THE PRIZE: BOOK TWO - RETRIBUTION (19 page)

“I for one am glad you are not our enemy.”

“It’s good to have one friend at least. The more the enemy fears us the easier it will be to destroy him.”

Regina Tarl pondered Richard’s words as they flew back to the palace …The more the enemy fears us… ringing in her ears. Your friends will probably fear you just as much, was her thought. The trip back to the palace was mostly silent as Regina contemplated Penn’s words, and despite the similarity in looks, they were so far apart in philosophy that it scared her, not that she was willing to admit it. Did her Queen make a devil’s bargain with these mad beings? She hoped not. Silurian troops were brave, dedicated, and up till now, she’d thought them fearless, yet even from what little she’d seen of humans so far, they were like happy little puppies playing beside a dire wolf from the high county. She just hoped the dire wolf wouldn’t decide to turn on the puppies, for if they did, the poor puppies wouldn’t stand a chance. Yet, in truth, she couldn’t fault Penn, or the rest of the Human Race for their madness, considering what had happened to their planet. Later the next day, she broached the subject with her Queen in private, thankful she was the Queen’s favorite cousin, otherwise she might not have listened.

“Do you fear they may turn on us, Regina?” The Queen asked, looking pensive.

“No, my Queen, at least not while Sir Penn is alive. It’s the future that concerns me.”

“I see. So what do you propose?”

“That we learn as much from the humans as possible against the eventuality they will turn on us.” The Queen nodded.

“Good, sound advice, but I think there is a better path.” Regina bowed slightly. “That we make them our brothers and sisters, stand with them, fight with them, and if necessary die with them. A blood bond is very strong and can stand the test of time.”

“I’m not sure I understand, my Queen.”

“As you’ve said, I haven’t had a male in my bed for some time now. Maybe I should remedy that.” She smiled, seeing Regina blush.

“But… but…” She stuttered.

“It might just be that Humans and Silurians will be bonded together by something stronger,” she smiled again, “at least that’s what my scientists tell me.”

“You mean…” Regina swallowed and blinked, not sure what to say. Sex wasn’t something Silurians talked about openly, yet what the Queen was suggesting was outrageous, even if it did provide a long-term solution to Human and Silurian relations.

“I think I’ll arrange a discrete, private dinner with Sir Penn this evening, and who knows where that might lead.” She chuckled.

A week later, after the large transport arrived, Penn prepared to say his goodbyes and rounded up his wayward troops before sending a mental message up to the ship in orbit, still undetected by the Silurian high guard around the planet. Regina refrained from remarking on the happy smile on her Queen’s face every day for a week, and shut off Rem before he could put his foot in his mouth. Her Queen was right; Rem was a little dense sometimes. She did appreciate how the human troops marched out to the shuttle in formation wearing their new uniforms, looking proud and cocky. As protocol demanded, the Queen and Richard observed all the niceties with Richard bowing to the Queen and shaking hands.

She did observe that they did hold hands a little longer than was required, but if her Queen was sad, nothing showed in public. However, there was no way to hide the fact several months later when it became obvious that their Queen was pregnant, much to the joy and speculation by the people as to who the father was. That became clear a year later when the Queen gave birth to a rather large bouncing baby boy with startling yellow eyes and the classic Silurian Mohawk hair.

Chapter Eleven

Hide and Go Seek

After towing the transport back to Earth, as promised, with Michael’s help, Penn loaded the transport with thousands of tons of Cg material and shipped it back to the Silurian home world with several hundred ship yard workers, scientists, ex-submariners, along with their families to start work on converting Silurian warships for human use. Even with their help, it would still take a year or so to have them ready for war. By then he hoped to have sufficient fleet personnel to crew them. With a lot of old ex-submariners and naval personnel from around the world, it was a matter of rounding them up and putting them through the pyramid training simulators, no easy task until he’d had a working translator chip made. With the offer of giving them back their youth, and a chance for payback against the Empire. It gave them the incentive to learn about fighting ships in space instead of under water, although many said there wasn’t a lot of difference, but even so, it was a grueling twelve months, and not all of them succeeded in passing the mock combat drills they thought were real. Those that ‘died’ were given a second chance if they wanted it to serve in some other capacity, as like any military organization, it also needed its support personnel. On a hunch, Richard sent a copy of ‘The Art of War’ to Tarl Regina along with the shipment of Cg. Hopefully, it would give her insight into a different military doctrine. Everything was going well, and one by one, Penn ticked off the items from his ‘to-do’ list, not even daring to look at the multitude of additional items. They were all forgotten the moment Michael informed him that Ellis had vanished from his sensor grid.

