Different Paths (6 page)

Lt. Kristopher turned his attention to the young
federal agent. “What do you know about the Mars Incident?”

Agent Smith shrugged. “Only what I learned in
school. Some terrorists took the college students hostage and when the military
was called in, the terrorists blew up the spaceport killing themselves in the
process and releasing a toxic chemical that killed every living soul on the
base.”

Lt. Kristopher shook his head. “That is what the
media was told. That is not what happened.”

“So, what really happened?” the senior agent
asked.

“You really want to know this?”

Both feds nodded.

“Okay, part of your story Agent Smith is correct,
the starport was destroyed and everyone on the base died or should I say were
killed. However the starport wasn’t blown up by them, it was destroyed by us. I
was a young ensign assigned to Omega as a handler when we got the call.
Blasting out of Starbase Alpha we were in Mars’ orbit within forty-eight hours.
The official story was that some scientists had been developing a virus to use
against the bugs but there had been a containment breech and the entire base
was infected. Our battlecruiser the Agamemnon bombed the starport on approach
destroying the three transports docked there and killing an unknown number of
civilians. Landing our shuttles, we stepped into chaos. The civilians were
going crazy. They were attacking anything that moved. It was like a scene out
of those late twenty-first century zombie films. Omega Squadron had orders to
‘pacify’ the population.”

Special Agent Johnson found his voice first and
asked, “How…how many?”

“There were ten thousand registered students and
almost one thousand staff member plus some odd numbered visitors or workers.
Moments after we landed the three hundred members of Omega went hunting. A
small squad of regulars stayed with our ship commander, Major McDowell. I was among
them. It was a long night. I can’t tell you which was worse, the screams or the
silence that followed. At dawn, the men returned covered in gore and blood. There
wasn’t a living soul on the base. Within the hour, a UNCF HazMat team arrived
and we blasted off to another part of the war. During that terrible time, if
there was a job too messy for other units, we were sent in. Omega Squadron
never failed a single mission, not until…”

Special Agent Johnson finished the sentence in a
quiet voice. “Gilese.”

Lt. Kristopher nodded his head. “Then you know.”

Looking back and forth between the two veterans,
the young agent nearly screamed to get their attention. “What was Gilese?”

Draining his orange juice, Lt. Kristopher reached
into his desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of Kentucky bourbon. Filling his
glass, he poured a second glass for the older agent. The two war veterans
raised their glasses in a silent toast before draining their drink in one gulp.

Lt. Kristopher said in a quiet voice, “The end of
the war kid.” 

Special Agent Johnson explained, “Gilese Delta is
basically an M-Class exo-planet, nearly twice as large as Earth but with a
similar climate. It was the first planet settled by the UNCF outside our solar
system. During the war it was the home base of the Confederacy. What we didn’t
realize at the time was it was also one of the homeworlds of the bugs.”

Lt. Kristopher picked up the story.

“It was thought that a major strike at the heart
of the Confederacy would break their spirit, sort of like the atomic bombings
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII or the decision to use neutron bombs on
Baghdad and Tehran during the Arabic Wars. Following a massive bombardment from
space, the commanding General ordered all the troops to land at a single staging
point before beginning the final assault. He chose a small beachhead on
Gilese’s western coast which is surrounded on two sides by mountains with only
one pass to guard. The fool General thought he and his men were safe. At least until
the call came in that the Fleet armada was under attack by Confederate warships
and an army of bugs were heading toward the landing. The General sent Omega
Squadron to hold the pass until the regulars could be organized.”

Lt. Kristopher paused before continuing, his voice
seemed far away as if he was lost in the memories.

“There were so many bugs, you couldn’t see the
horizon. There must’ve been a million or more charging down on us. I know there
were Confederate Regulars in there somewhere but there were so many bugs that it
didn’t matter.”

Special Agent Johnson said, “Landing craft were
pulling troops out as fast as they could but it takes time to evacuate a
quarter million troops with only five operational landing pads. As far as I
know, no troops were ever sent to support Omega but if they hadn’t held the
pass the whole assault force would’ve been engulfed and destroyed.”

Agent Smith asked, “How...how long did they hold?”

