OMEGA Conscript (5 page)

Garrett quickly stepped over to the first guard, removing the blaster from his limp hand as the guard fell slowly forward. His heart had stopped from the crushing blow of my fist.

Garrett turned the blaster toward a now worried, but indignant, Clevel Rugus. "I believe you have a helmet for us? We are still willing to pay you handsomely for it."

Clevel Rugus changed the image on his holo-display to one that showed the hallway outside his office. It had filled with armed security guards.

Clevel gestured. "You won't make it out of here alive. Did you think I was foolish enough to only rely on two guards?"

Garrett shook his head as he looked back at me. "I'll have to admit it. You’re right, sometimes we Humans are a little thick in the head."

I took two quick steps up to the front of Clevel's desk. Looking down, I picked up the jar that still held five long breadsticks.

I grabbed Clevel by the lower jaw. "You look famished, Mr. Rugus. I'm thinking you could use another breadstick, or perhaps all five."

I reached across the desk, taking the jar in my free hand as I pulled down on the Human's lower jaw. I shoved the glass jar inside the now wide open mouth. Clevel gagged.

I raised my free hand in a balled fist. "The way I see it, your guards will happily disperse out there when they find out you are dead. And keep in mind, I won't let you die a quick and painless death. I'll only use enough force to shatter this glass jar in your mouth.

"With your gag reflex continuing, your body will attempt to force down some of the glass shards that your mouth will contain. With each convulsive swallow, your pain will increase to what you might believe is an unbearable level, but you won't die from it, at least not immediately. So, tell me how you want to proceed, Mr. Rugus. Would you like to call off your guards and turn the helmet over to us? Or would you like to die a slow and painful death?"

Clevel Rugus gagged as he attempted to nod his head.

I raised my fist. "Slow and painful?"

The large Human shook his head no.

I said, "Is the helmet here on the premises?"

Clevel nodded.

I continued, "Does Mr. Cathos know of its whereabouts and can he retrieve it?"

Clevel again nodded as he gestured toward Mollis Cathos with his eyes.

Clevel pushed a green button on his desk as he continued to nod toward Mollis.

Two minutes later, Mollis reentered the room carrying the helmet. "Here."

Garrett took hold of the helmet with a smile. "And I'm sure you will direct your guards out there to not take a shot at us while we have the helmet. If it was to become damaged, it would be useless. Mr. Cathos, would you care to summon an air taxi for the three of us?"

Mollis Cathos cringed. "Three?"

Garrett nodded. "I would think you would like to see us off to the spaceport so you could collect your fee."

Mollis returned a sheepish nod. "I suppose I could."

I looked into Clevel's eyes. "You have a credit store?"

Clevel raised his arm and moved his eyes toward a wrist cuff. I released his jaw, transferring two million credits to his store.

"I'm giving you more than fair price. I hope you use that money for ventures other than an attempt to recover the helmet. If we should meet again, I assure you it will be the last time."

Clevel nodded.

Garrett waved his blaster at Mollis Cathos. "After you, Mr. Cathos. I believe our transaction here is complete."

As Mollis Cathos opened the door, Clevel stood and pressed the red button on his desk repeatedly. Mollis' midsection exploded backwards into the room. I turned, firing one bolt after another into the far wall as I began to run. The wall shattered as I slammed into it and moved into the next room.

Garrett fired two bolts out the door before turning his blaster toward Clevel Rugus. "You could have walked away from this still in good shape."

Garrett reached out, grabbing a breadstick from the jar in Clevel's mouth before inserting it into his own. Garrett winked. As Garrett ran, he looked back, firing a single bolt into the bottom of the large Human's desk as he jumped through the open wall. The sound of glass shattering could be heard.

I pulled the door of the adjacent room open, firing several bolts into the back of the guards crouched outside, facing down the hall in the other direction. The remaining guards scattered.

As we emerged from the giant red warehouse building, the
Jess
was settling in on the air taxi deck.

"How'd the
Jess
get here?" I said.

Garrett laughed as we ran toward her. "You didn't think I would leave us reliant on a taxi to get out of here, did you?"

I replied, "Well, I guess I hadn't thought about it."

Garrett ran up the ramp as ion bolts from the building flew toward us. "I told you I was the cautious one. I'm starting to think it's you who should be the sidekick."

Garrett handed me the helmet as he sat and took the controls of the
Jess
. Seconds later, we were racing up through the atmosphere of Novesta, our prize in our possession.

Garrett took a bite. "Hmm. These are really good. I can see how Clevel got as big as he did. I'd be eating these all day long."

   Chapter 5

When we arrived back on Effica, Go was waiting. "I can't believe you found one. Is it a good fit?"

Garrett replied, "It's the helmet that came with that suit. Put it on and let's see what this thing can do."

I cautioned. "Let's move into a private room. The fewer that know about this suit the better."

Go pulled the silvery-white suit up over his shoulders as Garrett handed him the helmet.

Once the helmet snapped in place, I held out the power cell. "Try to master the controls this time before setting that activation percentage. We don't want to lose you."

