,” Xilatoi said.
“I have to go to the surface. Gather your leaders and come with me. Also, ask Lee Post to come here to speak with me before we go down to the surface.
***
Captain Frank Wright still had resources and he wasn’t about to let that civilian run over him. He’d get enough dirt on him that the Admiral wouldn’t have any choice but to put him back in charge. Defend the system – indeed. Those Allung wouldn’t be back. They had their ass kicked. They wouldn’t come anywhere near this system again.
“Chief Ferrell reporting as ordered sir,” said the ramrod stiff E7.
“At ease, Chief,” said Wright. “What is going on?”
“Sir, Captain Williams is transporting down some men and material to the surface. They are to meet Captain Darby at the complex they raided this morning. That’s all I know sir,” said the Chief obviously ill at ease.
“What kind of material?” asked Wright, “…and which personnel?”
“Sir, I just saw four square plastic bins and that Lee Post guy. Oh…and some of the freed slaves.”
“That’s all, Chief. Arrange some transport for me. I’m going down there too,” said Wright.
***
“That’s why I called you,” said Captain Darby. “By my rough calculation – there are about 400 metric kilotons of lamlee here. They must have been collected this for decades,” he said. “Kilotons – Lord!”
“This must be a central repository with all their reserves. They will be back,” he said and turned to Lee Post who was setting up four bins across the room. “Set them up so we will have less distance to carry the lamlee. Lee. Will it be hard to program them,” Andrew asked.
“No. It will be as we agreed. They will serve your needs throughout this war and we will have choices when it is over to continue to serve or go our separate ways?” Lee said.
“Yes, Lee. You have my word,” Andrew said and reached out his hand to shake. Lee stopped for a second, canted his head slightly to one side and then reached out and shook Andrew’s hand. It was at that precise second that Captain Wright stormed through the door.
“All right, I’ve got you now Williams. You don’t have the authority to make deals with all this wealth. I don’t know where you plan on hiding this but you won’t get away with stealing it.”
“Arrest this man, Darby,” commanded Wright.
“Let me share a message from Admiral Kyger with you Captain Darby,” Andrew said and forwarded a file from his MemDex to Captain Darby’s. Darby read the message and turned to his Lieutenant.
“Lieutenant Tyler, take Captain Wright into custody for insubordination and dereliction of duty. Have him held incommunicado on board the ship until we can have a formal court martial. Place an around the clock guard on his cell and make sure only our troops are able to bring him food. Have the Exec report to Captain Williams when we return. Will that be sufficient?” he asked.
“Not me, you fool. Williams! Arrest Williams,” demanded Captain Wright.
“Come along with me, Captain. Let’s do this the easy way,” said Lieutenant Tyler knowing Captain Wright was going to continue to be trouble.
“Thank you, Captain Darby. I know that wasn’t easy,” Andrew said.
Darby chuckled, “I won’t lose sleep over it. Admiral Kyger expected we’d have trouble with him or he wouldn’t have sent those orders. What did you want me to do with the freed slaves? You started to ask me to do something.”
“Captain, the freed slaves have approached Xilatoi. They are going to form an irregular force under our command – ultimately under me for the duration of the war. I want to swear them in, train them and arm them. Most are in good physical shape. I want them trained for combat,” Andrew said.
“That would take months and we have no facilities,” he said.
Andrew looked at Lee. We should have facilities very soon and you have months – accelerated time to train them. I figure we have about a month before the Allung can reroute and muster a sufficient force to drive us out of the system. I want to have a force ready to stop them by then. Andrew turned around as Lee Post began dumping measured amount of lamlee into the large bins.
“Are you going to have him fill those things up to haul them off somewhere?” asked Darby.
“No, Captain. We need backup and Lee is going to make us some. He adds a little over 100 kilos of lamlee to each of those containers filled with saltwater. Each one produces another Lee Post with all his knowledge and some other information besides. They form with suits and weapons. We never have to feed them. They don’t breathe or need breaks and they are sworn to follow us for the duration of the war,”
Andrew said as a reddened cephalopod transformed into a space-suited figure like Lee Post. It wobbled for a few seconds and then stepped out and grabbed another bucket to help.
“Holy Shit!” said Darby who was mesmerized by the transformations taking place. “I know Admiral Kyger didn’t send his orders with this in mind.”
“Nope but if we’re gonna survive when the Allung come back to retrieve their fortune – we have to have more support,” Andrew said.
Darby stood there a minute longer. “Holy Shit,” he said shaking his head in wonder. “Come on Xilatoi. I am going to show you people the marvels of military life,” he said and led Xilatoi out of the room.
Andrew turned to Lee who had stopped pouring lamlee since he now had four apprentices doing it for him. “We need a large surface Enclosure near here to train the freed slaves. They will be on the ship until we can train them here. The ship will allow them to work almost ten hours for every hour ‘til we can set up down here.”
“I’m on it, Captain,” said Lee Post.
“Contractions, Lee? On it?” I’m impressed,” Andrew said. “Your language skills are progressing.”
“I do learn,” said Lee.
“That you do…” said Andrew.
***
The surface Enclosure took only three days with hundreds of Lee Post duplicates working on it. The space enclosure took five days to complete. Rett designed the pass-through portals and was instrumental in getting it working. Three days after the surface Enclosure was in operation – Andrew was invited to the freed slaves’ graduation.
***
The Enclosure was pristine. There was a reviewing stand and Captain Darby and his staff were at attention on the platform. The Toi and other races of freed slaves came marching in. They passed in review and formed ranks in rigid lines. They moved in perfect cadence and were waiting f
or his words of wisdom. Andrew stared at the uniforms, which were urban gray with patches and berets of all things. They looked magnificent.
He told them they were going to help clean the scourge of the Allung from the universe. He told them he was proud to partner with them and they would have a chance to prove themselves very soon. Captain Darby will assign you to ships to complete your training. Congratulations and good luck,” he said.
As Andrew watched, they came to attention, said some cryptic phrase, were dismissed and threw their berets into the air. It evoked amusement and pride welling up in him. He hoped some would live through the coming weeks.
***
The battleship came out of the space Enclosure the next day – it had only taken two months of accelerated time. The remaining cruisers wouldn’t take as long since the Lee Post duplicates and Xilatoi worked on them together. Soon they had trained crews. There were ten jump capable confiscated ships now with upgraded weapons. The surface Enclosure had been converted to a slicer production facility. It was soon producing 25 devices a day in real time and the deadly weapons were being sent to the developing fleet to arm them and rearm the Earth ships.
***
Steve messaged Andrew. “Urgent you meet me at pyramid control room. Bring Lee, Rett and Shiv.”
It didn’t take much prompting for him to rush to the surface. He hurried in to the control room with Rett and Shiv.
“What is it?” he asked Steve.
Steve looked at the group and just started talking. “I’ve been working on their computer systems since I got here. Their encryption is for shit. They thought they were top dogs and the people that did the programming for them knew that they were designing weak algorithms. I worked through that and figured out their systems. It wasn’t set up to be that tough. The reason I called you was what I found,” he said.