Warrior Chronicles 3: Warrior's Realm (22 page)

It seemed like hours, but was really only seconds before the power suit started feeding her information, which she in turn fed to Kimberly and JJ via their flexpads. Then she ordered the man’s suit to open its cracked battle visor, leaving only a clear lens between Cort’s head and those who watched her work. The trauma was horrific. His face was bruised and broken, the skin pushing against his long scar as if the great wound was a belt, keeping the side of his face from expanding like a balloon. Both eyes were swollen shut, and his nose was pointing sideways at the stressed skin of his scar. The opposite ear was almost facing forward.

The medics from the
Mare’s Leg
arrived and transferred the General’s power source from the female Marine to one of their own. They began removing the crushed and broken CONDOR, being careful not to disturb the FALCON underneath, and once they switched his Atlas interface from one suit to the other, they powered up the inner suit. Then they made the necessary medical connections and ordered the suit to go rigid, so they could carry him to the shuttle for transport back to the ship. As Cort disappeared with Kimberly and wolves, Lex spoke, both to the Marines arrayed around him, and to every human on the planet via the comm system.

“Okay people, you have seen what the suits can withstand now. We are not leaving without absolute proof that every one of our people have met their gods. I will not leave a soul here. Do you understand?”

“Oorah!”
echoed across the base.

Solitude

Cort was sitting up in his bed when Lex arrived from the academy. The general had awoken the day before, but unlike on Mars, with Kimberly here to make sure he didn’t push himself, he hadn’t seen a single person other than Kimberly and the medical staff since regaining consciousness. He was still very hard on the eyes, but the mending process had begun.

Both legs and one arm were immobilized, and there was a negative pressure apparatus over his torso, holding his internal organs in place while his ribs and connective tissue were mended by the biosynthetics. The unrestrained right arm was intubated, with synthetic-fortified nutrition being fed directly into his bloodstream, and from the other end of his body, another tube was removing the waste from his body in a near constant flow.

Even without the scar, Lex would have been able to recognize the family legend, but just barely. Cort’s face was still swollen to nearly double its normal size, the whites of his blinded eyes were blood-reddened, and his hair was missing in several places, where various medical probes and monitors were attached to his head.

“You have five minutes, Lex. Not one more second," Kimberly admonished the young man. “He can’t see you, and he can only hear from his left ear. And if he gets too excited, you have to go. Am I clear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Kimberly herself was also in a medbed. As the medics were transferring Cort from the
Mare’s Leg
shuttle to its medical bay, her water broke. An emergency cesarean meant that Cort had
technically
made good on his promise to be there when the baby was born.

“Lex…,” Cort began hoarsely.

“Yes, sir?”

“Before you leave, move her bed to the right side of mine, okay?”

It took Lex a few seconds to realize that meant Kimberly would be on Cort’s ‘deaf’ side, and he laughed. “No, sir. That is a battle you have to fight on your own.”

“Traitor.”

Kimberly said, “You are wasting your five minutes.”

“Yes, ma’am. General, team three was rescued without incident. They had lost comms due to a tech issue.”

Lex had spent enough time with, and studying Cort, that he was able to anticipate many of the general’s questions, so he decided to answer them up front, in order to save Cort from the additional strain.

“System 322 was a military base. They were prepping there for an invasion of Government World. That’s why the resistance was so strong. Our first team was captured before they could even map the compound. From the
Taurus
logs, we have determined that an unknown member of the first team overloaded his FALCON in an underground bunker. That was just before you and Bravo team overloaded the fallen CONDORs. You ended up in a ditch underneath a large piece of the wall and a few hundred corpses. That saved your life, sir.”

“How so, Lex?” Kimberly asked.

“When Captain Sorano ordered
Alamo
, most of the explosion blew over the General instead of
through
him. He still caught part of the shockwave, though. The
Taurus
had lost its comm systems because the base was protected by gravity generators at several of the system’s Lagrange points. They were there to disrupt our transition and communication systems. Platt had ordered the ship into atmosphere to rescue what was left of our people, but Sorano had already entered the detonation code. The ship was lost.”

Cort spoke softly, saying, “Did anyone else survive?”

“No, sir. Corporal Wong was alive when we found him, but died on the way back here.”

“What about the planet?”

“Admiral Jones ordered it wiped clean. We took off samples of their weapons and tech, then the coach guns left nothing but dust. From start to finish, it was a cluste…,” Lex glanced at Kim. “er, Charlie Foxtrot, sir.”

“What about the Cuplans?” Cort asked.

“Per the original plan, we have not made any attempt to contact them. We do know they are scrambling to figure out what to do. One planet’s primary had kept an extra queen for personal reasons, but I sent a team out to neutralize the two of them, which means we now have their only means of assertion. We need to act soon though, sir. They will find a new command structure if we don’t.”

“Bring me H’uum and Heroc.”

Lex looked nervously at Kim, who shook her head. “Is that wise, sir? You aren’t exactly ready to receive visitors.”

