Warrior Chronicles 5: Warrior's Curse Read online

  Cort stood and walked to his sideboard. “What do you drink, Admiral?”

  “Drink, sir?”

  “Alcohol. What kind of alcohol do you like?”

  “Oh. Red wine.”

  Cort poured two glasses and laughed, “Whiskey it is.”

  Handing a tumbler to Liz, he looked at the two collaborators. “Son, right now I wish with all my heart that you already had your new avatar, so you could taste success.”

  Liz smiled and raised her glass. “I hate whiskey, sir. But you are right. To success.”

  After downing his own glass, Cort asked, “So how do we navigate? I mean, without anchor particles, how will we know where we are going to end up?”

  “Father,” George said, “you must remember that I was originally an astronomy computer. I have studied the galaxy for nearly one-hundred million years. I can tell you where every single star is, now or at any point in time from millions of years ago to millions of years from now.”

  Cort chuckled. “You’ve got to be kidding me. My ships are going to jump across the universe using my hundred-million-year-old son as a living sextant. Wow.”

  “Father, I cannot be on the ships, but I can supply ships with navigational data. We will have to increase the size of the ships’ data caches, but it will work.”

  Cort remembered that the same method was used to send him forward in time. The thought disturbed him. “George, that’s how I came to this time. We misused a transition medallion. I don’t want that to happen again.”

  “It will not. The jump can only occur across a particular moment. It cannot traverse time in a particular location.”

  Cort relaxed. “Okay, when do you test it?”

  “We are printing the PSR cannon now, sir. Installation is scheduled for this afternoon.” Liz was trying to hide her excitement. “I’ll do a test jump to Solitude’s perihelion at 1600 to make sure the system is working, then we can make a full jump by 1700 hours. I will jump to Phobos, reform the warp bubble, and jump back. I should be back by 1710. Larger ships will require more time to form their bubble, but a Derringer-class will need about a nine minute turnaround.”

  “No. Go somewhere else. If something goes wrong, we don’t need the whole federation watching. George can send you someplace uninhabited.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What about getting through the bridge? Any ideas yet?”

  “Yes, Father. The modified engine will allow us to traverse the wormhole. Our current warp drives create a bow wave which would cause collapse. The modified design will not.”

  Cort arched his eyebrows. “Nice work.”

  --

  Late that afternoon above Solitude, the Derringer-class scout ship AFS Lincoln reappeared. But it was three minutes late. After it landed, Cort, in a CONDOR battle suit, approached the damaged ship. Its black graphene mesh hull was pitted, and in some places he could see the graphene-copper laminate of the hull’s innermost layers. Three Navy medics ran for the hatch, as Marines surrounded the ruined craft with their MATs at the ready. There had been no contact with Liz since the ship had reentered Solitude space. George had immediately taken control of the vessel and reported that the woman was alive and uninjured inside.

  When the medics couldn’t open the ship’s entry port, Cort shoved them out of the way, sending one of them rolling across the tempered concrete. Trying to keep his people calm as much as himself, he looked at a Marine nearby and laughed, “Fucking squids.”

  “Squids, sir?” The Marine asked. “Do you mean Admiral Bazal?”

  Cort sighed. Another joke from his own time that humanity had forgotten. “Nevermind. Stand clear.”

  Then he grabbed the hatch with armored hands and yanked so hard that the 40-meter long craft slid sideways across the tempered concrete landing pad. With a metallic groan, the ship finally gave up its struggle against him and the hatch came off in his arms. Liz Thoms fell forward into a medic’s arms and quietly sobbed as she was led away to be examined and debriefed.

  Five

  Several hours later Liz and Cort walked into the kitchen, where Tur and Kim were cooking.

  “Dear gods, Liz!” Kim shrieked. “What happened to the Lincoln?”

  Liz looked at Cort, who nodded. “I materialized inside another ship. Well, partially anyway.”

  “How did you survive?”

  “I was never in danger. The warp bubble cleared the space for me. But anything that was already there was compressed away from me or converted to energy.” Liz looked at George. She raised her hands in a shrug. “George’s math was perfect. I emerged exactly where he said I would. But someone else was already there.”

  “Who?” Tur asked.

  Liz sounded distant when she answered. “I am not sure. I took a lot of telemetry, but I could not move out of the ship. I was just too far inside it. I was going to reform my bubble and jump just a few meters, but then they started shooting at me. At that point, I decided to get out of there. My ship’s energy grid was overloaded and my comm system grounded out. I didn't have any choice but to jump back here.”

  “We ran the imagery through our catalog and it doesn’t match anyone or anything we know about,” Cort added. “I’ve got H’uum sending his closest patrol to check it out. We won’t know anything for a day or two though.”

