“They’re making a last stand,” breathed [Charles]. A shiver ran down his spine, something was wrong here. Something was very wrong.
“Forward march!” shouted [Charles] even as he raised his own weapon up and let loose at the barbarians roiling forth from the dirt. They weren’t supposed to be acting like this. Class C species were supposed to cower, placate, and try to run away like the fleet did with the FTL drive. These last few remnants of the species were not surrendering, they were not placating, and they were most definitely not running away.
They were making a final desperate last stand.
Their armor was no protection against the weapons of the Empire, yet still they surged forth from the bunker in numbers greater than what [Tom] had estimated would be alive.
Looking through the sights of his weapon [Charles] looked at one of the Humans as it climbed up out of the ground.
In its hand was a long metal pipe, no gun or other weapon. The human did not hang back or shy away from the fight with the crude weapon, but rather like his fellows armed with the guns charged forwards. As [Charles] watched through his scope more humans with improvised weapons rose up from the ruins of the Bunker.
Shaking his head in wonderment [Charles] started pulling the trigger on his weapon. When he had served in the infantry he had been a sniper, a marginally successful one at that. These shots barely over [300] yards from an elevated position were easy.
Keeping his breathing in check [Charles] started picking off targets.
The Humans had already adapted strategies, the one with guns were already behind boulders or hanging behind the lip of the mound taking pot shots over it towards the mass of Dorvakian troops. Those without weapons were risking life and limb to build crude fortifications in the dirt.
[Charles] nearly gagged as he watched one of the Humans drag a clearly dead comrade up onto a mound of dirt, and use him as just another part of the fortifications he was hastily building even as he continued to shoot.
“Forward!” repeated [Charles].
The Humans had already proven with the Bunker that they could hold a position nearly indefinitely, they could not be allowed to establish themselves on the open field of battle, [Charles] had the upper hand for the moment, so long as he pressed forwards he would be able to retain that advantage.
Slowly the crew of the [Singer] moved forwards, the Humans who had guns continued to fire at the shields as they were erected, looking for an opening in them. The shields were designed to handle energy weapons and not kinetics, and although they were for the moment operational they were being quickly depleted, if those shields dropped while they were moving forwards then this small skirmish would turn into a massacre.
Looking through his scope [Charles] saw more humans continuing to pour up out of the mound, this was too much. The entire species seemed to be willing to throw itself into battle.
Palming his com [Charles] stepped behind the nearest shield generator.
“I need a focused blast on the bunker coordinates, lowest yield smallest radius, make sure you have the coordinates right!” he growled.
“Sir? Are you sure?” Asked the weapons officer of the skeleton crew still aboard the [Singer].
“Do it!” shouted [Charles].
“All shield maximum intensity!” shouted [Charles] through the general com.
He heard the hum as the shields were cranked up, and the crackling of electricity and plasma as weapons fire from the humans continue to pour down on them.
Their was a flash of light striking down from orbit, and a terrific crash as the in atmosphere was compressed and blown away. The shield generators whined but held, and after a moment it was done.
Blinking [Charles] looked at the Bunker, the hill it had been composed of was gone, now only a wide circular hole in the ground. The humans that had been streaming forth from it were gone, only a few of those closer to the ranks of the Dorvakian’s were alive.
The remaining Humans were all looking back at the Bunker as well, [Charles] had no idea how deep the structure went but he had to guess the [Singer] had just blasted away a significant portion of it. Hopefully not the portion containing the FTL schematics but at this point that hardly mattered.
“Forward!” shouted [Charles].
The Imperial ranks, rallied now with the swift defeat of the Class C barbarians moved forward once more, quickly dispatching the few Humans that remained on the ground.
[Charles] allowed himself a vicious grin, he was going to win this battle!
<Eridani Landing: 9 years 3 months 8 days>
“So what happened to her?” asked Ben.
The Doctor shrugged, “I have no idea, but I’m told that you and your wife suffer from some sort of classified form of radiation sickness. I don’t know why any type of radiation sickness is classified, but it’s the only irregular thing in her file. How it caused the spontaneous and near instant re-growth of skin and nerve tissue of her leg I don’t know.”
