Alien Courage (Rise of the Empress) (2 page)

Peter removed the empty magazine from
his carbine as Hanson walked toward him, a nervous smile on his face as he
opened the ammunition pouch on his belt. Then without warning a blur of motion
materialised beside Hanson as a Japanese Officer rushed out from his hiding
place behind a heavily vegetated tree. His swiftness was incredible as he
raised a samurai sword with lighting speed and slashed through Hanson’s neck.
Hanson’s head tumbled from his shoulders and his body convulsed falling to the
ground. Blood splashed all around as the Japanese Officer lunged forward with
confidence towards Peter. Years of training with that long blade gave the
Officer the sureness in his ability to use it. He saw Peter as his next target
and gave out a deep guttural sound as he raised his sword and moved in for the
kill.

Peter suddenly came to life, his senses
went on full alert and he saw everything in slow motion as though he was
looking down on himself and his advancing enemy. He knew he didn’t have time to
get the fresh magazine into his carbine and his pistol was securely strapped in
its holster.
 
He watched with fascination
as his enemy rushed toward him and appreciated the finality of the moment, one
mistake and he would be dead. Peter waited for his enemy to get closer before
he moved. He wondered why he hadn’t sensed the danger earlier; it was as though
he was being tested in his ability to handle this new situation. The blade
streaked down toward his chest.

For the briefest instant the Japanese
Officer knew he had won. A great feeling of satisfaction materialised in his
mind, and then the impossible happened. Just as the blade was about to make
contact with Peter’s chest he brought the barrel of his carbine up at just the
right angle. The sword blade hit the barrel and sparks flew off as it slid down
and slammed into the front sight. Peter felt the impact on the front sight and
the force almost ripped the carbine from his hands but he twisted the weapon
and trapped the blade against the barrel, his timing was perfect. Peter then
threw his body weight behind his shoulders and twisted his carbine with a
smooth flowing motion and it tore the sword out of the Officer’s hands and spun
it to the ground.

In the same fluid motion Peter brought the
butt of his weapon swiftly upwards and struck the Officer a severe blow to jaw.
The Japanese Officer staggered backwards, and then Peter now gripping his
carbine like a club swung it viciously into the stomach of his enemy.

The Japanese Officer doubled up and
slumped face first to the ground. Peter bent down and picked up the samurai
sword. He immediately admired its balance and feel but his face went hard with
anger as he saw the blood on the blade. He stood over the Officer then looked
at Hanson’s body a short distance away and the strangest of thoughts once again
came to his mind, ‘a quick death to a good enemy’ as he raised the sword high
above his head.

“See you in hell
Tojo
,”
he said as he slashed the sword downwards.

The sword never made it to its target.
The Japanese Officer exploded with great force. He had three hand grenades on
his belt and one was initiated with the blow Peter gave him with his carbine
setting the other two off as well. Peter was flung off his feet and landed some
distance away. At the same time the crew of the B29
Superfortress
looked down over Hiroshima as a mushroom cloud developed over the city. Three
days later another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki – Japan surrendered.

Out of the jungle Sergeant Driscoll emerged with
Parsons and Ackhurst. Parsons had badly twisted his ankle and they came as
quickly as they could when they heard the shooting. The Sergeant quickly
checked the area and found four dead Japanese, a headless Private Hanson and
bits and pieces of another Jap scattered all about the jungle. Then he found
Peter completely covered in blood. He sighed as he bent down to check the body,
but shouted to Ackhurst. “Quick, go find the medic, he’s still
breathing.” 

Consciousness was returning very slowly to Peter. He
kept drifting in and out of a dream like state. Images flashed and raced
through his mind. He dreamt, blacked out, only to semi awaken and dream again.
He had no concept of time, or where he was. He answered questions no one asked.
He saw things he knew weren’t real, but thought ‘yes,’ maybe they are real. He
saw colour and smelled strange odours. He could not feel his body but he could
sense it, well... at least what he thought was his body.

Slowly at first, and then more quickly, he became
aware he was dreaming. He liked it and wanted it to go on – it did. He saw
images bathed in lime green covered with pretty lights and symbols. A soothing
voice in his mind asked him questions and figures danced on green. A larger
image formed and he saw a giant hall with ornate ceilings but he saw
all of
it,
all at the same time! The ceilings, floors, walls, corridors, even
outside the large windows and up into the sky. When he focused on a particular
object symbols formed on green. He was in wonderland, the faster he looked,
thought or imagined the quicker the symbols formed and the more the soothing
voice asked questions which were so very easy and satisfying to answer.

Peter focused on this Great Hall he kept seeing. The
walls had many different weapons, maps and paintings on them. He recognised
some of the swords and weapons but many he didn’t. The maps seemed to be of
planets, stars and constellations. There were paintings of grand looking people
in dazzling uniforms. He looked around and saw a great number of people in the
hall,
they must be soldiers he thought. They wore many
different uniforms but nothing he knew or had ever seen before. The soothing
voiced kept asking, “Friend or foe?” at each individual he put his attention
on. I don’t know, thought Peter.

Suddenly the image of a Japanese Officer and a sword
flashed in Peter’s mind, then the burst of an explosion. The green turned grey
and red symbols lined up in different patterns. Peter felt distress and danger.
The grey turned red with black symbols and the voice was no longer soothing but
certain and authoritative. It seemed every image Peter had in his mind flashed
itself on red.
“Friend or foe?”
The voice asked of
every human image and seemed to record his responses. The screen flashed the
recent figures and people in the great hall.

“I don’t know,” Peter thought now realising he was
drifting into a nightmare. “Wake up,” he told himself. He felt the feeling of
motion, like standing up.