  Liz looked down at the floor. “I must have killed quite a few people though. The imagery I got before my sensors went down showed a lot of partial bodies. They are humanoid and much smaller than us.” She looked up as she continued. “I would guess that they are about Speral’s size. At most, one and a half meters tall, but heavier. They were almost obese.”

  Liz Thoms had played her part in the deaths of enemies before; she had even played a role in the destruction of entire planets. But this was the first time she had been solely responsible for death, and the first time it had been innocent lives. Cort could remember what she was feeling, and there was nothing he or anyone else could do to help her through it except be supportive. He gently put his hand on her shoulder. “Liz, I know it doesn’t make it any better, but this isn’t something that you did wrong. I should have sent you someplace we knew was clear. It never dawned on me that there might be another species out there exploring. It was a one-in-a-trillion chance, and my gamble means you lost. I’m not going to candy coat it. People died and that sucks, but I’m glad it was them and not you.”

  Liz looked up at Cort. “If it is okay with you, I am going to skip dinner. I think I want to rest a while.” Without waiting for a response, she walked out of the room.

  Kim started after her, but Cort gently caught her arm. “Wait a while. She needs to process it before she can talk about it. Leave her be.”

  The study in the retreat at the isthmus was a round room, yurt-like and filled with bookshelves and windows. Near the largest window, the bookshelves were interrupted to display two ancient Liz lowboy chests and pictures on the walls. One chest was a humidor, and other was a liquor cabinet and wet bar. Thinking everyone had gone to bed, Cort was surprised to find Liz at the wet bar when he walked into the room.

  “Am I disturbing you, Admiral?”

  Liz started and turned quickly. “It is your home, sir. I’m probably intruding on you.”

  “Not at all. I would hope you know better than that, Liz.”

  “Would you like something, sir?”

  “In this room, I am Cort. I’d like a rye. The shorter decanter on the left. Remember both.”

  After handing Cort a glass, Liz said, “I’ve never killed an innocent person. The only action I have seen was against the crystal and against Cuplan ships. I never even took part in the attacks on their planets.”

  “You didn’t do this in anger. It wasn’t war. It was just an accident. How many people have died in accidents at your shipyards? Was it their fault? Did you blame them?” Without waiting for Liz to answer, he added, “This is no different. George sent you somewhere that was supposed to be empty. It’s not his fault and it’s not
yours.”

  “It is kind of you to say that, si… Cort.”

  “It’s true, Liz. Nobody alive knows more about dealing death than I do. It was an accident, and while it sucks and you’ll have nightmares about it, you bear no blame.”

  “What if they come looking for payback?”

  “I doubt they can track a warp bubble, but if they can, then we will try to explain what happened.”

  “And if they don’t listen?”

  Cort looked at Liz intently. “Most people do. Very few species want to wage war. Even when I look back over how the Collaborative behaved before Bazal’s influence, they weren’t really that violent. Not like us. And the Tapon were in over their head when it came to war. They carried a grudge too long. I couldn’t let them live, and no way in hell was I going to make allies of someone who stole my kid.”

  “What if this species carries a grudge?”

  “Then they will die at my hands.”

  Liz went to a window and looked out over the water. Just as a large fish broke the surface, an even larger aquatic creature swallowed it whole.

  “The larger one is called a bladefin,” Cort said to change the subject. “Their fins are as sharp as traditional knives. The meat is delicious, but cleaning them is a bitch. I’ve lost fingers twice. Now I wear CONDOR gauntlets when I clean them. The little one was the Solitude equivalent of a sardine. A damned big one, but still a baitfish.”

  “My uncle loved fishing. If things had gone differently, you would have liked each other, I think.”

  Cort knew where the conversation was headed now. He wanted to avoid it, if possible. “Liz, you are in a bad spot. Right now you are focused on death, and the only person you have to talk to about it killed your uncle and brother.”

  Her back was to Cort as she asked softly, “How did they die?”

  “You don’t need my voice telling you about their deaths, Liz. Not today,” When he first transitioned to her time, Cort had killed her oldest brother and her uncle when they were part of a team that investigated the cavern he appeared in. Cort remembered Liz’s brother and how the man bled out after Cort’s first wolf tore out his throat. Then he thought about Liz’s uncle pointing a disruptor at his fellow scientists, Clare Gaines and John Wills. Cort put two rounds from a high-caliber revolver through the man’s head before Thoms could kill them. “You don’t need that. Ever. So I’m going to tell you this one time, and I will never speak of it again. They both died doing what they thought was right, protecting their way of life. You can be proud of them.”

  Liz turned and looked directly into Cort’s eye. “Is that true, General?”

  “Yes, it is. They were both good men. They just ended up on the wrong side that day.”

  Liz sighed. “I guess the other side is always the wrong side.”

  Cort walked to his humidor and pulled out a cigar. “Never forget that, Liz. There is your side and the other side. Nothing else. Not when it comes to war.”