The doctor pointed at the display behind him, “we removed the extra tissue, and I had it analyzed. It has her DNA, and besides its rapid growth the only thing that’s odd about it telomeres of the cells. The cells from this extra tissue are nine years or so younger than the rest of her.”
“What?”
The Doctor shrugged, “I don’t know why, and I’ve been told by the Council to erase all data relating to this incident. I’m to leave all of the results to you and provide medical assistance if needed, I’m told this isn’t something at the biological level but rather something you have been investigating.”
The Doctor handed Ben a data chip and Ben took it sliding it into his own link copying the data off of it.
“Alright, thanks. Is she alright though? Can I see her?”
“Oh, yeah. Go ahead.”
Ben stepped around the Doctor and into the room.
Megan was already sitting up in bed, trying to keep Alpha and his many mouths away from the cup of pudding that she was eating.
“You just can’t stop making trouble for us can you?” asked Ben.
Megan rolled her eyes, “Yeah because I wanted Subspace to mess with my cybernetics. I finally get kickass legs and then try to grow weak grow weak human flesh back over them.”
Ben chuckled and sat down next to her. Megan pulled her legs out from under the covers showing him the surgery that had been repeated. The skin around her stubs looked raw and chaffed, but the extra blood vessels and skin was already gone, and the nano-machines had done quick work repairing the incisions from surgery.
“So the degradation, I brought the latest inhibitor,” said Ben and he set the small array of wires and mechanisms down on the bed next to Megan.
“Shouldn’t be too much trouble to wire that into the cybernetics.”
Megan shook her head, “No it shouldn’t be.”
The two were silent for a moment.
“We need to go back to the drawing board for the calculations on what’s causing the degradation,” said Ben.
“Oh?” asked Megan, “why? We knew that the degradation might cross things over.”
Ben nodded, “Yeah from space, not space-time. The cells that the doctors just cut off of you? They’re from nearly nine years ago.”
Megan paused, surprised.
“Nine years?” asked Megan slowly.
Ben nodded, “Yep, it’s hard to tell I’m no biologist but I’d bet the timing lines up with the first FTL jump you and I took.”
“Damn,” breathed Megan.
“No one else with cybernetics has reported anything like this, so we can be sure it’s still isolated to us because we go the highest dosage of whatever caused this,” said Ben.
Megan sighed, “Well that’s good at least.”
“We still have no idea what’s cause it though.”
Megan sighed and leaned back into her bed, “You know with the past few days I’ve had I don’t want to think about it right now. Surgery and physical therapy suck.”
Ben nodded in agreement, “While you’re doing that I get to work with Alpha. He’s not acting precisely how I imagined a hive mind alien space bug would.”
“You imagined what a hive mind space bug might act like?” asked Megan incredulous.
“Yeah, I mean he’s picking up how our technology works pretty darn quickly. When he gets set on doing something all of him piles on and completes the task in record time. Now that he’s fed all of himself none of him will sit still. I”
“How is the housing project going for all of them?”
Ben rubbed at his neck and looked away from Megan, “It’s going fine. We’ve got all of them moved into the dormitories that were vacant, all we had to do was turn on the heat and electricity. The Squeaks were more than happy to have the place without any furniture or anything, about the only thing we’ve had to stress is how to use the toilets.”
Megan grimaced, “Bad?”
“Not in the way you would imagine, they were drinking out of them for a while.”
Megan kept her face straight for a moment and then burst out laughing, “Really?” Ben nodded grinning along with her, “Yeah, other than that we’ve not had much issue. Turns out once they’ve been fed their appetites aren’t totally insane. The estimates are that if we want to feed them all without dipping into food reserves we’re going to have to increase food production by about 20% or so, it’s well within our means and we’re already ramping up production.”
“Good, how’s Alpha liking the new home?”
Ben winced again, “About that.”
Megan groaned, “No.”