Go laughed. "Yeah, you don't have to worry. I learned that the hard way last time."

I snapped the power cell in place on the belt.

Go stepped back. "Whoa! The inside of this thing just came to life! There are images bouncing all over my field of vision. I'll need a few minutes to figure this out. The controls are similar to what we were looking at on the holo-display, only they are all up at the same time. Hold on, the helmet is asking me a question. It wants to know if primary control should be manual through the arm pad, visual where it will follow my eyes, or neural. The wearer of this suit must have had some kind of implant."

I pulled up the tutorial for visual control on my holo-display. "With visual, it says you can train the helmet to respond to eye movements. You can focus on an item and twitch an eye to make a selection. Try choosing visual and then use your eyes to move through the tutorials."

Go replied, "OK. Whoa, that is freaky. I just flew through five menus and it did just what I wanted!"

I pulled up several new tutorial screens on my holo-display. "Just take your time to learn all the controls. It won't do us any good if you can't properly use it."

Garrett remarked. "Should we load up the
Jess
and head back toward the portal gate? The trip should give him plenty of time to figure that suit out."

I shook my head. "Let's give it another day. The gate is a structure with floors and walls. I think he needs some practice at moving through those before we go. Movement on the
Jess
will be very limited. And we're taking the Green and the Grumar with us. No reason to leave them here."

Garrett nodded. "If he needs to be moving around, I suggest we move across town to a completely empty building. Something with multiple floors and lots of walls."

Go said, "Guys, I figured out how to turn off most of the images in my line of sight. Everything they represent is easily accessed by looking to the side. This display is something to behold. I'm excited about being the one who has this thing on. Whoever made this sure knew what they were doing."

Garrett swiped several screens on his holo-display. "Kind of makes you wonder what was out there before the AMP came about, doesn't it? Wormhole portals, cesium generators, battle-suits that would allow you to travel through walls, androids who were as smart as you and me. It just seems so out of line with what we know. Restricting what we had access to lasted for two thousand years. I wonder if that's coming back to haunt us now."

I replied, "With the histories we have recorded, two thousand years is a great run for a government. Restricting access to those things may be why it lasted as long as it did. There's an easy pattern to be seen in Human history. An empire expands, becomes wealthy, the new generations have no interest in putting forth the effort to continue that empire—they are focused on the here and now, entertainment. Selfishness and corruption sets in, and the empire, without strong leadership, ultimately fails. We experienced that with the AMP a decade ago and we are already seeing the further spread of that collapse in the New Alliance."

Garrett smirked. "Yeah, that's it, blame it on the Humans."

I shook my head. "No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that when societies have weak leadership, combined with a populace that has a philosophy of entitlement, it leads to a government of corruption, and then finally to a complete collapse. Human history is probably no different from that of any other sentient species in that regard. I can't pull that determination from my own history. It was lost with the Duke taking us away to the War of Wars."

Garrett half smiled. "You know, if the Greens were your rivals, and if the Greens are in the galaxy on the other end of the portal, that would mean your original home world should be there as well."

I nodded. "I know. That is one of the reasons I want desperately to get the Green to my people. You Humans were under the Duke's thumb for a thousand years before his defeat. I would have to guess that it was a similar situation for my people. We would like to find our Earth, to know our beginnings."

Garrett frowned. "Yeah, well, we're not even sure of our history. The founders hid Earth away from us like they hid everything else, leaving us to wonder if it was all just made up. The stuff written in our history books leaves a lot of holes to be filled. The whereabouts of our planet is just one of them."

Go cut into the conversation. "Uh, guys, I think I'm ready to give it a try."

I waved my hand. "Remove the suit. Box it and we'll go find a suitable location to test it."

Go laughed. "Suitable location. I get it!"

Garrett shook his head. "I don't think that was intended as a joke."
Go replied, "Hey, whatever suits you."

Garrett rolled his eyes. "Great, now there's two of 'em."

We took three helocycles across town to a former corporate building. The sixteen floors and multitudes of offices gave us the training environment we needed. Orders had been given to keep a two kilometer perimeter around the building. We couldn't risk revealing our new technology before we had a chance to make use of it. A brigade of Talisan soldiers stood at the watch.

Go once again suited up, and the power was turned on. "OK, I'm ready."

I turned to Garrett. "This is where you have to suspend your disbelief. Alright, Go, activate it."

With a twitch of his eye the battle-suit and its contents went translucent.

Go slowly walked around the room. "It's kind of hard to get traction with my feet. They just kind of slide through the floor rather than pushing against it. I guess that comes with only being about 50 percent interactive with your environment."

I said, "Take it down to twenty-five and then up to seventy-five. I want to make sure we can get you back before you go fully active."

In an instant Go vanished.

Garrett scanned the room with the sensors on his arm pad. "Was that supposed to happen?"

I replied, "He should have become more visible than what he was."

Go came back fully. "Oops. Sorry about that. When I get excited my right eye sometimes has a nervous tic. Instead of twenty-five I entered two-fifty and it jumped before I could stop it. I'm back, so at least it was a good test of my ability to control the activation level."

