“You do have a point,” he said with a grin. “This sort of thing doesn’t happen every day.”
“Did Robin go back home?” I asked.
“No, she did not,” Robin said as she strode up behind us. “I’ll give them a day. If they haven’t convinced me, I’m going back home.”
“You just want to go to space,” I said. “Don’t you?”
“I most certainly do not want to go to space. I’m afraid of heights,” she said. “But if they aren’t lying to us, I can protect my children much more effectively driving one of these super ships than I can from my home.”
“Well said,” Olen replied.
“True enough,” I said. “I’ve been fighting people on our world for the last few years. It’s true I would do just about anything for this chance, but if these guys are as bad as they say, I’d rather fight them. Makes our wars seem petty in the grand scheme of things.”
“I’m not interested in fighting anyone anymore,” Olen said, “but these Makron sound bad, and if they’re gonna be here in twenty years, my grandkids are going to have to fight ‘em. I reckon I have another fight left in me if I need it.”
We followed Demodias up the ramp and through a hatch. He motioned toward seats that were arranged in the shape of a hexagon around a crystal formation of some sort in the center.
“Please be seated,” the alien said and moved to one of the seats.
The seat hit at about mid-thigh on me since they were made for a race that was two feet taller. Robin had to jump just a little to seat herself. I felt like a five-year-old trying to sit in my dad’s recliner.
As I settled in place, the seat moved. It reshaped itself to fit me, and the sides formed to grip my body.
“Holy shit!” I said.
“Groped by a damn chair,” muttered Robin.
Olen chuckled.
Then the crystal formation erupted with light, and we were floating above the tarmac. The shuttle seemed to be gone altogether.
Robin’s face went several shades paler than before.
“You’ll definitely want to close your eyes,” I said as the ground dropped away below us.
She swallowed and pushed her head back in the chair so she wouldn’t be looking down. I had to give the woman credit. She kept her eyes open as the ground dropped away, and we sailed through the atmosphere. She didn’t look down, but she kept her eyes open and her teeth clenched.
I glanced her way several times as we lifted off, but I was looking down in awe for most of that time. I had flown all over the place for the United States Army, but this was something I had never done. I expected to feel the push into my seat from the thrust, but it still felt like we were just sitting on the planet below. Even when we left the atmosphere, I felt no difference.
“Artificial gravity?” I looked at Demodias. “How’s that work?”
The alien nodded. “We can do much with technology, Corbin James. There are limits to how much of the thrust we can mitigate with the gravity plates.”
“Gravity plates?”
“Artificial gravity has been a part of our Republic for thousands of years, Corbin James. They are used in almost every vehicle in the Republic, from single passenger land vehicles, to interstellar freight haulers that are the size of a small planet. They are in almost everything.”
“You don’t know how they work, do you?” I asked with a grin.
The alien looked at me for a moment, then shook his head. “I do not.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I don’t know how half the shit I use works. I’m in the Army. Just give me a weapon, and I’m happy. You got laser guns?”
“We have many weapons used by our armed forces.”
“That’s all I really need to know. You got ray guns and spaceships. First three members of Space Force, right here.”
Olen laughed.
Robin kept her teeth clenched.
“We’re in space now, Robin,” I said. “Can’t fall now. You kinda just float.”
“Is there a problem, Robin McKenzie?” Demodias asked.
“She’s afraid of heights,” Olen answered.
“Someone should have mentioned this,” he said and tapped the edge of his chair. The panorama ceased, and we were back in the passenger cabin of the shuttle. “We do not have to use the live view.”
“It was worth it to see his face,” Robin said, nodding at me after taking a deep breath. “His face looked like my son’s face when he watched the first live-action Spiderman movie. It was the realization that heroes were real.”
“Who is this Spiderman?”
“Doesn’t really matter,” she said. “All he had seen until that moment were cartoons. That boy never sits still for more than three minutes. He sat there with his mouth hanging open for two hours. Looked a lot like James over there when we left the ground.”
I grinned at her.
“He did have that look,” Olen said. “Saw it in my boy when he met his first horse. Boy has a horse ranch in Dallas now.”
“That was worth whatever they want me to do,” I said.
Both Robin and Olen smiled, and I knew they were thinking about their children when they did so. I knew I would do whatever it took to protect that. I put on the face of a joker for the most part, but I’d joined the Army to stand between people like this and the evil shit that’s out there trying to destroy them. I didn’t have children of my own to protect, but I had thirty-three brothers and sisters scattered all over the world who were raised with me by the nuns at St. Markus.
Apparently it was a time of reflection for more than just me. Robin was lost in a memory, as was Olen. I glanced at Cleaver, who was watching the two with a smile on his face. He knew more than what they were telling us so far, and I could see an abundance of relief in that smile. That worried me some. How could the three of us make the president of the United States of America feel relief that we’d be joining in this?