  Cort could see that Liz needed to process everything he had said. After he cut the cap off his cigar and toasted the foot, he changed the subject again. “Let’s talk about the test. What was it like jumping?”

  “I have not thought much about it, to be honest. I did not feel anything. The stars blurred for the briefest moment, but that’s it. I cannot even be sure of that. It might have been me blinking.”

  “The medics said you are fine. No ill effects, other than a little shock. George says the test went perfectly. I’m going to have the engine moved to another ship, and we are sending it out for three more tests tomorrow. After that, I’m ordering the modification be made to all ships.”

  Liz finished her drink in one swallow and stood a little straighter. “I will make the orders, sir. It is my job.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  “I want to talk to you about something else, Cort. I want to move Weapons and Research here. George is millennia ahead of us in computing. He would be very useful to us.”

  “Have you talked to George about it?”

  “No, sir. He’s your son, so I wanted to talk to you first.”

  “I appreciate that. I know he looks like a little boy – hell, he even acts like one around Dalek – but he is our equal. Any decisions made about his future are his to make.”

  Liz started to speak but Cort held up his hand to stop her. “Don’t get me wrong. He is my son, and I will die to protect him. But he’s also a hundred-million year old living being, and he can decide for himself what role he wants to play in our society. If he chooses to be a part of my war machine, he will be a great asset. If he chooses to work in medical or ag, he’ll be an asset there too. Frankly, I don’t need help learning how to kill. It’s George’s choice.”

  From behind Cort, George said, “Thank you, Father, but I can help everyone.”

  Cort spun around, looked at George and then back to Liz. “You could have told me he was behind me.”

  Liz smiled. “I tried. You cut me off.”

  “Father, I can allot access to portions of my core. Certainly more than enough for the various science disciplines. I can do so without compromising my integrity.”

  “What does that mean, George?”

  “I have been controlling my systems for longer than the human genetic family has existed. I can control how much of my core you have access to.”

  Cort was thoughtful. “But it’s still fully usable?”

  “Yes. My processors are capable of compartmentalizing work.”

  “What about the distances involved? I mean to Earth and Phobos? Or Heroc’s World?” Liz began to sound excited.

  “Transmission technology will limit data transfer, but not my usefulness.”

  “Are you sure about this? You want to help everyone?”

  “No Father, I don’t want to help everyone. I want to help us.”

  It took no time for Cort to make a decision. “Liz, for right now, it’s just you and Weapons and Research. Work out the bugs, and then we will add departments. First military, then civilian.”

  “Can I move WaR here?”

  “If it will help you that much, yes. I’ll talk to JJ about it tomorrow. How much does she know about the jump tech?”

  “Nothing. The day I arrived you said to keep it under my hat.”

  “Okay. How soon can the jump engine be put into another ship?”

  “It is really only one part that has to be moved. I can print new ones at the rate of one every three hours per printer. I will just print a new one, sized for the Kalashnikov. It will take another two hours to install and test.”

  George added, “I can increase printer speed and efficiency as well. But we will need to change the cube size of the block carbon.”

  Cort realized that having something to focus on had raised Liz’s spirits. “Get to work on it. Don’t skimp on testing, but start printing those drives. Also, we need a training program for the crews. I don’t mean to rush you, but we are losing more people in three weeks. I want it to be the last group. Which means you have less than fifteen weeks to get a battle fleet ready for me. I want to either stop that abduction, or be there at the same time.”

  “By that time, the H’uumans should have our gear set up,” Liz said. “I can have them print a new drive for the probes they have. We will know a lot more at that time, sir.”

  --

  Eighty-thousand light years from Solitude, the H’uuman flotilla arrived in a solar system just two light years from the event horizon of the black hole that had been renamed Hekla. Siella, commander of the task force which had been diverted to set up the forward operating base, was in her cabin on the flagship. Her scouts had found a planet nearly perfect for Ares Federation use, with no signs of life in the system. The problem that she was relating to H’uum and Cort, who were in Ares space, was that they had found signs of previous life on the planet.

  “We are not picking up anything from any of the sensors. No signs of intelligent life at all. But there are defin
ite signs of previous habitation. I’m reminded of agricultural development. There are large, evenly-sided sections of land that are recently farmed. There are also abandoned cities.”

  “Is there any indication of where they went? Is this a situation like Solitude?”

  “No, General. On Solitude, the quasar sterilized the planet and evolution started over. In this case, both flora and fauna have developed normally and are consistent with other benchmarks of the planet’s age.”

  “Is there anything else that is unusual about the planet, Ship Primary?” H’uum clicked.

  “No, Supreme. Well, yes actually,” Siella amended, “the planet’s magnetic field is exceptionally strong. It disrupts our scans. We have not been able to probe more than one kilometer below the surface in most areas.”