“What do you mean she vanished?” If he hadn’t known better he would have sworn that Michael hesitated, which for a super AI should have been impossible.

“Colonel Ellis was there one moment and gone the next.”
Was all he could say.

“Michael, where is she?” Penn demanded, fear sweat prickling his forehead.

“I cannot say, Richard.”

“Can’t or won’t?” The entity called Michael remained silent. For a moment, Penn wanted to rile against it, swearing and cursing, but he knew Michael could out stubborn a Sphinx. Its programming prevented it from giving humans any technology or information they couldn’t produce themselves. If they didn’t know where Ellis was with their technology, nothing he could say would get Michael to reveal her whereabouts. He’d have to find her himself.

* * * * * *

Penn sat behind the equipment operator gently pulling his left earlobe, watching the spider bot download with interest, and wondered what he was looking at. To all intents, it showed an average garden setting, complete with a swimming pool in the foreground with loungers scattered around the periphery. Beyond that, between the ornate shrubbery, field stone steps leading up to glass patio doors set into imposingly thick concrete and field stone walls. Of interest were the massive blast doors folded back against the walls on either side, suggesting that this was no ordinary building.

“So, what am I looking at here?” Penn turned his head and looked at the heavyset man sitting beside him.

“This is one or two um… I’m not sure what to call them—redoubts, bunkers, fortresses, you pick, that we’ve found so far. What we do know is that this is only the tip of the iceberg. The main complex is way underground, under several hundred feet of rock and reinforced concrete.” General Marks replied as he pursed his lips between his thumb and forefinger.

“This is several miles outside of what was once Washington DC. The other we know about is in the Cheviot Hills in the north of England, about 4 miles from the Scottish border. The one outside Washington was where Colonel Ellis vanished.”

“How reliable is this information?”

“Oh, it’s as reliable as you as you can get, now that we have that old imperial ground penetrating radar sat in orbit working again.”

Penn continued watching, more out of politeness rather than interest. Finding Ellis was his chief concern. This was the only logical place she could be, seeing how near she’d been when she disappeared. The tech fast forwarded the video, passing from day to night and back again to day. At nightfall, the massive blast doors closed and sealed, and dimly seen guards patrolled the area. To Penn, there was something very familiar in the way they walked, but for the moment, he couldn’t put his finger on what that was. At about 9:00 am or so, from the angle of the sun, the blast doors moved out and sideways before folding back against the walls on either side. Again, the technician fast forwarded the video, slower this time until people started emerging from the building. From what he could see when they took off their robes, both the men, and the women, were dressed in some type of swimwear or nothing at all. Some moved to the patio tables while others took command of the loungers around the pool and started sunning themselves. All remarkably normal, and ordinary, until the servants arrived with food and drink. General Marks glanced sideways, seeing Penn clench his fists as the servants knelt and offered up their trays. These weren’t servants, they were slaves, human slaves, and the one thing in this and any other world he loathed above all others.

“If for no other reason, Clayborn, we need to put this place out of business.”

“You won’t get an argument out of me. But I think you’ll find the next part a little more interesting.” Penn shot him a sharp look before returning his gaze back to the monitor.

“SHIT!” Penn exploded out of his chair. What the fuck are the Thrakee doing here, realizing why the night guards walking mannerisms had looked so familiar.

“Is that what they are? I was wondering, but as you will see, it gets better.”

