As I woke very early the next morning, the full weight of the mission I was about to undertake hit me anew. This was no longer merely a puzzle to solve but a real mission to run with real lives on the line. It had been easy to ignore the human factor but now that would have to change.
What does one take on a suicide mission? I supposed there was a chance of success, but it did not look promising. There really was not much I needed to bring. All I owned were a few dusty old books that had been passed down through my family for so long that I had no idea where they had come from. I had been told one of them was very important. I couldn’t read it; it was in a language that I had never seen in all my years at school.
I remember the day that my father gave it to me. I had just graduated from the Academy at the top of my class, and I received a message that he needed to see me right away. He was suffering from the final stages of Betalian’s Syndrome. I went as fast as I could. I knew there was very little time left.
Betalian’s Syndrome is one of the few fatal illnesses that we cannot cure. No one really understands what it is, or what causes it. The body just starts to shut down, one organ at a time, until the patient dies. It can take years. Transplants and cyber-orgs only delay the process.
When I arrived at his hospital room, he looked bad, worse than I had ever seen him. I knew that the doctors had no tricks left to try. “Dad, how are you?”
“Not well, son. I can see the end of the line coming. It won’t be long now. The doctors tell me my brain is starting to shut down. I hear you graduated with the highest scores ever in the history of the Academy. Congratulations, my son, you make your old man proud. Have you chosen your path yet?”
I had to strain to make out his words, as he could barely talk. I knew better than to try to stop him; he would just waste more energy arguing with me about it. “Yes, Father, I am going into Intelligence.”
“Ah, yes, you were always one to play with puzzles. I never found one you could not solve. Look, I know I don’t have much time left, and there is much I wanted to teach you yet. In my room, back home, look under my bed. You will find a safe. Inside it is my most valuable belonging. Keep it with you always. I wish I had time to teach you what it is. Just remember one thing, the Emperor is not … BEEP BEEP BEEP …”
Suddenly all the alarms were going off. The doctors rushed in, and I was forced out of the room by the orderlies. I spent the rest of the night pacing, waiting for news from the doctors. Someone from the Academy called, wanting to know where I was. I had left the ceremony before the end, without telling anyone. I did not take the call, I just asked the nurse to handle it for me. She was a nice older woman. “Don’t worry about it, son, I’ll take care of it. You just get some rest, okay?”
Later the headmaster of the Academy came by. “Vydor, you never told me your father was so ill. I had to pull some strings just to find you. I would have let you skip the ceremony to be here instead.”
“No, that would have broken his heart. He wanted me to be there so badly. I think it is what kept him going these last few weeks. I am sorry, sir, for leaving without notice.”
“Forget it, no one could blame you. How is he?”
“I don’t know, sir. He was trying to tell me something, and then the alarms went off, and …” I could not continue.
“Stay here, son; I will see what I can find out for you.”
The headmaster was a gentle man, and he took a personal interest in all his students. He never had any children of his own, and I think the school served as a substitute family for him.
“They are doing everything they can for him. That is all they can say right now,” he said and took a seat near where I had been trying to get some rest.
A few hours later the doctor walked out to where we were sitting and said, “I am sorry, we did everything we could, but he didn’t make it.”
The rest of the night was a haze. All I can remember is that the headmaster took me home and told me that he was giving me some time off before sending me on active duty.
I found the safe Dad told me about. He never gave me the combination to open it, but I was able to guess it after only a few tries. When I opened the safe, all that was inside was a book, a real book, with paper pages. It looked very old. It was not in a writing I had ever seen before.
I brought the book to my language teacher at the Academy. He said that he had seen samples of this writing but could not read it himself. He cautioned me against showing the book to anyone. He said that it could get me into big trouble. He refused to say more.
My father wanted me to keep this book with me always, so I decided I must bring it. The rest of my gear would have to be practical, in case I had to carry it all on my back for a period of time.
Zalith knocked on my door, waking me from my reverie. I assumed the crew assignment was ready.
“Hello, Zalith, come in. I am just checking my gear one more time,” I said.
“Vydor, we don’t have much time, so I will be brief. I am giving you twenty-five of my Dark Knights. They are the best of the best. They have been fully briefed on what is to come. All of them have more experience in the field than you do. I don’t like this mission at all.” He paused and paced for a moment. I decided to wait and see what it was he wanted to say. “I have been in this fleet for longer than you have been alive, and I have made some friends in high places in that time.
“High Command does not expect you to return from this mission. That really angers me. I know that I have been hard on you, even to the point of saying you are under-qualified for your rank, but you are my brother-in-arms here in the field. For this to happen to you is as if it happened to me. I am giving you the best men this navy has ever seen because I want all of you back alive. I am also giving you the Dark Talon. It is the only ship ever to return from a suicide mission with all the crew alive. A word of advice for you: let the Dark Knights lead most of the time. They know what they are doing.”