It had to be pretty bad when the three of us meant that much. I was a fighter, sure, but was the ship they would put me in that important? If it was, then why just the three of us?
Part of that question was answered as we walked down the ramp of the shuttle into a huge hangar with many more shuttles of the same build. There were others down the line with guns mounted on the noses as well.
Olen chuckled as he saw what I was looking at. “Looks like their version of the A-10.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I already like it. Are we flying those?”
“Those are just armed shuttles, Corbin James,” Demodias said. “You will be flying a Darkstar.”
“That sounds very cool. I hope they have guns like that.”
“The Darkstars have much bigger guns than that,” Demodias said.
“Nice,” I said. “So where do you keep those?”
“They are in Golde, the Goleri home system.”
“Oh, I thought we would get to see them today.”
“First you must see what it is we face,” he said. “We will be traveling to the Iixxl System. It is a world that fell to the Makron. We will be going in a reconnaissance vessel. You will be able to see what it means if we lose this war.”
“That sounds dangerous,” Olen said.
“It is,” he answered, “but you will need to see this before you make the decision to become what we are asking you to become.”
“All the way out to a system that’s behind enemy lines?” Olen asked. “Just for the three of us?”
“Not exactly,” Demodias replied, motioning toward a group of people on their way to meet us.
I recognized the president of Russia walking beside a being of the same race as Demodias. The president of Russia acknowledged the president of the United States, and the two men stepped aside.
I was facing the three Russian soldiers that stood beside the alien.
“My name is Samaad,” the alien said. “These are Viktor Ivanovich, Zhenya Rastova, and Polina Kravisk.”
I saw the patch on the military uniform of the f
irst one introduced.
“Navy?”
“Da,” he returned. The translator on his collar answered, “Yes.”
“Warrant officer,” he said in heavily accented English. He pointed toward me. “Army?”
I nodded and motioned toward the two ladies who stood behind and to the left of him and said in a quiet voice, “These ladies aren’t military, even if they’re wearing uniforms.”
He smiled. “Both are privates in the Army.”
“Alright.”
Demodias stepped forward and pointed toward us. “This is Corbin James, Cordell Olen, and Robin McKenzie.”
“I expect this is gonna get interesting,” Olen said.
* * *
I pushed the button on the console beside the door. My body felt noticeably lighter as I turned around, carefully. Slowly I began walking across the floor of the large room. The force I would have normally used to make a step sent me stumbling forward.
Hearing a laugh from the door, I turned. “Come on, Viktor, give it a shot.”
The big Russian stepped forward to stumble.
“It ain’t as easy as it looks,” I said.
He moved forward a lot slower as he adjusted. “Why are you doing this? The gravity plates will make the gravity what you want it to be.”
“This is the setting that matches the world we are going to,” I said. “What if we had to get off the ship for something?”
He nodded. “That is why I am a fighter and not a leader.”
We both practiced moving at a gravity that was a third what we were used to. We had twelve days of travel in Hyperspace. I figured we might need to try some new things.
“We should get the others to come practice with us,” I said.
He nodded. “Perhaps a few more moments so that we can make it look easier.”
“Damn right,” I replied. “Don’t want to ruin our reputations.”
“Very true.”
We spent about ten more minutes before we had a pretty good handle on it. “I think we’re good enough to amaze the ladies.”
He laughed, but I saw the guilty smile afterwards, and I knew I’d hit the nail on the head.
“Zhenya?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Damn, I figured you’d be after Zhenya.”
“Polina is from the country. She was raised on a farm like I was in the old days. Zhenya is too much into the politics.”
“I can see that being a problem.”
“Da, very much a problem. She is, what is word? Connected.”
“Ahh, powerful family?”
“Da.” He nodded. “Polina is a turnip farmer. Much less of the drama.”
I chuckled. “I don’t doubt that for an instant.”
“What of you, Corbin? Where are you from?”
“I was raised in an orphanage in Tennessee,” I said.
“My father raised three other boys who lost their families,” Viktor said. “It takes a different sort of person to take in the children of another and raise them.”
We stopped at the door and reset the gravity to normal.
“It certainly does,” I said.
It was surprising just how similar our people were. I had a feeling that was something a lot of other people needed to learn. We were all human, and that meant a lot more now.
* * *
By the end of the trip through Hyper, we all were pretty damned proficient in the lower gravity. The whole final day we spent jumping and rebounding from the walls of the large room.
“Why are you doing this?” Demodias asked as he watched.
I landed lightly in front of him. “We’re going to a hostile planet. The gravity is the same as this. Why wouldn’t we do it?”
“We are going to observe. There will be no fighting.”
“Yeah,” Olen said as he stopped alongside me. “Had a spook tell us that in Saigon. Some of the worst shit we got into during the war.”
He jumped to the right and landed twenty feet away.
I grinned at Demodias. “Better to be prepared, wouldn’t you think?”
