Alabaster Noon Read online

  It took all his years of experience as a CASPer driver and merc to force the feelings of despair from his heart. They’d lost six men from the two surviving companies clearing the conflagration which had enveloped Peepo’s headquarters building. His executive officer and longtime friend, Hargrave, was dead. And Alpha Company of Cartwright’s Cavaliers had gone with him.

  He didn’t know what happened in the seconds before the top floors of the building exploded, brought down by controlled demo charges. He’d been too shocked. Luckily for them both, Major Alvarado had assumed command and got them moving out of the armories and barracks which had been their targets. Luckily, because a battalion of Besquith descended on the place like demons. They found nothing, though; the Cavaliers had already pulled back. The battle wasn’t over.

  Only it was. Colonel Cromwell, commander of the Winged Hussars, had been murdered in a live feed, betrayed by her own XO. The ceasefire violation led to a rout of all their forces. One of the titanic Raknar was obliterated from orbit. Jim Cartwright—in his seemingly invulnerable Raknar—had been forced to surrender or risk losing the other five Raknar. Bravo and Charlie Companies were caught kilometers from any chance of getting off-world. So they stayed and ran.

  “Suit check,” he called once the entire squad was across the avenue. Each trooper triggered a status report which went to Buddha’s suit. The data he constantly received was kept simple to make it harder for the enemy to locate them. A primary status indicator showed the suit was operational, another showed the operator was alive and kicking, and a third showed the suit’s position. A suit health squawk gave him more details on their suits’ conditions. They weren’t great.

  Hargrave and Alpha Company were gone, along with all their new advanced Mk 9 CASPers. Bravo and Charlie Companies had older Mk 8s and some ancient Mk 7s, like the one Buddha was driving. The new Mk 9s had fantastic endurance and flight characteristics, but they were gone. The various Mk 8s in his company had 15-22% remaining power. The Mk 7s were worse; all of them were below 10%. They were all out of jump juice and had little ammo.

  “Looks grim, Top,” Major Alvarado said.

  “Yes, sir,” Buddha replied.

  “Captain Wolf says Charlie Company isn’t in much better shape. We need to get off the grid ASAP.”

  “Yes, sir,” Buddha said. “We made it across the avenue without notice; I’m just waiting to get the scouts back.”

  “Roger.”

  Buddha released one of the last two drones, its tiny turbines screaming as it took off toward the roof tops. Surrounded by low rent tenements, the entire area was deserted, and it had been so since just after the invasion began. Data flowed from the drone and fed into his battlespace to be reviewed. There were actually a few people around, the drone’s multi-spectral scanner showed. Scared, pitiful people hunkering down while their city was torn apart by war. He felt truly sorry for what was happening to them.

  He checked his company’s troopers in the battlespace, verifying they were all safely concealed in apartments, abandoned shops, or even big rubbish bins. A well-trained unit, despite the horror scenario they were enduring, everyone was doing their jobs. Hargrave would have been proud.

  “Scout inbound,” reported Sergeant Dixie “General” Lee from Second Platoon, First Squad.

  “Upload the report from Private Seeley as soon as you have it,” Buddha ordered. A few second later, the data came in, and he examined it. Private Seeley had located a large warehouse just two blocks away. For the moment, nobody was inside. “Major, I think this is our best bet.”

  The current senior ranking officer of Cartwright’s Cavaliers was silent for a moment as he too looked over the results. “If we don’t take it, we’ll be unassing people in about fifteen minutes,” the major finally said.

  “That’s my assessment as well,” agreed Buddha. The endurance report on his suit showed seven minutes of power remaining.

  “I concur,” said Captain Wolf from Charlie Company. She was young for a company commander. If things had gone better, and the aliens hadn’t invaded Earth, she would have had several months of deployment under a more experienced company commander to get her legs. Instead she’d been thrust into command of forty troopers. Now, with Jim captured, the stress in her voice was evident. They needed to get out of the field before things went from bad to worse. Sure, each CASPer had small arms and survival gear, but the troopers would come out wearing their haptic suits and would only have minimal body armor. Suboptimal, at best.

