Different Paths (31 page)

Calmly, Xerxes moved back to the middle of the
room and waited. The bulky Praetorian struggled for a moment to stand up before
getting the hang of it. Once more Brutus rushed the large mantis but this time
he managed to wrap his arms around the lower torso of Xerxes before the mantis
was able to throw him again. Brutus cheered and began to squeeze with all his
might, which was greatly enhanced by the powered battle armor.

Xerxes paused for a moment. Using his four limbs,
the large mantis began to twist and tug on the helmet of the Praetorian’s
battle armor. Everyone gathered could see the strain the two titans were
exerting. This was the age old battle of an immovable object confronted by and
irresistible force. It was just a matter of time before one or the other gave
way to the pressure.

Suddenly, there was a loud snap and the armored
form of Brutus went limp. As Xerxes unceremoniously dumped the corpse on the
ground and moved back to stand behind Talia, Iaido could see that the
Praetorian’s helmet was facing behind him in a most unnatural position.

The Major looked around wildly and quickly
realized that all his dreams were about to fade into nothing. Seeing the
companions begin to close on his position, he pulled out a remote detonator and
squeezed on the trigger. He grinned slightly when the light switched from red
to green.

“Hold it right there Achilles. This is a dead
man’s switch, I release this trigger and we all get blown up. This whole
compound is wired with enough plasma bombs to vaporize the whole dome.”

“It doesn’t have to end this way old man.”

“I won’t be taken back. And if you kill me, you’ll
die here as well. Either way, you won’t be able to stop the coming cataclysm.
Events have been set in motion that no one can stop. By this time tomorrow, New
Atlanta will tear itself apart and the General will be to blame. I have seen to
that.”

Iaido waved his companions back but continued to
move toward his former commander very slowly. “I am not concerned with the
General; my only concern is the girl. Where is Eve?”

“The Sgt. Major’s daughter? She isn’t here.”

“I realize that, but where is she? She might not
be important to you but she is to me.”

It was at this point when the Major realized that
the bounty hunter was nearly within arm’s reach. Taking a quick step back he
yelled, “Freeze! Don’t come any closer or I swear I’ll drop the hammer!”

Iaido stopped but didn’t lower his hands. They
were up in a seemingly defensive manner but in reality they were near to the
hilts of the twin katanas strapped to his back.

Keeping his voice calm, Iaido said, “Come on ol’
man, you don’t want to detonate that bomb any more than we want you to.”

The Major’s voice cracked a bit as he answered.
“You’re right. I don’t want to die but I will have my revenge on the General
and everyone else be damned.”

Iaido continued to move forward ever-so-slowly,
only about an inch or two at a time but he was closing the gap. The Major’s
back was to a wall so he couldn’t retreat any further and since he was still
talking, Iaido took advantage of the situation.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen like this, only
the General and his cabinet were supposed to die.”

Iaido said, “The best laid plans of mice and men
often go astray.”

The Major cocked his head to the side and asked,
“What was that?”

Talia answered from across the room. “It’s a
famous quote from John Steinbeck’s
‘Of Mice and Men.’
It is widely
considered to be one of the greatest works of Terran literature of the early
twentieth century.”

When the Major turned his head to look at the
Sylvan, Iaido acted.

Acting within his namesake, Iaido made a lightning
fast draw and slice with the ancient Blade of the Elements. The sword blazed
through the air in a silver arc to sever the Major’s hand at the wrist. The
amputated body part with the fingers still tight on the dead man’s switch
tumbled towards the ground. With his free hand, Iaido reached out and snagged
the remote detonator. Keeping pressure on the trigger, he pointed the bloody
sword at his former commander.

“Game over ol’ man.”

Once the Major quit screaming, he held his bloody
stump to his chest and asked, “There isn’t any way you are going to let me go
free is there?”

Iaido shook his head. “No sir, there are numerous
warrants for your arrest. As a duly sworn Galactic Bounty Hunter, I am duty
bound to take you back. You have to pay for your crimes.”