“The security forces will be fighting if it needs to be done.”
“But we’ll be there to back them up.”
He shook his head in a familiar way. It seemed many gestures were similar between us. I suppose it was natural for a bipedal species to evolve with similar characteristics.
“The Council would certainly remove me from the position of liaison to your party if I let you join in any fighting, Corbin James. You six beings are more important to the Republic than this entire planet.”
“Still need to be prepared,” I said.
Demodias shook his head again and returned to the hallway. He was still shaking his head when he rounded the corner at the end of the passage.
“Humans. What are ya gonna do?” I muttered.
I had been delving into some of the records over the last few days. They had no idea what they were in for when they brought Earth into the Republic. They had some wonderful technology, but it was the same tech, for the most part, that they’d had over five hundred years ago. I had a feeling there would be a lot more impact from my people than just some new pilots for these Darkstars.
Information about the Darkstars was scarce. The only thing I could find were records of whole battles shifting when a Darkstar arrived. In a system called Farali, the Republic had been routed by a fleet that was twice the size of the Republic fleet. I couldn’t get much more information than that on numbers. A single Darkstar had joined the fleet, and the Makron fleet had been completely destroyed. The reports were still pretty vague about numbers, though. It could have been three to six, or thirty to sixty. I think my data searches were being throttled by Demodias’ people.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they were. They were putting a lot of faith in a race that had used almost every technological breakthrough we had ever come up with to kill each other.
The silver lining was that the group they had found to be pilots were all fairly decent. Viktor and Polina were just Russian hillbillies. Zhenya was a little different. It was obvious she had come from a different background than the rest of us. Her family must have been even more connected than I was thinking when Viktor and I talked. She was used to a much different lifestyle than the rest of us. Olen was a rancher who worked his own ranch, and Robin was the soccer mom. None of us were criminals—well, except me. I was pretty low on the criminal scale, though. I’d just left a commanding officer’s car impaled on a statue.
* * *
“There are no Makron cruisers in the area, Councilor.”
The earpiece had translated the voice of the navigator, a Carpundomi female. The Carpundomi had a cylindrical body with twelve tentacles. They used the lower four for movement if they were standing up, but they were also used as extra hands when seated. Each tentacle was about three and a half feet long, and ended in a group of smaller tentacles. I knew there was a term for them other than tentacles. I just figured I would refer to them as fingers. Her fingers flew across the large console around her. It seemed to be designed with a Carpundomi in mind, since the four eyes arrayed along the front half of her head could cover the whole console without turning.
“Proceed to Iixxl,” Demodias said.
“Councilor, huh?” I said from his left. “Little more than just a liaison.”
“I am a Councilor of the Republic, Corbin James. I am also the assigned liaison to Darkstar initiates from Earth. My staff and I are your contacts until we determine if you will be accepted by a Darkstar.”
“Accepted?”
“The Darkstar is a living vessel, Corbin James,” he said. “They choose their pilot.”
“Interesting,” I said. “How do they do that?”
“After the initiate accepts, they will have a neural net installed. This is the communication system that will be used for the initial introduction.”
“Neural net?”
“It is a network connected to the brain
that will allow the Darkstar to greet the pilot.”
“Connected to the brain?”
“It is painless and non-invasive, Corbin James. The procedure is done with miniscule robotic machines—”
“You have nanites?”
He paused for a moment and seemed lost in thought. “Yes, your people have made a crude effort into the field. They are called nanites on your world. The Republic’s nanites are quite advanced in comparison.”
“I imagine they would be,” I said. “You’ve got one of those neural nets, don’t you?”
“I do. It is a very useful tool.”
“Sounds like it might be.”
“May I ask why you are here on the command deck, Corbin James? I informed all of you we would alert you when we exited from Hyper.”
“I like to see what I’m getting into, and the others have elected me as the leader of our little band of misfits, so I thought I should be here.”
“Of course,” Demodias said. “Curiosity compelled me to query.”
“Why?”
“I have done this introduction twelve times in my years as liaison. You are the first to request to be on the command deck.”
“We all wanted to be up here, but figured it might get a little crowded. They decided to send me after a short vote on who they wanted to lead.”
“Why must there be a leader? You are all initiates. There is no higher rank or level of importance.”
“You’ll find there always needs to be a leader with my people. I didn’t expect them to choose me. I voted for Olen. He’s got a lot more sense than I do.”
“After studying your kind for some time, Corbin James, I would have expected a different outcome. I would think the Russians would want their own.”
“Frankly, I figured all three of them would pick Viktor. I was alright with it. He’s a good guy. The two ladies did pick Viktor, I picked Olen, and both Olen and Robin picked me. The surprise was when Viktor picked me, too. I’m not sure where that came from, but here I am.”
“It gives me hope that your world might be able to reach an accord as to who will be the leader there.”
“Good luck with that,” I said.
“You do not sound very hopeful, Corbin James.”
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