  “Get them moving to that warehouse,” Major Alvarado said.

  “Roger that.” Buddha relayed the orders.

  Master Sergeant Scott “Hillbilly” Tackett, command sergeant for Charlie Company, relayed orders to his company and got them moving. The distance was short, and there weren’t any intervening large roads. Inside five minutes, the entire command was inside the warehouse. Three CASPers from Charlie Company had to be moved in by other troopers due to power failure.

  “Everyone unass if power is under five minutes,” Major Alvarado ordered. “Anyone with more, go into standby and hold while we assess the situation.”

  In minutes, the walls near the main entrance were lined with twenty-nine CASPers, their operators climbing out and accessing emergency equipment. It was a sight no experienced CASPer driver ever wanted to see—powered armor units largely out of power and ammo.

  “Private Partlow,” Buddha called.

  “Top?” the man replied as he safed the weapons systems on his all-but-dead CASPer and put it into shutdown mode.

  “Grab a couple others and see what this place has to offer.”

  “Did you bring your credit card, Top?” Partlow asked.

  “Sure did,” Buddha said, and removed his personal Ctech CR-26 battle rifle from its storage compartment in his CASPer’s thigh compartment. There were appreciative grunts and chuckles from other troopers who were arming up as well.

  “Keep your eyes open, Private,” Buddha said to Partlow.

  “Will do, Top.” Partlow and another pair of troopers headed off into the racks full of goods. They returned ten minutes later, and Partlow had a slate he’d found somewhere. “Can’t get into it,” he said, handing Buddha the computer.

  “Corporal Solberg,” Buddha called. “Job opportunity.”

  Solberg was his company’s tech specialist. Truth be told, he was a good, old-fashioned hacker. The trooper came over in his haptic suit, his cables held at his waist by a strap. “Let me check it out, Top.” Solberg examined the slate. “Hmmm,” said the man as he attached a cable from his own slate.

  “Simple industrial model,” he said after a minute, and the appropriated slate came alive. “Here you go, Top.”

  “Good job,” Buddha said. “Now get your sidearm?”

  The man looked down and realized he was unarmed. “Shit. Sorry, Top.”

  Buddha made a “get out of here” gesture, and Solberg went back to his deactivated CASPer while Buddha began examining the warehouse’s inventory. It was a general goods warehouse; however, he immediately noted a large amount of consignments logged as, “Mercenary Guild Property.”

  “Oh ho,” Buddha said, accessing those entries.

  “Partlow! See if you can get a lift running.” A short time later his worry lines were gone, and he was grinning ear to ear. He made a mental note to thank Peepo later, after he’d shot her between her rat-faced eyes.

  * * *

  Winged Hussars Prime Base, New Warsaw System

  Lieutenant Commander Aleksandra Kowalczy read the report and growled under her breath. Everything was taking three times longer than the tables said it should. Alexis’ careful plans for the mobilization and defense of New Warsaw hadn’t considered one possibility—that nearly every single hull might be out of the system. She struggled with her emotions for a second, then got them under control, once again replacing mourning with anger.

  “Shit,” she said quietly.

  “Ma’am?”

  Aleksandra
looked up and blushed. She’d forgotten she had an assistant now. “Sorry Dimitri,” she said. “I was just frustrated.”

  “No problem,” he said with a nod of his head. “I have the academy numbers for you.” Ensign Dimitri Pavlovich’s family was like Aleksandra’s—so Winged Hussars they bled black. His family was most known for their tech savvy, though a few had served in the combat arm of the merc company/family. Dimitri was a star in his family for aspiring to command, and he had graduated near the top of his class the previous year. Aleksandra had been a bit of a disappointment. At least, until now.

  “Go ahead and give them to me.” Dimitri sent them, and Aleksandra saw the files arrive in her pinplants. A total of 192 junior and senior Hussars academy students were being readied for service. Only half even had an able spacehand ribbon on their uniforms. Entropy, she thought. So few, so very few. “Send out the assignments as we discussed,” she said, then remembered something. “They are all volunteers, yes?”

