Extinction: The Will of the Protectors Read online

  Daria just about melted to the floor. She was a combat-hardened badass but still a woman, and women tended to melt a bit when their husbands talked about having babies. “What if it doesn’t resolve? We could be at war for years. Decades even.”

  “True,” Mike said. “I guess maybe we should say that when it seems apparent that we have some idea of where this thing is headed, we should talk about it then. I’m okay with us having a kid while we’re at war. It’s nothing new to humans, or any other species for that matter. But are you?”

  “What? Because I’m a woman, you think I can’t handle having a kid while being in the military?”

  “No honey, because you’re a woman, you have to carry our baby. Will you be okay with staying on the sidelines for at least a year, maybe even two? Not to mention that I won’t even consider having a kid unless we have a failsafe in place.”

  “Failsafe?” They had never really talked in-depth about having a kid before, so she had no idea what Mike was talking about.

  “Yes. If one of us dies, either one of us, the other has to promise to resign from the military and raise our child. Losing one parent would be bad enough, but we can’t make our kid a complete orphan.”

  Daria hadn’t ever thought about it like that before. “There’s nothing to discuss, Mike. I totally agree with you. We can’t have Bloom and his crazy robot raising our kid.”

  “Agreed.” Mike smiled. He was pretty sure that he was going to be a father within the next few years and that made him happier than he thought it would have. “Speaking of Bloom and Jeeves, I haven’t seen them around. It kind of makes me nervous.”

  “They’ve been keeping to themselves the past few days.” Daria looked around the room to see whether they had snuck in while she had been immersed in her conversation with Mike. “Jeeves is having some issues with his recent rise to sentience. Bloom is trying to determine just how far along the positronic evolutionary path Jeeves has come. He’s not sure if Jeeves’ artificial intelligence is so advanced that he can mimic being sentient, or if Jeeves truly is. It’s kind of scary, really.”

  Mike shrugged. “Apparently, Bloom is the smartest person for at least several thousand light years, so the brass has decided that he’s the best person to work on this issue. They are sending specialists from several Coalition facilities to join up with us and help out with researching Jeeves.”

  “Well,” Daria presented an arm towards the party in the room, “why don’t we join the party? I’m fairly hungry and I see at least one Shirka attacking the buffet. It won’t last long from that assault.”

  “Already eating for two, eh?” That got Mike a swift punch to the shoulder. “Hey, let’s not raise our kid in a violent environment!”

  “We may not have a choice about that.” Daria was only half referring to how she and Mike tended to roughhouse.

  Chapter 2

  Captain Seth Fields and Captain Emily Riley stepped into the ship’s captain’s ready room, which was situated at the aft portion of the bridge. As they walked in, Seth immediately saw the president of the Coalition sitting with the Detrill emperor and the Nortes empress. Seth kept his poker face and hoped that Emily had also been able to keep hers.

  The president stood. “Sit down, please.” He offered them both seats across from him and the dignitaries. “Thank you for coming so quickly on such short notice. I apologize for interrupting your promotion party, Captain Fields.”

  “No problem, sir.” Seth smiled at the personal congratulations he received from the president.

  “We’re happy to assist in any way we can,” Emily added. She looked uncomfortably at Empress Hugany. The last time they had been in a meeting together, the empress had politely verbally slapped Emily during their conversation.

  “Dear,” the empress looked right at Emily, “please don’t let our last conversation effect our future interactions.”

  “Yes, Your Highness. Thank you.” Emily gave a slight nod to the empress.

  “Yes, right.” The president took over, seeing the awkwardness still wasn’t over. “The reason we asked you here was to brief you on our interactions with the Cherta Empire.”

  “I was unaware we had made contact so quickly.” Seth was a bit surprised. The general mission debrief had only been a couple of weeks ago and the Coalition had decided then they would try to open diplomatic communications with the Cherta.

  “They actually made contact with us,” Nogil, the Detrill emperor, said. “They are sending an envoy to us now. They will be here tomorrow.”

  “How close were they to begin with?” Emily did some quick head-math to try to determine where they were coming from.

  “They weren’t.” The president frowned. “Their level of technology far surpasses ours. They are coming from a distance that would take us months to travel, even with our latest Detrill engines and tachyon wave-riding technology.”

  Seth could tell the president wasn’t happy about that. “Do you think they’re coming to us to flaunt their technology? Maybe to intimidate us before we try to negotiate?”

  “Probably in part,” the president began. “But it’s also logistically more feasible for them to come to us if we want a fast resolution to avert any possible future conflict. Either way, we need both of your teams to be ready.”

  Seth leaned forward. “Yes, sir. I can have security details and rotations set up by the end of the day. We will have escorts assigned as soon as I receive a list of the diplomats who will be attending.”

  Emily joined in. “Captain Fields, I would suggest that you assign me and each of my two new team members to protect the Cherta. My new team members are combat scientists from Grethnar. They are a very unique team of twins. With us on escort duty, we will be able to perform passive research on the Cherta while we protect them.”

  The president raised his hands to stop them both. “Great ideas both, but that’s not why you’re here. You’re here because the Cherta have specifically requested that you and your teams be brought to the initial meeting and subsequent talks with their delegation.”