Even though his face was flush with pain and blood
still poured from his wound, the major pulled out his old but reliable Graver
Mk3 service blaster with his one good hand and placed it under his chin. “I
told you, I’m not going back alive.”

“Wait!” Iaido rushed forward knowing the whole
time that he would be too late.

With a slight smile, the Major applied a little pressure
on the blaster’s trigger and the resulting discharge of plasma tore through his
chin and out the back of his skull. Iaido stared at the nearly headless corpse
with mixed emotions. On one hand, he was saddened that another member of Omega
had died, yet he was also glad that justice had finally been served.

Looking up at his friends, Iaido held out the dead
man’s switch with the severed hand still attached. “DJ, take this and figure
out a way to defuse this detonator. Xerxes get this body on board the Nemesis
and get ready for lift-off. Talia, you’re with me.”

“Where are we going?”

“We need to search the Major’s office for anything
that might lead us to Eve.” Iaido glanced at his chronometer. “Everyone get
busy, we blast off in twenty minutes.”

All three companions nodded and rushed off to
accomplish their assigned tasks. Talia fell in behind the armored Myrmidon but
paused when they entered the Major’s office and she saw the corpse of the
fallen Praetorian. “What are we looking for?”

Both shoulder flaps on Iaido’s ARC suit popped
open and closed. “I’m not sure.”

He calmly stepped over the body and began
searching the desk. “There has to be some sort of record of his holdings, maps,
blueprints…something. But don’t take too long. Anything that looks promising
just set it aside and we’ll examine it more fully in flight.”

Iaido set a leather bound book on the corner of
the desk, followed by a folder of legal documents. With a shrug, Talia joined
in the search.

After ten minutes, they had accumulated seven
books, three data crystals, two folders of loose paper and one leather-bound
journal. Iaido added the two fallen gladii to the pile before gathering them up
and making their way back to the Nemesis.

Chapter 26

Iaido glanced around at his friends, old and new.
“Okay, what have we found?”

Athena pointed at the vid-screen as a chart of
names and locations filled the screen. “It seems that the Major has inserted
his Praetorians into all levels of the Galactic Marshals, mostly field agents
but we have found at least three Praetorians in upper management.”

“Do we know how many Praetorians there are?” asked
Talia.

Iaido nodded. “According to the Major’s files and
from what Cassius told me, there are two-hundred and twenty-two of them. Nearly
two third of them are involved in the Galactic Marshals but worse than that the
Major has been able to infiltrate at least twenty Praetorians into the UNCF.”

Jay looked up from his notes. “Is it really that
big a problem? I mean, the Praetorians are just the latest version of the super
soldier program; being a Praetorian shouldn’t be any different than Iaido being
a Myrmidon.”

“Good point and as much as I would like to embrace
these Praetorians as long lost cousins, I fear their programming might’ve been
a bit biased considering the Major’s personal views.” Moving over to the
screen, Iaido took a long look at the list. “As much as I would like to believe
them to be innocent, I cannot believe that the Major took the time to place
them in these positions for no reason.”

Jay made several notes in his PDA. “Valid point, I
hadn’t considered that aspect.” He turned back to Athena. “What else did you
find? The Major threatened to destroy New Atlanta, any hints as to how?”

Athena again pointed at the vid-screen as the
image switched to a satellite view of New Atlanta; several spots were
highlighted with a yellow dot and each dot was surrounded by a much larger red
circle. “The yellow dots are the locations mentioned in the files and could be
possible locations of bombs. The red circles depict the area of total
devastation should that bomb detonate. This is of course hypothesizing that the
bombs are similar to the one Eve was sitting on top of in the message.”

Iaido studied the locations; the UN building, the
spaceport, two shopping centers and other buildings scattered throughout the
city. “Even if the Major has been able to place bombs at all these locations,
they wouldn’t do enough damage to tear New Atlanta apart, they just aren’t powerful
enough.”

“Oh My God!” Jay yelled. “That’s it! Pax, bring up
the vid of Talia and the bomb.”

The screen darkened for a moment before the image
of Eve, bound and gagged, sitting on top of the bomb surrounded by barrels
filled the screen.