With that he just walked out of the room. I never thought he cared at all what might happen to me. I seemed to have underestimated him in more ways than one.
Zalith was assigning me the Dark Knights, so I needed a minor gear change. The Dark Knights were an elite group of Zalionian warriors who were extremely dedicated and deadly. Each of them had decades of experience, all of it as a penetration squad. They specialized in the kinds of missions that often put them deep within hostile territory with no support. This created a unique bond between them. Men who have served with them say it is as if they can read each other’s minds.
Their name came from the color of their scales. Each of them had a permanent dye implanted over his entire body. This dye was a very deep, flat black that made them nearly invisible in any dimly-lit situation; it also had a thermal reduction effect that made them just as hard to see with night-vision goggles. They preferred to operate only at night when on planetary surfaces, and this dye gave them a big advantage.
I put away my normal uniform. The Imperial blue would not work well for this mission. Instead I pulled out my own night gear, lightly armored and perfectly black coveralls that would give me similar characteristics to the Dark Knights’ scales. In addition to being the perfect camouflage for night missions, it was also completely silent and had a ton of storage in small hidden pockets. This allowed me to ditch the pack I had been planning to carry. When travelling with a group like the Dark Knights, one needs to be light and fast.
I stopped for one last check in the mirror before I left. I sighed as I caught a glimpse of my tightly-cropped hair. It was one of the minor things I disliked about my job, not being allowed more than half an inch of hair on my head, and absolutely no facial hair. I never really understood this regulation, and that made it harder to follow.
It was a short walk from my quarters to where the Dark Talon was docked. The Dark Knights would be making their last run though their pre-mission checklists. My biggest concern was how they would feel about having me in charge. Of course they were highly loyal, but I was an outsider. Worse than that, I was an outsider with far less combat experience than any of them. I could not afford to have them second-guessing my orders.
As I entered the hangar, a docking bay worker called out, “Senior officer on deck!” and everyone snapped to attention.
“Crewman, is the bay ready for launch?” I asked the sergeant on duty.
“Yes, sir!’ was his reply.
“Then clear the hangar. I want only myself and the Dark Knights in here.”
“Yes, sir!” he replied and immediately began shouting orders to clear the bay. While he did that I turned to one of the Dark Knights and said, “Gather up your team for final briefing.” Without a word he turned to the rest of them, and they all came out and assembled before me. It really seemed that they could read each others’ minds!
They were a very impressive bunch; the shortest of them was a half-meter taller than my one-point-eight-meter frame. Their uniforms were impressive despite how plain they were. On these kinds of mission, no rank, name badge, or insignia of any kind was permitted. If any of us was captured, especially myself, it would be best if the enemy did not know whom they had.
“Computer, security lockdown code Delta-Three, execute!” I called out. That guaranteed us privacy for this conversation. What I was about to say to these men was classified, and I could not risk being overheard. I took a deep breath and began my speech.
“I know that General Zalith has already briefed you on the official line, and told you all that you officially need to know. What I am about to tell you must never be repeated. Indeed, once you board that craft, nothing you say, do, hear, or see will ever be recorded. This mission is classified to such a degree that only High Command has the authority to know what we are up to. Our orders for this mission come directly from the Emperor himself, completely bypassing the normal chain of command. Not even the captain of this ship knows all I am about to say.” I could tell they were not comfortable with this; heck, I was not either, but it was not my place to question the Emperor.
“A hostile force, one that we have named the Magi, currently controls the planet we are heading towards. It is unknown what they call themselves so we will refer to them as the Magi until further notice. They are a very powerful group of unknown size.
“Recently a class-three task force was sent to this planet to bring it back under control. This task force was led by Lieutenant Tom.” I was surprised to see a look of recognition on some of their faces. Good, that would make the next point all the more powerful. “The Magi defeated the class-three task force before they could get a foothold. As far as we know, there were no survivors.”
The Dark Knights were a stoic bunch by nature. If not for my training in intelligence gathering I might have thought they did not react at all to that news, but I could tell they were all shocked. Again, this was good because I needed to keep them just a little off-balance so I might be able to gain a degree of trust from them.
“The Magi have two primary weapons that we know of. Both of them have already been brought to bear against us. The first is a plasma cannon. I will not waste our time with all the technical details; just be aware that it is a weapon much greater in power than anything in the fleet. Indeed, one shot from it could potentially destroy the Dark Talon.” The Dark Talon was very heavily armored, and it was hard to imagine anything powerful enough to take it out with a single blow, so that made it a perfect example.