“Eight hours,” replied Lt. Kristopher. “It was the
longest eight hours of my life. We were out of ammunition after the first two
hours. By then the bodies were stacked so tall and the ground yellow with bug
blood, that only ten or twelve bugs could attack us at any one time. The
Confederates had fallen back to try to snipe us during the fighting, they
weren’t very effective but they did cause some difficulties. We stood in ranks
of ten against the bugs’ onslaught, when one soldier fell; another would step
in to fill the hole. We fought them blade to mandible. No mercy asked and none
given. It was barbaric. It was medieval. It was bloody. We fought that way for
what seemed to be an eternity. Logically I know it was only a few hours but it
didn’t seem that way at the time. We fought and we died. Knowing our duty. Knowing
we would hold the pass until the last man fell.”

“How did you survive?” asked the young agent.

Lt. Kristopher shrugged his shoulders. “We
would’ve died if not for the airstrike.”

“The Yorktown executed the airstrike,” Special
Agent Johnson added. “If I remember correctly, it was to be a three stage
bombardment. We were to blanket the area with firebombs followed by a tactical
nuke to finish off those that fled and then a full spread of nukes on every
suspected Confederate stronghold and fortification.”

“How did you guys survive the airstrikes?” asked
Agent Smith.

“Luck mostly. Outside of that it was the
determination of one man, Iaido Achilles Spartan. We’d lost communications
sometime during the fight, so we didn’t know the airstrikes were inbound. By
that time, we had been pushed back into the pass about a hundred feet. We were
down to our last fifteen men and were fighting in shifts, ten on the line with
the other five resting or binding wounds. Of those that were on the line, only
Master Chief Kirk survived and he lost his legs to the firebombs…they were
burned completely off.”

“The concussion from the bombings also collapsed
the pass on those of us resting. Luckily for us they dropped the nukes further
out to catch any fleeing bugs or we wouldn’t have survived at all. As it was,
only four members of Omega Squadron survived the pass; Sgt. Major Spenton had a
punctured lung, Master Chief Kirk had no legs and I had a severe concussion,
only Iaido Spartan was fully operational. He gathered up the three of us,
dragged or carried us twenty clicks outside the blast zone where we made camp
on a small island which became our home for the next year until a survey vessel
came back to the area and rescued us.”

“You guys were stranded on that rock for a whole
year? There couldn’t have been much left alive after the blanket-nukes. How did
you survive?” asked Special Agent Johnson.

“You want to know about Spartan? He is the most
resourceful and dangerous man alive. He is a true galactic hero even though the
Coalition wouldn’t recognize him as such and he is my friend, now and until I
die. If he ever needs me, I’m there.”

Lt. Kristopher fixed the older agent with a stare.
“Now gentlemen, unless there is something else, I must get back to work. It has
been a busy day.”

“One last question. How was your reception when
you returned to Coalition controlled space?”

Lt. Kristopher pointed toward the military awards
hanging on his wall. “The Sgt. Major and I received the Medal of Honor; the
Master Chief was medically retired and transferred to Walter-Reed Hospital for
rehabilitation and received the Purple Heart and the Silver Star.”

Special Agent Johnson asked, “And Spartan?”

“He was sent to New Leavenworth on Pluto.”

“And why should you three be honored and Spartan
sent to prison?”

“Ask the General who ordered the airstrike,”
Kristopher said softly.

“And where would we find him?”

“The White House.” Lt. Kristopher signaled their
time was over by turning his back to the two agents.

Standing, Special Agent Johnson nodded his head
thoughtfully and walked out of the office with his young protégé in tow.

Chapter 6

Diana watched the Feds leave before returning to
her desk. She spent the better part of the next hour hacking into the federal
database and downloading all information on their investigation. When she
backed out, she double-checked her trail to make sure there was nothing leading
back to Spartan Investigations. There wasn’t any nor was there any indication
that she had been inside their database.

Clicking a button that securely locked down the
office, Diana moved deeper into the sanctuary guessing that Iaido would be in
the dojo. She was right.