“Friend or foe?”
The voice continued over and over as images flashed
faster and faster.

Peter started to panic, his mind raced and he felt
like he was in a very small space, getting smaller and smaller. The Japanese
and Germans are enemies, no he realised, the Germans surrendered.  Images
of them flooded in from his memory, the dark uniforms, the swastika and the
stern serious faces. ‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘that’s them, that’s them… bad
people…very bad people.’ Peter was becoming overwhelmed and started blacking
out. The voice continued and the symbols danced on red.

“Targets locked.
Weapons?”
The voice asked. A new array of symbols appeared. Peter hazily noticed two of
the many symbols and they here highlighted instantly. Peter was on the verge of
losing consciousness and tried desperately to block out the images, symbols and
the voice.

“Targets locked.”

“FIRE!
God damn it! Let me be…” were the last thoughts of
Peter Boland as he slipped into a welcomed oblivion.

---------

The Great Academy Hall exploded into a mass of terror
stricken personnel. Great numbers of darker uniformed personnel suddenly ceased
to exist. Their bodies vaporised with deadly accurate fire. It took less than
two seconds for fifty six people to disappear.

The T334 robot of the Trigealian Regiment scanned the
area in an instant and was satisfied all enemy were terminated. Having received
no further orders or instructions from its pilot assumed a pre programmed
defensive position to await further orders. It sat on the floor and deployed an
invisible force field around itself. It ceased to be visible or locatable by
any means except by physical contact with the force field and that would kill
any organic based life form and render inactive any electro mechanical device.
It simply ‘went to sleep’ feeling quite safe.

Into the Great Hall rushed armed security soldiers.
The compound alarm was ringing loudly. It only ever sounded for malfunctions in
settings of atmospheric control or random drills. What had just happened had
never occurred before in the history of the Academy. In what is the most secure
location of the Imperial Confederacy – the impossible had happened.

A distinctively alert soldier dressed in the uniform
of the Administrator of the Confederate Military Academy stood quietly and
surveyed the Great Hall. His calm, inquisitive features were mostly humanoid in
appearance as were over eighty percent of sentient beings in the Confederacy,
but they betrayed his true feelings concerning the Confederacy. Those he kept
expertly camouflaged as is the ability of those who were the descendants from
the quarantined and outlawed civilization of the planet Norfis. He walked with
confidence to the control console located on a raised platform in the centre of
the Great Hall. His face and features had not changed expression from before or
after witnessing the incident of the T334 Trigealian robot going berserk. His
eyes did flicker a little faster than Norfians would have liked. They pride
themselves with their emotional and intellectual control and they considered
their eyes a useful but at times a treasonous accessory to their bodies.

This half Norfian descendant was tolerated and
accepted by the Confederacy for his remarkable ability with complex administrative
problems. Under his administration the Academy greatly benefited militarily,
and with that came great wealth and prestige. He also had a remarkable database
with recorded transgressions of nearly everyone in positions of power within
the Military Training Network. It was very dangerous to cross him. The
Administrator of the Confederate Military Academy had over many years
transformed his position into one of the more deliciously elite and powerful
positions within the military training establishment. He was answerable only to
the Empirical High Command and the Trigeals - the non humanoid masters of
intervention and dominant species across the vast Imperial Empire of the
Confederacy. 

He surveyed the situation in front of him and took
immediate and absolute control. A small console like device attached to his
left arm hummed as it calculated a suitable response and intervention to the
current situation. The response the Administrator observed on the tiny screen
made his eyes flicker a little faster. In no more than a second he understood
his next action would change his life and possibly that of the Confederacy
forever. With an almost unperceivable motion of his hand he touched a key on
his arm console initiating the acceptance of the computer solution presented.
He turned on the Academy public announcement system and issued his orders.

“This is the Academy Administrator! All personnel are
to report to their duty stations immediately and be security scanned! Those
whose duty stations are within the Great Hall of the Academy are to report to
their barracks and submit themselves to a security scan within one micro of
arrival. Any failure will result in negative… no terminal intervention! Remain
at your duty station or barracks until further notice. You have your orders.”
The Administrator watched as compliance by all personnel was immediate. He
allowed himself a brief hint of a smile in acknowledgment that a course of
action was now in motion he could not stop, maybe not even by Trigealian
intervention itself.

He walked back to his seating position in the Academy
and surveyed a now empty Hall except for the row of T334’s to the far left.
They needed no active security as they were impenetrable and impossible to alter,
steal or destroy. To try to touch one or even get inside the cordoned area
meant a quick death. The Trigeals insisted on storing some of them here to
reinforce in all military trainees and hence future commanders of the futility
of rebelling against Trigealian interventional control. There should be twelve
but he could only count eleven. Such an incident as this he thought should
create its own intervention and affect everyone in this sector of the
organisation. He wondered why nothing had happened; but saw this inaction as a
great opportunity. He looked at his arm console, scanned it with his desk
monitor and transmitted a message to Planet Security.

A short time later the Security Chief of Ennack, the
home planet of the Confederate Empire strode into the Great Hall with the
precisely measured steps from a lifelong career in uniform. He glanced
momentarily at the row of unpiloted T334’s and shuddered. Their scanning ports
reflected all light and were eye like in appearance. Their mechanical bodies were
twice the size of the average humanoid, black with a strange shimmering
quality. They bristled with antennae and were the most feared creation
throughout the known universe. He saw his own reflection in their scanning
ports as he walked past and a cold shiver ran through his body. The Security
Chief took off his cap as he reached the Administrator and saluted in the
traditionally accepted Confederate style of the left hand flat on top of the
right with both elbows touching the body and head bowed briefly. The
Administrator stood and returned the salute.