  “Yes, ma’am. We had over two hundred volunteers from the underclassmen as well.”

  Aleksandra felt her heart swell with pride. “Send emails to their parents or guardians. If they approve, the underclassman who are allowed are to be assigned duty on support craft and shuttles aiding in the evacuation of Home.”

  Dimitri nodded and closed his eyes so he could concentrate to send the messages. The young officer had his first pinplants at age nine, like most Hussars who wanted to serve in the combat or technical arm. Even so, formulating and sending hundreds of emails took a lot of concentration.

  Aleksandra input 150 more souls into the support pilots and ratings columns, and shuffled more experienced crews out. She frowned at the results and then shifted more. Maybe if I only leave one experienced rating on each support ship, she thought. She made the change, and a hell of a lot of extremely useful crewmembers became available. Also, there were now a great many shuttles and transports being operated by partly trained kids. She gritted her teeth and okayed the redistribution.

  Across the star system, she expected her division leaders were looking at her orders and shaking their heads in disbelief. They’re probably thinking I’m insane, she thought, and they might be right…except, what other choice did she have? Undermanned support ships and unmanned combat vessels? There were still more than 9,000 civilians and dependents to evacuate from Home.

  An evacuation drill from the planet hadn’t been run in sixty years. When the population had surpassed 5,000, it had become impractical to shut down the planet’s economy for a week. Besides, the last time they had conducted one, the operation had taken eleven days to complete. Aleksandra had less than three left. Putting a couple hundred kids on ships before they were old enough to kiss the opposite sex had helped…a little.

  “Commander?”

  Aleksandra almost didn’t look up. She wasn’t used to be addressed as a commander. “Dimitri?”

  “Kleena is here to see you, ma’am.”

  Aleksandra blinked as she tried to remember who that was, and why they were coming to her office. She ended up using her pinplants. He was the head of the Geek Squad. Thinking it might be something in relation to their missing scientist she said, “I’ll see him.”

  The elSha skittered into her office, as was his race’s manner. He was old; she could tell by the way his nose scales were flaking off instead of molting regularly. He wore a light jacket, another sign of an aging elSha, and it had the green piping of the Winged Hussars’ technical branch.

  “Good to see you, Kleena,” she said.

  “And you, Lieutenant Commander. I don’t believe we’ve ever met.” He offered her his tiny clawed hand, which she took. Being from the technical branch and not an armed service member, it was customary, just like how he didn’t use her honorific tittle.

  “No, we haven’t,” she said. “However, Commander Cromwell always spoke well of you.”

  “A true loss,” he said, and shook his long head, casting both independent eyes down at the deck. As one of the top Hussars, Kleena had been made aware of Alexis’ death. He was one of a tiny number who knew the truth.

  “Do you have news on Dr. Sato?”

  “Only that I can now confirm he is not in the star system.”

  “That is unfortunate.” Aleksandra looked down at her drab desk and sighed. The genius doctor could likely have helped pull a XenSha out of a hat. The image always gave her the willies, but it was a popular saying none the less. “Where do you think he’s gone?”

  “Honestly, I have no idea.” Kleena shrugged. “Sato isn’t the kind of guy who wants to go places. Ever since he and Nemo came to us, he’s been happy to invent, examine, and generally work on any tech we threw his way.”

  “Except when he unleashed a doomsday weapon on Capital?”

  “Yeah, that.” Kleena said and gave an all-too-Human sigh. “Even that behavior is in line with him. The only trouble he tended to cause was getting into stuff which would have been better off left alone. Commander Cromwell was always willing to look the other way and considered the small amounts of mayhem Sato created were—what do Humans say—the cost of doing business.”

  “Yes, we say that. Only we usually aren’t saying it in reference to doomsday weapons.” She considered for a moment. “Do you believe he’s an agent of the Mercenary Guild?”