“Yeah, he kind of moved in with us. It was the only place I could keep him when the translators weren’t working and he doesn’t really get why he should move. I guess I can force the issue.”
Megan continued shaking her head, “Seriously?”
“He’s not a bad roommate, won’t shut up now that we’ve got the translator working actually.”
“What’s the objective here again?” Asked Young, for what to Diana felt like the hundredth time. He was making sure they wouldn’t do anything rash, but it was getting monotonous.
“Attain data on the market. Get our hands on anything that seems useful without making too much of a fuss, see what we can trade to get antimatter,” said Diana.
Young nodded, “Right.”
Diana turned back to look at Minerva and rolled her eyes. The smaller woman just raised her eyebrows and didn’t say anything. Bruno in the back of the shuttle behind them was looking forlornly up at the rack of guns on the wall. They were going into the main city that Arik had identified without anything too noticeable as a weapon.
Each person on the ground teams was carrying an external com as well as an implanted emergency beacon. Placed in the skin between the thumb and the index finger all one had to do was bite and break the seal to set the thing off. The logic being the even if your hands were restrained you would still be able to activate it.
Young also had a small vial of strange matter, so that they would be able to trade if they came across anything they might need.
“You ready?” asked Arik through the com as Diana fitted her earpiece.
“I am, are you going to be riding along through all of this?” asked Diana.
The camera light on the small earpiece Diana and everyone else was wearing flashed once.
“Captain want to make sure that everything is recorded in case we need to analyze it later, I’ve been given unrestricted access to all computer systems on the Canada so ask a question and I’ll have an answer to you in but a moment!” said Arik, sounding far to cheerful.
“What’s up with you?” asked Minerva noticing the AI’s upbeat attitude as well.
A small giggle filtered through the com lines, something that Diana hoped was blocked to the commander’s headpiece.
“These alien computer systems are fun! Thiers so much new data, and it’s structured in all of these weird formats and standards, built on top of even older and cruder data structures. The vulnerabilities inside of all of it are huge! I’ve almost got free reign!”
Another giggled filtered down through the line and Diana rolled her eyes. Arik was the epitome of an online obsessed child, she was after all constantly inside of any computer network she was near. So the prospect of completely alien networks and online cultures were no doubt fascinating to her.
The shuttle bounced slightly and looking forwards Diana saw that they were making the final approach. They were following the route they had seen several other similar sized craft take as they had landed on the planet parking outside the main city walls.
Looking at the wall display as the massive city came into view it was plain enough why no one was actually landing in the place, from orbit the planet was for the most part a lush green full or vegetation and life. The city however was a junk heap, it looked like it had been in its prime nearly five hundred years ago.
The tall skyscrapers reaching up as high as anything on Earth were dilapidated and a few of them were missing walls and entire sections of windows. Between them were hastily constructed walkways and other haphazard structures.
Whatever else this place was it didn’t scream official in any capacity but rather the stark opposite. This was a wild, wild place. The shuttle now near the outskirts of the city wall flared its jets killing its forward momentum and slowly descended touching down on the ground with only the lightest of bumps.
“Alright, we’re splitting up. Right now all you are to do is gain intelligence, don’t press too much for information and try to blend in as well as you can,” said Young as he punched at the control for the shuttle ramp.
The metal groaned and the shuttle slowly opened, Diana coughed and winced for the first time breathing in the humid air of an Earth like planet in mid-summer. She had grown up on Mars and Bellona, two environments where the air was cold and biting.
Here though the air was thick and cloying, and within moments she was sweating though her clothes and gasping to try and get a clear breath.
“What the hell!” breathed Bruno from behind her.
Young glanced over at them, “Everyone good?” he asked.
Diana nodded, “Yeah, sorry. Just getting used to the air.”
“This is the real stuff, none of that recycled stuff from back home!” said Young and he took a deep breath of it.
Diana winced, “If it’s all the same to you Sir I think I prefer the recycled stuff.”
He smiled and shook his head, “You say that now, but after some fresh air,” he took in a breath and exhaled, “You’ll wonder how you lived without it.”