The patio doors opened and five Thrakee warriors emerged, one of which was a cohort leader by the ornate style of his cross-chest webbing. They took up positions on each side of the door, but it wasn’t until the leader gave some sort of signal that the doors opened again. This time four, yellow skinned Esterians exited, having to duck their heads to pass through the seven-foot doorway.

“Judas priest! Esterians as well? What the fuck is going on here?” Penn was more surprised than angered, but ever since that day at Emperor Cytec’s birthday party he’d suspected that some human politicians were in bed with the Empire. But why were they here? The Esterians should have left at the same time as the rest of the imperial troops and admin personnel as ordered by Director Markoff. Unless the scumbag politicians figured out a way to make a separate deal with the Esterians, but that didn’t explain the Thrakee.

“Esterians? Is that what those yellow skinned beasts are?”

“Yes, mean suckers as well. Don’t go up against them unless you’re carrying something heavy, like a fifty caliber mini-gun.”

“From that I take it you’ve run into them before.”

“Yes, we danced, they lost. I can see why you thought this might interest me, Clay.”

“Oh, but that’s not the best part.” Saying that he tapped the technician on the shoulder and the video started running again. If Clayborn Marks expected Penn to explode in anger as a tall woman stepped out behind the Esterian guards, he was mistaken. Penn didn’t move a muscle.

“Zoom in on her face.” Was all he said. He didn’t need to identify whose face he was referring to. The camera zoomed in, and even though the image was poor at that distance, Penn still recognized his wife.

“At least we’ve found her.”

“Yes. All I have to do now is go and get her.”

“You mean send a combat team to get her.”

“No, I mean, I’m going to get her.”

“Penn. You are the leader now, and you can’t go gallivanting all over hell and creation when you feel like it.” General Marks snapped. Penn chopped off his words with a cutting motion of his hand.

“I’m not the leader as you put it. We have a council now, and it’s their job to run things.”

“Penn! That’s not how it works. You are the glue that’s holding all this together. If you get killed…”

“Clay, as much as you think otherwise, I am dispensable. The council will find someone else to fill my seat if that happens.”

“For the love of Christ. That’s not how it works! Haven’t you realized that yet? As a leader, it’s your job to lead.” Penn swung round, anger pulling his face into a terrible mask.

“Wrong. I’m not going to send people to die in my name for something I have to do. Those days are over. No government has the right, now, or even in the past to make thousands of young men go out and kill thousands of other young men because they couldn’t be bothered to find another solution.

“Sometimes there is no other solution.” Clayborn sighed.

“I don’t agree. They knew what Hitler… and Stalin were, and one bullet at the right time would have stopped the death of millions. All it took was for some government to grow a set of balls and go do it.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“Clay. It is. Director Markoff had me do that on many occasions so that the takeover of some world could proceed almost without firing a shot.” Clayborn Marks blinked. That was something he hadn’t known.

He thought about it for a moment, and had to agree. If certain governments had assassinated any number of world leaders, it would have stopped half the modern wars. Politically sanctioned elimination of world leaders never did sit well with politicians. It brought home the specter of some other government doing the same to them. But still, wouldn’t that be better than sending millions of young men and women to their deaths, not to mention civilian deaths, and the destruction of the cities, industries and the infrastructure?

“Where do you lead from Clay?” Penn asked in a soft voice.

“From the front, of course.”

“Need I say more?” Clayborn knew it was a losing argument. Penn was going to go no matter what he said.

“How many troops will you take with you?” He asked at length.

“Enough to make a penetration. After that, I’ll go in by myself and do what has to be done.” Clayborn had some idea what that meant. He doubted there would be many people alive in that redoubt once Penn got inside.

Not that he felt any great sympathy for the men and women inside. From the evidence, these people had scuttled into their underground bunker and waited out the destruction of Earth and the deaths of three billion souls in complete safety. Finding out they were also dealing with the Empire behind everyone’s back while the remaining population suffered unspeakable horrors was sufficient to issue a death warrant on them all. Who they were before didn’t matter now. For all he knew, they could be the last remaining members of the United States Government, or one of them could even be the last President of the United States. Any moral, or legal authority the government had had when they entered the bunker, ended with the invasion, and the death of so many.