  “May I ask why, sir?” Seth couldn’t fathom the fact that the Cherta even knew who he was, let alone wanted him and his team to be a part of the diplomatic entourage.

  “They are aware of the missions that both of your teams took part in,” Emperor Nogil said. “They are impressed with your victories over the Warriors.”

  “At this point,” Empress Hugany added, “we are not sure if they respect your fighting prowess or are just interested in seeing you in person, as a way of judging your worthiness. Why they would want soldiers in a diplomatic meeting is beyond us.”

  Emily wasn’t sure whether the empress knew that she was being snobby or whether maybe that was just general Nortes nature. She hadn’t had much interaction with the Nortes outside of reading about them, so she couldn’t be sure.

  The president must have also felt the same way as Emily because he spoke up. “We are in no way trying to demean your intelligence or value to the Coalition. It’s just highly unusual to have specific soldiers requested for these types of meetings. Not to mention, they asked for each of you by name. They didn’t ask for ‘the team that performed mission X’, they sent us a communiqué with your entire team roster.”

  “They obviously have intercepted our transmissions and can decode our encryption.” Seth made a mental note to get with Bloom later to see whether they could fix that problem.

  “Exactly.” Emperor Nogil sat forward. “We have engineers from the Coalition and the Detrill home world working on creating a new encryption standard to block them from so easily spying on us.”

  “What are our orders, sir?” Emily asked.

  “For now, show up.” The president tapped a key on his tablet and both Seth and Emily’s personal tablets vibrated, indicating that a new message had been received. “The conference room and time are included in the message I just sent you both. We have a few instructions in there as well. I hope your team isn’t too upset abo
ut having to wear their dress uniforms for the occasion.” The president offered a smile to ease the tension.

  “No problem, sir. My team will wear full-on vacsuits if that’s what’s asked of them.” Inwardly, he cringed; he knew for a fact that not a single member of his team had a dress uniform on the ship. He would have to call the quartermaster the second he left the bridge if the uniforms were to be ready in time.

  “I’m sure they would, Captain.” The president stood and offered his hand to Seth and then Emily. “Thank you both for coming. We’ll see you tomorrow. If you have any questions, my aide’s contact information is in the document I sent you. Good day.”

  Seth and Emily saluted their president, made an about-face, and then exited the room.

  As they entered the lift, both captains used their commlinks to give instructions to their respective teams.

  Seth had already called the quartermaster and advised him that an odd battle-droid named Jeeves would make contact with him shortly about acquiring dress uniforms for both teams of operators.

  Emily and Seth agreed that since Jeeves didn’t need to be fitted for a uniform, he was the best choice to be assigned to the task, leaving the biologicals to get to other pressing matters. Jeeves had already scanned every team member and knew their exact dimensions, so he could easily feed that information to the quartermaster’s computer and get the ball rolling.

  They gave their teams one hour to finish up at the party and meet them in a conference room near the berthing area. With that done, Seth looked at Emily. “I kind of feel like I’m all grown up now.” He smiled.

  “Command suits you, Seth. I saw that the first time I met you.” Emily blushed again.

  “Thank you,” he said. “You’re lucky, though; you’ve been in a leadership position since you got your commission. I got pulled from my officer graduation and thrown into a mission where my call sign was ‘Cadet.’ Not too much officer experience there.”

  “First off, Cadet,” Emily snickered, “I’ve read every mission report from your team and they all have a common opinion: you were integral to the mission’s success and you also took on a leadership role almost from the beginning. So stop doubting yourself.”

  “Alright, alright. I don’t really think I’m doubting myself, more like I’m voicing something so I don’t keep it inside and start doubting myself.”

  “Either way, you need to stow those thoughts right now.” Emily now stood directly in front of Seth and looked into his eyes. “Because no matter how much your team respects you, if they hear this crap, they will start to wonder if their faith in you is justified.”

  “You’re absolutely right. Thank you, Emily.” Seth wasn’t sure why he was feeling this way; he definitely hadn’t had any doubts during the mission.

  Maybe it was because he wasn’t responsible for the deaths of Shorty, Beast, and the others. As the team leader, Mike was the one who bore the weight of those deaths, even if they were events unavoidable in battle. But now, Seth would be responsible for the inevitable losses his team would take from here on out. It was a heavy weight that he wasn’t used to lifting, but he knew that it was only a matter of time before he wouldn’t be overthinking it as he was now.

  “What was the second thing?” Seth asked.

  “What?”

  “You said ‘first off,’ which implies there was a ‘secondly’ coming.” Seth looked into her eyes.

  “Oh right.” Emily shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Secondly…” Her sentence never finished. She hit the stop button on the lift and closed the distance between her mouth and Seth’s.

  Seth almost stepped away, surprised at the action, but his battle reflexes were forgotten as Emily’s lips touched his and he figured out what was actually happening. Seth returned her kiss and added an embrace.

  As first kisses go, this one was on par with the creation of a star, if not an entire solar system.

  When they finally separated, Seth said, “If Joker hadn’t drugged me the night of my graduation, we would’ve had a lot more time to have gotten to know each other.”