Moving to the screen, Jay pointed at the barrels.
“We have been fixated on the wrong part. We have been worried about the bomb,
when we should be wondering what’s inside these barrels.”

“Huh?” DJ said, “They’re barrels, big deal. The
bomb is the thing that goes boom. Of course, that’s what we should be worried
about.”

“Iaido is right,” Jay said. “Even if there are
multiple bombs, they aren’t powerful enough to do a lot of damage on their own,
even if they were all set off in unison. Something would have to make them more
powerful.” The retired Master Chief pointed at the barrels. “There are hundreds
of chemicals that could be in those barrels that could multiply the explosions
tenfold or more.”

“I think it’s worse than that,” Iaido said in a
low voice.

“What is?”

“Something has been bothering me. Why would the
Major return to Mars? He’s on the Coalition’s top ten Most Wanted list. So, why
would he return here? There can be only one answer…the virus.”

DJ set down his beer. “You aren’t talking about
the virus that destroyed the Mars colony are you?”

“Yes. Even now, ten years later, the colony is
still a quarantine zone. I bet he has been using his Praetorians to search
through the ruins of the colony for samples of the virus. Once he had them,
given the Major’s background in biology, he duplicated the virus and shipped it
in small quantities to Earth using his Galactic Marshal Praetorians.”

“That would make sense,” Jay said. “Galactic
Marshals don’t have to go through customs or any sort of inspections. And if he
has enough of the virus to fill those barrels, then an explosion would spread
the virus all across New Atlanta and given the winds of the region, it could
spread across the entire eastern seaboard in a matter of days.”

Iaido nodded. “The Major’s hatred has outweighed
everything…logic, reason, emotion and patriotism. He is, I mean was, determined
to have his revenge on the President and the Council for branding him a
traitor.

“We have to stop them,” Talia said.

“Don’t worry, we will.”

*   *   *   *   *

Blasting off from Mars, the companions could see
the Romulus still battling the remnants of the JDL fighter squadron. Even as
they watched, two Raptors exploded under a hail storm of turbolasers but not
before they blew a hole into the side of the battlecruiser.

Athena said, “Captain, we are receiving a may-day
from the Romulus. Their reactor core is going critical and their captain has
ordered all hands to abandon ship. Should we pull to and render aid?”

Iaido shook his head and continued to study the
star charts. “Negative.”

Talia placed her hands on her hips and stared hard
at the bounty hunter. “But interstellar law states that every available ship
must render aid to any vessel in distress.”

“They are not our concern.”

“But they are dying,” Talia insisted.

Looking up from his charts, Iaido’s voice was cold
and void of any emotions. “Better them than us.” Seeing Talia about to explode,
he held up his hand to forestall any objections. “We have larger problems.”

“Such as?”

“Pax, at max burn how long will it take us to reach
New Atlanta?”

“I calculate our arrival in Earth standard orbit
to be at sixteen-hundred hours eastern standard time. That is with a margin of
error of three minutes, plus or minus,” Athena stated. “Of course, that is not
taking into consideration the planetary defense systems, customs or other
shipping traffic that might be a factor. That is purely optimal flight time at
max burn of one point nine light speed.”

“But that’s four hours past the deadline,” DJ
said. “How can we make it to New Atlanta in time?”

“Simple,” Iaido said. “We are going to do a
mini-jump through hyperspace.”

DJ shook his head. “But interplanetary jumps past
Jupiter are impossible due to gravitational forces of the inner planets.”

Iaido raised an eyebrow. “Jay, you want to answer
this one?”

Guiding his chair forward, Jay picked up the
conversation. “Interplanetary jumps are not impossible, just highly dangerous.
The first major problem is reliable data. If any navigational data is
incorrect, the odds that you would travel too close to a planet and be pulled
into their gravity well are too high to chance unless an absolute emergency.”

Pax said, “The odds are eight-hundred and
twenty-three to one against a successful interplanetary jump.”

“Will our calculations be off Pax?” Iaido asked.

“No captain. They will not be.”