Diana sincerely hoped the city would have air conditioning, judging by how it looked from the air she wasn’t betting on it.
[Vann] stepped out of the transport and down onto the lawn of the Palace, it was annoying the split between work he was now dealing with. Brining [Charles] back here would be too dangerous though, Marcus already had too many operatives in place and the man was being incredibly stubborn when it came to revealing anything about what the Consul had been up too.
He was still going on about the Class C species, as if they were some kind of threat.
As he stepped into the building [Vann’s] communicator buzzed, alerting him to an incoming communication.
“Yes?” said [Vann] raising it to his ear.
“My new assistant is here,” said [Syn]
“Good, I’ll come by and say hello.”
[Vann] slipped the communicator back into his pocket and looking over his shoulder waited for [Reece] to materialize.
The bodyguard did a moment later, “Yes?” he asked.
“Sweep [Syn’s] office for bugs, even those we’ve left in place. I don’t want anyone listening in on this.”
[Reece] nodded and as [Vann] stepped around the corner the man disappeared, he would no doubt beat [Vann] to the offices even as he continued towards them.
The woman, [Sam] was one of the few remaining crew members of the [Singer] whom had served underneath [Charles] and had served with him during the fateful C1764 mission that seemed to be at the heart of all of the secrecy.
Walking through the lower offices of the palace where [Syn] worked caused quite a stir, the Emperor was not usually seen amongst such comparatively lower class politicians, rather if they were needed they were summoned to him in his office.
A cart holding an array of data tablets and old fashioned documents was run into the wall as an aid whom had been pushing it was distracted by [Vann]. More than a few cups of caffeine laced drinks were spilled as workers whipped around at their desks to look at the Emperor as he swept past.
Several groups of young women in his wake quickly converged, all of them whispering to one another about his good looks even before he was entirely out of earshot.
[Vann] for the most part kept his face impassive, it was right that his citizens should be in awe of him but neither should they worship the ground on which he walked. Several of the Emperors in his lineage had allowed themselves to believe they were more than mortal. That belief had led to their downfall, and it was a pitfall that [Vann] was going to avoid.
Making his way to the larger offices in the back of the lower wing, [Vann] stepped into [Syn’s] office.
The woman although organized when it came to presenting information had a workspace that resembled something that had exploded, [Vann] was only slightly surprised by this. When she accompanied him along with the rest of the Cabinet, her workspace was similarly disorganized.
The new assistant had her back to him as he stepped into the office, and [Syn] only glanced up as he entered instead continuing to list duties and expectations to the woman in front of her.
Technically she should have at least stood as he entered, but [Vann] supposed it was his own fault she wasn’t as bound to protocol as was appropriate.
[Reece] stepped into the office beside him, a small bug scanner held aloft and shook his head.
“So this is your new assistant?” asked [Vann] as he closed the door behind him.
The woman, [Sam] jumped and spun around in her seat, stumbling slightly she quickly shot up to her feet and quickly placed her hand over her eye saluting.
“Emperor!” she said.
[Vann] inclined his head to the woman, “You may sit.”
She glanced down at her chair and then quickly sat.
“Have you told her why she’s really here yet?” asked [Vann].
“No, she is actually going to be serving as my assistant, so I was filling her in on that stuff. I’ll let you describe the politics.”
[Sam] looked between the two, her head moving back and forth as the two higher ups in the government spoke.
“Alright then, Species C1764.”
The woman paled, her red skin moving from a deep red to almost a pink.
“Emperor?” she asked slowly her voice trembling slightly.
[Vann] looked at her for a moment gauging her reaction, “All information pertaining to them, and the operations that took place in the system they inhabited have been wiped from government record. I know that the newest FTL technology that is being researched by certain elements of the military originates from the species, I want to know what else happened and why Consul [Marcus] has systematically eliminated anyone connected to the incident.”
“What?” asked [Sam], “I lost contact with a few people, but I hadn’t heard anything about anyone being killed!”