  Emily smiled. “We have just under an hour to make up for lost time.” With that, she pushed the button for the officer’s berthing deck.

  Fifty-seven minutes later, Seth and Emily walked into the conference room where their respective teams had assembled. Both teams had new faces in the room. Emily was excited to get to know her new scientist teammates; her Force Recon marines were great guys and smart as hell, but they still weren’t scientists like Emily.

  Seth was sure that everyone in the room, at least the team veterans, was aware of his and Emily’s attraction to each other. And now they were probably aware of what the two had been up to before the briefing. But they were all adults and professionals, and no one made any comments. Except for Jeeves, of course, who was nowhere near an adult or professional.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Jeeves began. “I am correct to assume that you and the captain have finally copul—”

  “Jeeves!” Emily tried not to yell. “I thought you were tasked with taking care of getting everyone’s dress uniforms taken care of.”

  Completely nonplussed with the exchange, Jeeves simply turned his attention to Emily. “Yes ma’am, I was. I am currently in contact with the quartermaster’s computer. I have already given it every piece of information it needs, but curiously, it is a very odd machine. I have had to requisition the uniforms one thousand eight hundred and ninety-six times and I am, in fact, continuing to requisition them as I speak.”

  “What? That’s absurd!” Emily couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I guess I’ll have to call the quartermaster myself to get this straightened out.”

  “With respect, ma’am,” Jeeves continued, “that won’t be necessary. In fact, it will be detrimental to the process.”

  “Explain.”

  “The quartermaster’s virtual intelligence program is based on decades of decisions made by quartermasters throughout the Coalition and the entirety of the military services. I have found that the quartermasters are a fairly stingy breed of service personnel. They treat every item as though it was their own personal property; as such, they are reluctant to part with anything.

  “Also, in this case, we are aboard the flag vessel of a massive fleet of ships. The quartermaster VI is receiving hundreds of requests a minute by various other commands. Because the nature of our request is infinitely less important than many of the requests it is receiving, ours is continuously being sent to the bottom of the pile, so to speak.”

  “So your constant queuing of our request is the only thing keeping it alive?” Emily snorted.

  “Yes, Captain. I estimate that I will have to queue our uniform request at least thirty-seven thousand, five hundred and twenty-four more times before they are completed. I further estimate that without my continued interaction with the quartermaster VI, we would have had to wait three months, two weeks, and four days for the uniforms.” Jeeves loved to compute estimations.

  “Holy crap,” Seth said. “No wonder we can’t ever get anything from requisitions. I’m going to have to put together a list of items that we haven’t been able to get so far and get Jeeves working on it. After the uniforms, of course.”

  “Gladly, sir.” Jeeves extended his torso up several inches, a move that signified excitement for him. “Although a VI is not at the same level as my AI, I am still immensely enjoying our binary dueling.”

  “Thank you, Jeeves.” Emily finished the conversation. She addressed the rest of the assembled operators. “I think we’re ready to begin. If you can take your seats, please.”

  The operators all took seats, most with people they were familiar with. Seth knew that he would have to mix things up to get these two teams working with each other. He knew that professionally there wouldn’t be any issues or rivalries, but operationally they needed to be practiced with one another so they could fight together as a team more effectively.

  “Good afternoon, everyo
ne.” Seth looked out to the familiar faces and purposely made eye contact with all of the new ones. “First off, thank you for the promotion party. I appreciated it. And I apologize for having to leave my own party before it ever really got started. Captain Riley and I had a meeting with the president of the Coalition and the heads of the Nortes and Detrill empires. Here’s what we were told.”

  Seth and Emily took turns laying out the information they had received, along with their own personal takes on what it all meant. Then they opened the floor to questions.

  Mike started by looking back at one of Emily’s newest team members. “Lieutenant Stroth, as a Detrill officer who is not a part of the Coalition military, what is your take on this new development? And as a follow-up question, to be blunt, what is the purpose of your attachment to Captain Riley’s unit?”

  The Detrill officer humbly nodded his head towards Mike. “With respect, First Sergeant, I will answer your second question first. I want to alleviate any potential misgivings about my presence. I am not a spy for my government. I am here because my people have a long history with the warrior enemy we all face. It is my military’s belief that my presence might be beneficial to your special task force. Because we designed the ships they use, as well as their space-based fortresses, my heritage might give you a tactical advantage at some point.

  “As to your first question, I have no idea. My people learned of the Cherta at the same time your Coalition did. It would be a waste of time to guess as to the purpose of their request. We will find out the answer to that tomorrow afternoon.” Stroth’s response seemed sincere.

  Emily then directly addressed the issue of Stroth’s presence. “I apologize for not introducing you sooner, Lieutenant.” Stroth just nodded at her comment. “Stroth is a liaison from the Detrill government. His role is to assist us in any way he can, including being a combat actual when we deploy. Although he is a lieutenant in his own right, and we respect his rank and accomplishments, he has agreed that it would be detrimental to the team if he were to take a leadership role. Therefore, Lieutenant Stroth has no command authority and is effectively at the bottom of our roster as far as the chain of command goes.”