“The second weapon is far more subtle, and in many ways far more deadly. This colony used to house a secret squad called the Black Adders. They were trying to develop a new weapon for our arsenal: psionics. Their progress with this is unknown because we lost communication with the colony over a year ago. We believe the Magi have wiped out the Black Adders, but it is possible that they are one and the same. If they are, it will mean that you might be required to terminate all of them.”
I paused a moment while I let them contemplate that. No one liked the idea of turning our weapons on our own people; but if they were the Magi, they drew first blood, and we have no choice but to fight back.
“Now, the logical question is: What is psionics? The honest answer is that we do not know. However, out here even when we were still days away from the system, we began to feel its impact. You must all have sensed it, that scent of fear on the ship and the crew; that gnawing specter of doubt in your minds that you cannot shake off. It is not at all natural for hardened warriors to feel this way, but nonetheless you do. That is the impact of the Magi’s weapon. It is becoming more intense the closer we get to the planet.
“Fear will cause you to hesitate, to doubt your own judgment and senses. Fear will cause you to underestimate yourselves, and overestimate them. You are all battle-hardened warriors. You know how to deal with fear, and this is no different except in its magnitude. You will have to force yourselves to fight it. We do not know how this weapon works, and have no defense for it, so you must steel your minds and deal with it in your own manner. Remember it is not a natural fear; it is far more dangerous and crippling. You were chosen for this mission because General Zalith believes you are the best of the best. I assure you no one less than that will survive this mission.”
I paused to gather myself for the next order. This was not an easy command to give, as it meant complete trust in these men, whom I had never served with before. I looked each one of them over and was impressed again with the power they radiated. These truly were the best the Empire had ever produced.
“The Empire has good reason to be worried about this colony. As of now, they believe the Magi are all on this planet. Two weeks after we launch the captain will destroy the planet, whether we make it off or not. We simply cannot risk them spreading out. This could be our only chance to eliminate them. Why wait two weeks? Well, that is where we come in. Officially we are going to make contact with the Magi and attempt to make them part of the Empire. Obviously that is not the real mission, at least not the orders we will be operating under. Our primary objectives are to learn how they are able to control fear as they do, and to steal one of their plasma cannons. Anyone, alien or not, who gets in our way is to be eliminated. No attempt at communication will be made with them. I must stress that these orders are extremely secret. Only the Emperor and ourselves know of them.” I could tell they were very unhappy with that. They were hard-core military, and to them the chain of command was sacred. To bypass it completely must have left a foul taste on their forked tongues.
Now for the hard part. “As you know, I am in a position which gives me access to extremely sensitive information that could be very dangerous in the hands of a hostile force. If it should happen that I am taken prisoner and you are unable to rescue me, you must kill me, even if you have to give your own lives to do it. We cannot risk even the slimmest chance that they might successfully break me and gain access to what I know.” This brought a look of respect from them.
Now I had to test my shocking little speech to see if it worked. “Men, I know that all of you have more combat experience than I, and I will have to lean heavily on your skills and knowledge. However, I must have your one-hundred- per-cent, unconditional loyalty. We are about to leave to penetrate into extremely deadly territory, and I cannot have anyone questioning my orders at a critical time, even if they seem foolish. If you cannot give me this loyalty, I will release you from your duty to this mission. I will fly it alone if I must. I will not allow any negative marks on your records should you decide not to come, but by accepting this mission you are giving your word to follow me, into certain death if need be. I intend to complete our primary objective, regardless of the personal cost, and I will accept nothing less from you. If you are leaving, this is your only chance. We will be under total communications blackout until we return.”
Here I stopped. I knew none of them would be willing to back down from such a challenge. They were warriors, and honor was their life. To back down after such a speech would imply fear and weakness. It was a bit of a gamble maneuvering them like this, but I needed them completely on my side or this really would be a suicide mission.
The squad’s sergeant came forward. Surprisingly, at just over two meters tall he was the smallest of them, though not by much. He locked his steel-grey eyes on mine. I matched his fierce gaze and said, “Speak freely, Sergeant.”
He said, “Sir, the Dark Knights were hesitant about this mission when we were first briefed. We did not like the idea of following a green leader to try and negotiate with the Magi. Now that the mission parameters have changed to include wiping out the Magi, we no longer have those hesitations. You need not worry about us; if by death or life we can serve you, we will.” With that he stepped back into place with the rest of the Knights.
“Thank you.” I was very pleased by that response. It was better than the begrudging reaction I had expected. “Then, men, complete your preflight. We leave the instant you’re ready. Operation Quiet Storm is now officially underway.”
“Yes, sir!” was their reply, in perfect unison, and they immediately went to work. I took what little gear I had, stowed it on board and did my best to stay out of the way.