  “Not a chance,” Kleena answered without hesitation. “But…”

  “But what?”

  Kleena scratched his muzzle absentmindedly and his eyes wandered around. “I’ve always thought his unusual behavior was the result of some past trauma.”

  “As though he’d been hurt?”

  “Maybe, or just mentally effected.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  Kleena pointed at her pinplants. “You realize your pinplants are effectively a direct access to most of your brain functions, right?” Aleksandra nodded in understanding. “It’s necessary for you to be able to record vision, control the computer features, etcetera. Well, you can also use those same inputs to mess with your brain.”

  “Entropy!” she cursed. “Who would do that?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “However, it could be someone who wanted Sato to either forget something or simply to suppress it. He could have been tortured and escaped. I could also be wrong, and his behavior just a matter of his rearing. I don’t completely understand how you Humans raise your broods.”

  We aren’t too sure about that either, some days. “Thank you for your insights. I’ll include them in my report for Alexis—” she stopped mid-sentence and shook her head. “I mean, whoever is eventually given command.”

  “I understand,” Kleena said.

  Dimitri got her attention. “Commander, Cafta is here.”

  “It seems to be my day for elSha visitors,” she said and gestured for her assistant to let him in.

  Cafta entered, saw Kleena, and the two elSha exchanged a curious, rapid head-bobbing action. Aleksandra guessed it was customary with their race. Her new visitor was carrying a metallic case on a shoulder strap. It reminded her of the standard Hussars’ ship damage control case.

  Kleena stood to the side and let his fellow approach her desk.

  “Why didn’t you call?” she asked Cafta.

  “I thought you should see this,” he said. “If I may?” he said, and held up the case.

  “Sure,” she said, and gestured to her desk. One of the advantages of the virtual work environment of a pinplanted person was the desk usually remained uncluttered. The person’s brain, not so much. Aleksandra moved a couple model ships aside, one of them the one Seldia had examined. She noted it was a Steed-class battlecruiser.

  Cafta set the case on her desk and unlocked it, but didn’t open it. “I know you’re busy, and I am sorry to interrupt your meeting. However, I discovered the problem with the inventory mismatch.”

  He opened the case to reveal a dozen cylindrical devices. Each had a pair of high-power superconducting connectors and a single data connect
or. “I only checked a dozen—there wasn’t time to review all of them. However, the twelve samples I pulled from inventory are all identical to this.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like that,” Aleksandra said.

  “Nor I,” Cafta agreed.

  “Me, either,” Kleena said, leaning in to examine it. “The power cable is a J-class. For a small item like those devices, they must use a horrendous amount of power.”

  “I agree,” Cafta said. “I’m not a tech, but in my duties in the Fleet Materials Office, I see almost every piece of equipment needed to build, repair, and manufacture starships.” He pointed at the open case. “I’ve never seen anything like that. Further, I managed to trace them backward and can verify Manufactory #3 produced all of them over the course of a few weeks before Sato disappeared. Within hours of his departure, that manufactory ceased production and purged its memory of all plans.”

  “I don’t understand,” Aleksandra said.

  “It means Sato wanted us to find them, but not be able to review the plans,” Kleena said.

  “We would never have found them if I hadn’t noticed inconsistent materials IDs and the ship fitters hadn’t complained about incorrect shipments.”

  “Exactly,” Kleena said. “Sato is one of the most intelligent beings I have had the pleasure to meet. Do you honestly think he would be able to disappear so thoroughly that nobody notices he’s gone for many hours, and at the same time make a sloppy error that allowed these items to be found?” He spread his thin arms apart and shook his head. “No, of course not. He left these devices and guaranteed we’d find them.”

  “But why?” Aleksandra asked. Kleena shrugged.

  She examined the case. It was simple, a utilitarian design of metalized plastics form-fitted for the devices, including insets to hold the cables and wire from being bent or damaged by the lid. She took one out and was surprised how heavy it was. Her eyes moved up to regard Cafta again. “You said there were 105 of these?”