He was busy pounding on the heavy bag. Twisting
his upper body slightly, Iaido pivoted his front foot which acted as his base
while simultaneously twisting his hips shooting his rear leg at the target.
Shaping his foot, with the toes pulled back so he was striking with the ball of
the foot, Iaido concentrated all the speed of the kick and the mass of his body
into a two-square inch area. All this took less than a second to happen, the
resounding thud on the heavy bag echoed in the dojo. Even though his back was
to the door Iaido asked without pausing in his workout.

“What did you find?”

Thud. “Not much.” Thump. “Crime scene pics.”
Whack. “DNA samples taken at the scene.” Thump, whack. Finally Diana asked,
“Can you pause for a second?”

Setting his foot down, Iaido’s body radiated heat
while sweat was pouring down his face.

“Better?”

“Yes, it wasn’t just a murder. It was a
murder-suicide. His wife stabbed him before turning the knife on herself.”

“Amy murdered him then killed herself?”

“Crime scene pics and tests prove so. Besides,
only her DNA and prints are on the murder weapon.”

Iaido grabbed a towel from a nearby rack.
“Anything else of note?”

“Just one, an old fashion business card in the
form of a tarot card was found in the Sgt. Major’s pocket.”

“A what?”

“A tarot card; the Wheel of Fortunes unless I am
mistaken.”

“What’s a tarot card?”

“In ancient Europe, tarot cards were once widely
used by gypsies for divining the future. Their practice and usage declined with
the centuries until in the late nineteenth century, tarot cards were considered
a gimmick items with no real power of divination.” Handing a printout of the
business card to her lover she continued. “However with the mystical influence
of the Sylvan Empire, over the last decade their popularity has grown.”

Iaido nodded his head while he studied the
printout. “And this?”

“This was in the Feds’ files. It’s a copy of the
business card of a fortune teller down in Five Points who goes by the name of
Talia Stargleam. On the back of the card is a handwritten note that just says,
‘Any Leads?”

“Interesting. Anything in their files on this
Talia character?”

“Not much, it seems that Talia Stargleam is a
Sylvan diplomat just recently arrived from Alpha Centuri. I am working on
getting a copy of her visa but the only thing else they have are her basic
stats; five foot nine inches tall, long silver hair, fair complexion,
articulate and helpful. There is a hand written scribble that must be from the
young Agent Smith that says…Hot Babe.”

 “Yes, that does seem like a remark our young Fed
would include in his report.” Still wiping off his sweat, Iaido asked, “Why
would a Sylvan diplomat work as a fortune teller?”

“I wondered that myself, so I did some research.
It seems that all Sylvan Embassies are set up as a fortune teller’s store.
According to their legends, the gypsies of ancient Europe are the only
descendants of the Sylvans from the time before their Exodus.” Diana said, “Now
that many Sylvans have returned, many of the old ways are reappearing.”

“Exodus?”

“According to Madam Aleksandra’s blog, Sylvans
once inhabited Earth but left prior to the first Ice Age. She is quoted as
saying that ‘Terrans have forgotten their roots; a tree cannot flourish without
roots, it will wither and die, only by returning to the past will the future be
secure.”

“That’s rather vague, don’t you think? Who is this
Madam Aleksandra?”

“According to the federal database, she is the
head of the Sylvan Consulate” said Diana. “And if you want to talk with this
Talia character you will have to deal with her first.”

Iaido nodded and moved toward the shower, “I think
I’ll pay Madam Aleksandra a visit.”

“I’ll keep checking through the Feds’ files. Maybe
when the autopsy reports are filed they will show something enlightening but
I’m not holding out too much hope.”

“Neither do I but as they say; hope springs
eternal.”

Walking out of the room, Diana muttered under her
breath. “Spoken like the optimist you aren’t.”

A short time later, Iaido ventured back into the
busy streets of New Atlanta. Dressed in civilian attire; which for Iaido was cargo
pants, shirt and a synthetic leather trenchcoat overtop, all in black. The
loose fitting clothes and dark colors effectively hid the numerous weapons he
carried and armor plates covering his vital areas. Moving effortlessly through the
crowd, he stepped off the moving sidewalk and into the past; or at least it
seemed that way.