I sat in a chair in the room we occupied. "I guess it's time to test the glove. See if you can move around in that thing. And don't stay active for more than a minute at a time here initially. We need to know what that suit is capable of."

Go smiled through his face shield. In an instant he was again gone.

Garrett sat, crossing his arms. "I can't say I favor being on this side of the experiment."

I opened a comm to Go. "Can you hear me?"

Go's voice came back several seconds later. "Can you see me at all?"

Garrett gave an inquisitive look. "How is it we can communicate with him? I thought that suit passed all signals around it."

I swiped several screens. "It has built-in instruments that allow the wearer to see what's around them and communicate … all while remaining undetected."

Garrett replied, "Yeah, I'm not seeing anything on the sensors. That comm signal appears to be coming out of thin air."

Go said, "OK, I'm powering up the glove. Oh. This is cool. It's pulling me around the room. Ah, oops. I just floated through a wall. It seems that once you start moving you stay moving in that direction. I guess I'll have to master this glove if I want to come to a stop. Oops again. Now I'm going up. I just drifted through the ceiling onto the next floor. There, I'm coming back."

I moved my holo-display to a new screen. "It says to end a session of drifting, you want to be just above the floor, and away from anything else. If you then deactivate, it will be just like a short step down onto the floor. Just make sure you are clear of everything. If you deactivate while occupying the same space as another object, that object will disappear, never to be brought back. The wearer of the suit won't be affected."

Garrett half smiled. "That sounds like it could be a useful weapon."

Garrett stood, grabbing a decorative vase from a side table and setting it in an open space on the floor. "Go, when you get back in here, see if you can position yourself in the same space as the vase I just put on the floor, then deactivate. I want to see what happens."

Go replied, "OK, coming through the wall right now. I see the vase. Hold on, I went past it. This glove is a little tricky. I will definitely need a lot of practice with controlling this thing. Here we go again. Grrr!"

Garrett looked around the room. "What is it? What happened?"

"It's just a little frustrating, that's all. I keep going past it."

I looked up from my holo-display. "If you are in the open, just deactivate. There will be plenty time to play with destroying things once you begin to master maneuvering with that."

Go deactivated the suit while half a meter above the floor. A hard drop sent him off balance, crashing into a chair and falling over it.

Garrett laughed. "Now that was an elegant entrance!"

Go got to his feet. "Hey, I'm learning. You have to crawl before you can walk."

"What does it feel like?"

Go replied, "It's not a comfortable suit at all. I'm wondering if we need to have the Talisan scientists create a batch of that bio-gel for us. It looked like the ingredients were fairly common. As far as feeling goes, it's just like being weightless, only your eyes are playing tricks on you. Anything you try to touch or grab, your hand goes right through. It's very strange, but at the same time really cool."

I gestured toward the far wall. "How was the energy use going through there? What level is the power cell at?"

Go checked. "It didn't move. Hold on. Just one more screen ... it says the current level should last for about three weeks if left on with normal non-combat use."

Garrett nodded. "That should give us more than enough time for him to practice."

I nodded. "I think we give him three days and then reevaluate. If he has at least a modest mastery of it, we leave for the portal gate. If not, we give it another three days. In the meantime, take that list of ingredients for the bio-gel over to the Talisans and see if they can produce it. I'll work with Go to keep him focused. We'll keep a comm channel open in case you want to watch or listen."

Garrett stood with a sarcastic grin. "So you get to stay here with all the fun while I go run errands?"

I looked in his direction. "I'm sorry, Garrett, but that's what sidekicks do."

Go laughed just before he disappeared, continuing to laugh over the comm afterward.

Garrett shook his head as he walked toward the door to the room. "OK, I'll have to give you credit for that one. Good slam. I'll be back as soon as I know something on the bio-gel."

As Garrett left, I pulled up Go's video feed on my holo-display. "Drifting through these walls is so cool. You can see every bit of construction material, the metal studs in the wall and the wall panels. It's the same with going up through the ceiling and down through the floor. You know what, it would be incredibly cool if I could look inside an ion generator or a gravity engine while it was in operation."

Go went silent for several seconds as his video view came back through the wall. He deactivated the suit, stepping down lightly onto the floor. "You know what this suit will allow us to do? This scares me to just think about it. With this suit, I could drift inside the rooms that power and run the portals. I could see ... we could see what was in there for the very first time!"

I nodded as I pointed back at the wall. "All in due time. Right now we need to stay focused on you being able to make full use of that suit. We can't afford to spend time speculating. We will have weeks to do that while on our way to the gate."

Every few minutes Go would return to the room I occupied. His landings on deactivation slowly turned from awkward drops to smooth transitions. I tired of watching the video feed as he moved through the material world, and instead returned to browsing through the helmet's tutorial screens. After a period of several minutes away from the room, the building shook with a tremendous thunder.

I yelled out. "What was that? What happened?"

Go apologized. "Sorry, that would be my fault. Come out into the hallway and turn right."

Garrett came over the comm. "What happened? Is everything OK? I'm looking out a window at a huge dust cloud coming up from your location!"

I replied, "I'm about to find out."