“I wasn’t asking, Lex. That’s an order.” Even at a hoarse whisper, Cort’s voice carried its usual tone of finality. Fortunately for Lex, Kim came to his rescue.

“No. You get five minutes a day to be a leader. The rest of your time is going to spent on recovery and being a dad. I will lock the doors before I give you more than that, Cortland.”

“We have to install H’uum as their Supreme, Kimberly. If we don’t, this war will last a lot longer. Give me some extra time tomorrow. I’ll give my orders and turn things over to JJ and Lex for a while.”

“Promise me you will step down for a while,” Kim demanded.

“If you give me one hour tomorrow, I will take one full week off afterwards. I won’t even use my comm system. After that, no more than two hours a day until the docs release me. Is that good enough?”

Kim looked at Lex and said, “You get one hour tomorrow. After that, I want his comm taken offline for a full week, Lex. Everything goes through me. Are we on the same page?”

“Yes ma’am. We are clear.”

Cort said, “I want H’uum and Heroc here with Admiral Jones at 0900. The H’uumans, the
other
H’uumans, are to be given full military respects and treated as dignitaries. If the meeting goes well, offer them our temporary retreat on the isthmus
to watch the migrations.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Lex, I mean it. If a single Marine shows even the slightest disrespect to anyone in their party, he or she will answer to me. So be careful who you assign to their details.”

“I will, sir.”

Kim said, “Now get out before I change my mind about all this.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Lex stepped over to Kim’s side of the room and reached down to the baby’s tiny hand. As it squeezed his finger, he said, “You two made a good looking kid, sir.”

“Thanks, Lex. I can’t wait to see him.”

“Just a few more days, baby, and you can hold him.”

Bergh Station

Lex made good on his word. When H’uum and Heroc arrived on Solitude, they were treated like the heads of state they were. The only thing missing was Cort. Kimberly and the baby met them, with Lex representing the Marines, Admiral Jones there for the Navy, and Dar Sike representing the Federation as a whole.

After greetings and formalities were completed, the two visitors were taken to Cort. He said, “I am sorry I cannot stand to greet you properly, Planetary Supreme H’uum. Our last battle with the Cuplans was more intense than was expected.”

“Am I to understand we have found a way to resist you, then, General?”

“No, H’uum. We just stumbled upon a Cuplan invasion force. Let’s back up though. Has Heroc told you of our plan?”

“Yes. Queen Heroc says it is your intention to capture all of our queens and to install me as the Empire Supreme.”

“Not exactly, H’uum,” Cort said. “You are already the Empire Supreme. Your planet is the only planet in your empire, but you are the Supreme, nonetheless.”

“That will change the moment any primary asserts throughout the Cuplan Empire, General.”

“We have all of the Cuplan queens as well.” Cort turned a display around to show H’uum images of the colony ships in orbit around and then the queens on those ships.

“You probably don’t recognize the planet, but it is the one I have ceded to you.” Cort chose his words very carefully as he spoke to H’uum. The insectoid had to be confident that he wasn’t a puppet to the Ares Federation. “You may have the captured queens for your empire, H’uum, but you must sign the treaties we require of you.”

“As I have made clear before, General Addison, I do not have the authority to enter into a treaty on behalf of the Cuplans.”

“You don’t understand, H’uum. The Cuplans no longer exist. There are fewer than a thousand Cuplan planets remaining, Many of them are young in their development and have less than a million inhabitants. Only thirteen of the remaining worlds are from the original, pre-expansion, empire. All told, there are twenty-three billion former Cuplans still alive. None of them are primaries or queens. Not a single one, H’uum.”

The tall insect turned to Heroc and looked at her quizzically. “My Queen, do you know if this is true? Are there so few of our people left?”

Still unable to see, Cort turned his head to what he thought was the sound of Heroc’s voice as she said, “They were Cupla’s people. Our people are on our planet, Supreme H’uum.” In reality, Cort’s face was turned toward a blank wall.

“I understand, my Queen.”

The humans didn’t understand what had just transpired, but H’uum did. He turned back to Cort and said, “I accept the queens, General. What of the remaining Cuplans?”

“Do you want them for your empire, H’uum?”

“I cannot support so many. According to our estimates, the planet is capable of supporting eleven billion, uh, H’uumans.”

Cort said, “Yes, we are taken aback by the irony of your people’s name as well, H’uum.”

“I cannot take so many people. A billion perhaps. Maybe even two if you were to offer material support to us, General. But I cannot take in over twenty billion more. Will you cede us another planet?”

“I’m sorry, H’uum. Until you prove that you are no longer a threat to the Collaborative, I can’t allow that. You, of all your people, being on Government World for so long, know that other species have held lotteries to decide who will live and who will die. The Cuplans will have to do the same.”

“I see.”

“We have records from Cupla Prime. I would suggest you go through them and select specialists and other people who can help you build your new society. The remaining slots you should fill by lottery, and make sure you take a higher ratio of the young. I’m not ordering you to do so, H’uum. I am just suggesting it.”