Son of Justice (11 page)

Eli had been elected team leader by the members of his squad, and he wore the responsibility with the seriousness that it deserved. As a life-long student of all things soldier-related, and the son of the man who had designed this training regimen, he understood the situation he and his team currently faced. He knew the purpose of this exercise and struggled with the knowledge that they weren’t expected to succeed in their mission of reaching the tower that stood five kilometers away. No one had ever reached it because they weren’t meant to reach it. It was a mental test, designed to measure individual tendencies, strategic planning, and abstract thinking.

He knew they were expected to fail. And that knowledge pissed him off.

Why give them a mission they couldn’t achieve? Why set them up to fail just so someone could monitor their thought processes or try to interpret their possible future actions? He stared across the terrain. He couldn’t see it, but knew a tower stood in the distance. It was a real target. One that held a contingent of real Minith fighters. Minith fighters who waited, ready to cut the humans down before they could get within range and bring their own weapons to bear.

He snarled in frustration and struggled to solve what was designed to be unsolvable.

Adrienne Tenney had led her own team toward that goal earlier in the day without success. He had questioned her at length on what she had seen and experienced, quizzed her regarding the tactics she had employed. Nothing she offered proved helpful to cracking the code. Her team hadn’t come close to the tower before being dispatched by the long-range weapons its defenders were using. She was clear on one thing though: the shock of being hit with those weapons was no joke. She described the experience as “like being hit with a bolt of lightning.” The shudder in her voice reiterated the discomfort she had felt. The subsequent gleam in her eye told Eli she couldn’t wait for him to feel it for himself.

There was one thing she said that tugged at his mind, though. Tenney relayed how her team used their suits’ cover and concealment systems to approach the tower, but it hadn’t mattered. The suits were designed to be near-invisible, and could match the terrain as they passed across it. That should have supported their attack, offered an advantage. But it hadn’t. When they reached a point that put them in range of the defenders, they were picked off easily, one-by-one, as soon as they moved to advance. She described her own experience clearly: She was concealed behind a large boulder, protected from any possible shot. She identified her next position and prepared to move up. She hadn’t taken a single step before being taken down by a blast. It was like the tower defenders knew exactly where they were at all times. In other words, they were being tracked in some fashion—probably electronically.

To Eli, that was cheating, and he struggled for a way to overcome the disadvantage.

“What are we going to do, Jayson,” Benson asked his bunkmate? His voice rang inside Eli’s helmet like an accusation, but that was an unfair assessment, he knew. His frustration was merely coloring his friend’s innocent question. The other recruit had begun relying more and more on Eli to get them through the grueling cycle of training. The fact that Eli was now his squad leader lent credibility to the query. It was his job to come up with a plan. He noted with a resigned sigh that all of the faces in his team were turned to him.

“I’m thinking,” he answered, making eye contact with each recruit in turn. “And I’m open to suggestions.”

“Speed,” Ellison offered from the far right of their line. “Use this nice, new armor and just rush them before they can react.”

Eli accepted the suggestion with a nod, filed it away as a possibility, but knew it wasn’t the key to the puzzle. Other units had tried that. Their new armor might help, but racing to contact would just speed up the inevitable, especially if they were being tracked electronically.

“Other ideas?”

“What if we circle to the north or south, try to get around them that way?” Benson suggested. “This armor should protect us from the extreme temps, don’t you think?”

The suggestion was intriguing. He had considered that himself. It was unlikely that the Minith would expect them to approach from the south or the north. The terrain in both directions was just too hostile. Unarmored, no one in their right mind would enter those regions. Their new armor would protect them from the elements, but if they were being tracked, it still wouldn’t matter in the long run. Again, the proposed tactic didn’t solve the puzzle. He relayed his thoughts to the group. Several nodded in agreement, obviously relieved not to put their PEACE armor to that particular test.

“Maybe we should ask the Telgorans for help,” Benson tossed out flippantly. The offhand manner in which he made the comment suggested sarcasm. However, for some reason, the idea resonated with Eli. He was willing to grasp any straw that might help solve this riddle, despite how ridiculous it might seem.

Ask the Telgorans for help.

Being so caught up with the day-to-day struggles associated with training, it was easy to forget where they were. Or who else occupied this inhospitable marble of a planet as it rolled around the sun.
This is Telgora
, Eli reminded himself. A race of people resided beneath the surface of this planet. They were hidden away from the daily grind through which he and his fellow recruits dragged themselves, but they were there nonetheless. Perhaps most importantly, the Telgorans had little, if any, regard for the Minith that had once enslaved their world, and killed their people with regularity. They had agreed to join the Shiale Alliance , but it was well-known to the Alliance leaders on Waa that they would have preferred to cast their large, green foes out into the stars, given the choice. It was only a result of their allegiance to, and regard for, the humans who had come to their planet, and led them in the defeat their enemies, that they conceded to join the union. But the distrust and the dislike remained.

Eli turned that reality over in his mind, looking for any clues that might help solve the puzzle he had been handed. With a gasp, he recalled a key detail from the battle for Telgora that had been waged more than a dozen years before. The Telgorans had used a series of underground tunnels to surprise the Minith in their mining bases. The attack from below had taken the defenders by surprise and helped secure the combined human and Telgoran victory over the Minith here on this planet. Not for the first time, he thanked his own curiosity and his father’s insistence that he study history. Perhaps looking to the past would help solve the present.

For the first time, he took his eyes from the direction of their target and scanned the entire landscape that surrounded them. He quickly spied what he was looking for on the hillside at their rear. It was one of the dark entrances to the Telgoran underground. Benson’s flippant comment became a fleeting notion, which became an idea. The idea quickly grew into the outline of a plan.