[Vann] slowly nodded, “Theirs no direct proof for it, but [Marcus] would not be the first Consul in history to loathe giving up stewardship of the Empire to the rightful ruler. At the moment the majority of support is behind him, and I must tread carefully. Are you going to help me?” asked [Vann].
[Sam] nodded, “Of course!”
“Good, then tell me about Species C1764.”
The woman paused for a moment, seemingly to collect herself.
“They are the largest threat the Empire has ever faced.”
[Vann] blinked, first a crazed disgraced Captain, and now an analyst rising steadily through the ranks. Both telling him almost the exact same thing that a Class C species was a threat? It was impossible to consider.
“A class C species, a threat to the Empire?”
“Yes Emperor, one that I fear we are ill prepared for.”
Charles looked around the corner, and seeing nothing motioned for those behind him to move forward. The men moving as quietly as possible did so their weapons still at the ready, fingers clamped over the triggers ready to let loose a barrage of plasma at the faintest sign of movement.
After defeating the Humans on the surface [Charles] had no intention of allowing them to regroup, it had already been proven that the Humans were hardy enough to survive near indefinitely even inside of a wretched hole like the Bunker.
That was not to say that [Charles] wasn’t being cautious, he knew now that the Humans would not be hiding deeper inside of their lair. They were lying in wait like predators inviting him in daring him to try and kill them in their own nest.
Several squads were slowly descending through the Bunker sweeping for Humans or better yet computer terminals. If they were able to get the FTL schematics then [Charles] would call it a success, make a tactical retreat to orbit, and obliterate this entire valley, carving a new crater on the face of the red planet with the weapons at the [Singers] disposal.
So far they had found nothing, and [Charles] was growing more nervous every minute. The Humans had to have some kind of trap set up, some kind of ambush waiting to pounce on them.
“I’m getting a heat signature, whatever it is it’s small,” whispered one man, he held up his scanner and [Charles] as well as everyone else in the vicinity saw the target appear in their helmets. It was in the next room they were getting ready to check.
“Alright. Let’s prepare to breach,” said [Charles].
He backed up down the hall and let the forward infantrymen prepare to storm the room. They placed a small charge on the reinforced door, and raising the portable shields around themselves detonated it.
The sealed vault like door was vaporized, and an instant later the entire squad was in the room, weapons raised and at the ready to eliminate any threat.
[Charles] down another bend in the corridor listened to the com line, but didn’t hear any shots ring out.
“Sir you’re going to want to look at this,” said the leader of the forward team over the com.
Raising his own weapon [Charles] slowly entered the room, and was treated to odd sight. A small Human girl was clutching at the neck of some ugly four legged creature that looked like a badly deformed Yud, it had the same shaped face and a similar muzzle.
The furry creature was emanating a low very threatening growl not at the Human clutching its neck but rather at everyone else in the room.
The small human spoke, and Charles glanced at the translation.
“Go away! You’re aliens! Go away!”
The little Human was crying now, thick tears going down its cheeks. [Charles] grimaced, this was always a difficult part and one of the many reasons the Empire had taken to eliminating Class C species from orbit. The mental trauma caused to troops when they had to put down children, even those as malformed and malignant as the Human in front of them was devastating.
“Do you know where the main computers are?” asked [Charles] as he stepped forwards, the little Human let out a squeak of fear and the animal she was clutching slipped from her grip and shot forwards. It latched onto [Charles’s] leg with a vicious howl and snapped its head back and forth trying to get through the toughed armor of the suit.
[Charles] Glanced down at it and annoyed kicked the poor deformed creature away. It went sailing through the room and hit the far wall, a burst from someone’s gun ended its life.
The small Human let out a wail, and ignoring the guns pointed at it ran over to the small creature, grabbing its smoking corpse the girl dove headfirst into a small hole in the wall, one that looked like it had just been chiseled out of the concrete of the Bunker.
There was a muffled explosion and the floor beneath [Charles] and with a groan it collapsed downwards.
The last thing that [Charles] saw was a glint in the small Human’s eyes as he fell into the darkness, mocking him.