You’ve got to be kidding me
, he thought, surprised by his apparent willingness to even consider such a reckless scheme. There were so many holes in the plan, so many intangibles that could cause failure, that he felt compelled to abandon it immediately. And yet… what was there to lose?
A lot
, he replied, the internal debate now fully engaged. They could lose their way, for one. He could lose his recruit status for another. This was thinking outside the box—perhaps too far outside. If the move caused any backlash, he’d have to fall on his sword and make sure everyone knew it was his idea, his plan and no one else’s. Then there were the Telgorans. They held no animosity or distrust of humans, he knew, but what would their group tell those they passed? Don’t mind us, we’re just passing through? Despite the uncertainties, those were all things he could handle. It was the potential loss of dignity, respect and the ability to look his father in the eye that made him pause.

Despite the potential downfalls, Eli didn’t see another way through this task that offered any hope of success. He struggled with the choice, and noted the others looking at him expectantly as he did so. Play things safe and suffer failure, or risk it all on the slim hope that success was possible? His father often spoke about the need for weighing the risks of an action against the potential rewards that action could offer. One of his favorite sayings was, “You’ve got to go out on a limb sometimes. That’s where the fruit is.” One thing was certain: there was no fruit to be had by crossing the plain in front of them.

Limb it is
, he decided with a heavy sigh and shake of his head.

“Okay, everyone,” he announced to the team. “Take off your armor down to your boots, but leave it powered up. Except for you, Ellison. I have a task for you.”

The members of his team shared looks, obviously uncertain of the order they had been given.

“Let’s go folks. You heard the man,” Benson urged as he began shedding his new skin. With some scattered murmuring, the others quickly followed his lead.

Eli pulled Ellison aside and instructed him on what he wanted. The other recruit asked a few clarifying questions, but quickly grasped the concept of what he was being asked to do.

Satisfied that his orders would be closely followed, Eli began stripping down to the black, one-piece garment they all wore under their armor. It was elastic in nature to ensure a snug fit, and left little to the imagination. But it would have to do.

He surveyed his team. Dressed in black, form fitting skins and armored boots, they were an odd sight to behold. The pulse weapons they carried rounded out their strange ensemble. It would have to do. They weren’t going down without a fight, and he now had a plan that might somehow work. If they were lucky.

“Here’s what we’re going to do . . .”

* * *

Free hopped to his feet, retreated into the darkness and placed his back against the cavern wall. The armed humans were climbing the hill and seemed to be headed directly for his location. He didn’t think they had spotted him yet, and he wondered what he should do. Should he retreat or stand his ground?

For one of the only times in his life, he wished he could reach out to the Family with his mind. He needed guidance and direction.

* * *

“Jayson, we’ve got company.”

Eli looked to where Benson was pointing and noted with some trepidation that the ever-present pacer was hovering along ten meters behind their column as they double-timed up the hill. Apparently, the floating orb had elected to track them versus staying with Ellison. He wondered briefly if it would relay their location to the Minith at the tower, and briefly considered shooting it down. He dismissed that idea almost immediately. Going off the grid to accomplish a training mission was one thing, destroying Alliance property in the process was something else entirely.

“We’ll have to live with it,” he replied with a shrug. They were fully committed to this course of action. Either his plan would work, or it wouldn’t. The presence of the pacer was a factor beyond their control. All they could do was continue forward. He just hoped the orb wasn’t the manner with which the Minith tracked their location.

The mouth of the cavern loomed ahead, and Eli pushed his pace, anxious to reach the entrance to the Telgoran underground. He had heard stories of what lay beneath from his father and from the man called Titan, who was Earth’s Emissary to the Telgoran people. His excitement at seeing this strange world for himself was muted only by his worry of how their presence would be met. Although they were allies, it wasn’t every day that a group of armed humans was permitted to enter their world. The fact that their weapons weren’t capable of lethal force probably wouldn’t matter much to the native population.

Eli crossed the final few meters and slowed as he approached the cavern entrance. Although speed was paramount to their plan, he didn’t know what to expect inside and opted for caution.

It was a good call on his part as it gave him the fraction of a second that was needed for his training to kick in. He noticed a blur of motion and instinctively twisted his torso to the right. The lighting-fast thrust of the agsel staff missed by centimeters. Without thinking, he grasped the staff with his left hand and pulled, trying to disarm the thin, gray-skinned figure that wielded the weapon. His effort yielded zero results. His strength could not match the Telgoran’s. The sticklike arms held muscles like steel, and the alien used those muscles and Eli’s grip to yank him forward. Eli gave himself up to the movement and used the momentum of being yanked to leave his feet and twist his body to the left. He landed neatly beside the Telgoran, lifted the weapon he held in his right hand, and fired.

Eli was surprised by the agony that suddenly coursed through his body.

Not the welcome I was hoping for
, he thought as he and the Telgoran collapsed to the ground.

* * *

In business or in war, the process is the same, even if the methods are a bit different
, Oinoo thought.

Approach undetected. Observe in silence. When the time is right, prod for weakness, then retreat and assess. Repeat the cycle, using increasingly forceful prods, until you’ve determined whether your opponent is weak or strong. When you find weakness, you initiate steps to consume and absorb. If you find an opponent who is too tough to digest, you move on.

As the leader of the Zrthn force moving against Telgora, it was his responsibility to assess the situation and develop the strategy they would follow. He considered their initial prodding forays against the Shiale Alliance’s defenses. Weakness had been revealed.

It was time to take the first real bite.

Eli came to slowly. His head pounded and his body ached from the electrical pulse that he had sent into the Telgoran—and which had obviously traveled through the agsel staff and into his own body.

Stupid
.

“You okay, Jayson?” Eli opened his eyes to find Benson standing over him.

“Yeah,” he croaked. “How long have I been out?”