Siege of Terra (The Mavrik Woods Series, Book 1) (9 page)

I begin to strip down to nothing, ready to jump into a nice relaxing shower. I walk into one of the water cubicles. They have very little privacy, but I’m in the army, there was never any real privacy when it came to showering. The cascading water feels good on my battered and bruised body, I hadn’t felt any of these injuries happen at the time. But after examining my body I’m astounded that I’m not in any real pain. My adrenaline buzz that I had while in combat had made me impervious to pain.

It was almost hard to not fall asleep while I was standing here, just to drift away forever, and the scary part was that I could care less if it happen. The one thought that I would stay awake for is Syreena, she is my connection to reality.

****

I sit here in the briefing room, T-Rave is late; he’s probably just caught up somewhere.

An awkward silence has been in the room for several minutes, I’ve been here for ten minutes just staring at the wall in front of me.

The door whirs open. T-Rave strides in, obviously not concerned or aware that he’s late. It doesn’t matter though, the silence that had perceived between me and the General is broken now that we could get on with the debriefing.

“Sorry Sir got held up,” he says, taking a seat opposite me.

“Don’t let it happen again.”

“Yes Sir, it won’t happen again.”

“Alright Colonel, take ‘er away.”

“Thank you Sir,” I say, walking up to the front of the desk, making it easier for people to see me -even though it is just the three of us.

“Alright, we started the mission as usual. Right at the start though it went downhill fast. We rappelled off the Dropship, after only seconds though one of those scout ships took it out. Major Lorid took a beating when it exploded; shrapnel in the leg, broken ribs. I knew he was gone the second I took off his helmet. He knew it as well. He told us to leave him behind to complete the mission; it must have been only a minute after we left when an explosion shook the building around us. I’m assuming that he took out several hostiles in the process.”

“You left a man behind?” The General interjects.

“We had no choice; he wanted us to leave him behind. Major Lorid wouldn’t have lived another five minutes, and if we tried to take him along we wouldn’t have made it out alive.”

“Don’t bother defending yourself son, you made the right choice, we needed that Intel.”

I look at him for a second; I’m stunned that the General preferred Intel over a man’s life. It’s that he didn’t care at all that really bugged me.

“Right, moving on. We went through the rest of the building, encountering little resistance as we did so. We got to the security room and one of Hakorians jumped us, kinda. Sargent Terein took him out before he could flinch. We found out that the Hakorians were in the Power Room. So we went to try and take’em out. We then discovered that there were civilians, we calculated the odds of how many we could save.”

“You were ordered to get the Intel and get out Colonel,” he gives me a smoldering look, “why did you disobey that order?” The General asks.

“I went into the building hoping to come out with as many people as possible, if I obeyed your orders we would have lost all the civilians.”

“You lost half of them.”

“I tried. I did everything in my power to save as many people as possible, and yes, we lost two good men in the process but they knew what they were signing up for.”

“Don’t you ever disobey my orders again Colonel, understand?”

“If it’s a judgment call and there are civilian lives at stake I will always try and rescue them. Unless I know for a fact that it would be impossible then I won’t.” I stare the General down. I usually never acted like this to superiors. But this man is completely out of line. It’s like he didn’t even care about casualties. Every military General had to care about civilian lives to some degree, this man though just ignored it completely. You could bend orders on rare occasions, being in the field was a lot different than making decisions far in advance. It was a split second reaction. If you didn’t react in a moment’s notice it could cost you and others their lives.

“Continue,” he says. He obviously doesn’t like me, the way he looks and speaks to me says it all.

“We listened for hard Intel on their plans, and eventually we found out that they have mining operations going on around the planet. They want the Thopium that is within our soil, that’s why they are here. Now, I’m not exactly sure what they want Thopium for, but they said it would help them reintegrate themselves into proper society.”

“You mean there are more out there?” The General asks. A shocked look rising on his face.

“With all due respect Sir, did you think they were the only race of beings out here?” T-Rave says.

“Well, this is just a lot to take in at once, first we had to worry about going to war with the other countries, now we have to worry about the whole galaxy?”

“It's good to be prepared, but you don’t need to worry about the whole galaxy, they said they got banished, so they must have done something illegal for the other beings to force that on them.”

“Can't we just negotiate and give them what we want?” The General asks.

“I already tried that on them, they said that they wouldn’t negotiate because they wanted to exterminate us.”

“That’s what they said?”

“Pretty much,” I say.

“Did they provide any other information?”

“They said that Thopium originated from gas nebulas. I’m assuming by that that this planet must have formed from a gas giant millions of years ago. I don’t know the science behind it but if we have Thopium deposits in the ground then it’s the only logical explanation that I can think of.”

“Is that all?” He asks, almost disappointed.

“That was all the information that is worth mentioning. I have nothing further to report.”

“Hmm, what about you Captain?”

“Well, the only thing I can add to this is that they are extremely dangerous, Sargent Terein died by a slice right through his abdomen. I’m not sure how they usually fight, we caught them by surprise this time, who knows how they are going to be armed next time. They were forced to use their bare hands, which had claws on them. Other than that I don’t really know what to add to this report, except that we need to hit them and hit them hard.”

“Alright gentlemen, I will take action on what you have said, we will scan the planet with our satellites. If these Hakorians have mining operations going on right now on this planet we will know about it. T.A.R. will contact you when we need you, if the scans reveal anything then you will depart immediately. You are dismissed gentlemen,” he stands up, waving his hand for us to get out.

“Yes Sir,” T-Rave and I say as we salute before we walk out the door.

“Where were you?” I ask him, he had been five minutes late for the debriefing.

“Oh, I was having a shower and lost track of the time.”

It was a rather lame excuse.

“Don’t let it happen again.”

“Yes Sir.”

We walk towards the entrance of the compound, “Bob,” I say, nodding at the guard behind the desk.

“Ok, well I’m heading home, we’ll probably be back here tomorrow. Have a good evening Captain,” I say, walking down the steps towards my speeder.

“Seeya tomorrow Colonel,” he says, waving his arm and departing in the opposite direction.

My speeder is still parked in the same spot -obviously- so it took little effort to find it amongst all the other speeders, plus the dazzling red color really stands out from all the other dull colors.

I scan my thumb print onto the pad on the side of the door, the door pops open with a click as the locking mechanism releases.

I scan my thumb print again as well as my retina.

“Welcome Mr. Woods, where can I take you?”

“Home,” I say.

“Right away Mr. Woods.”

The speeder takes off, gliding off into the many skylanes. I look back towards the area where the towers had collapsed. Demolition teams have already made the area restricted as they sift through the rubble, trying to find pieces worth salvaging for recycling the materials. My team sure made a mess of things, at least we tried our best to save the building, so it wasn’t really our fault for what the end result had come to.

“Opening Garage bay door three, have a nice day Mr. Woods,” the Computer says.

“Yeah, you to,” I say, even though I know it won’t mean anything to it.

The speeder pulls into the garage bay, it feels like days have passed since I’d been home. I never wanted to leave, especially on the day after our wedding. But orders were orders. If I hadn’t shown up for that briefing I’d have been court martialed…probably.

I open the door and get out, “ah, home sweet home.”

I walk towards the door connecting the garage to the main household area; I wrapped my hand around the simple doorknob, except it flung open before I had the chance to turn my wrist.

Before I know it Syreena is in my arms, it was the best feeling in the world. Having your loved one wrapped up against you, squeezing so tight as if she wanted to never leave my sight again, which she probably didn’t.

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” she says; pressing her soft lips against mine.

“I promised I would be,” I say, returning the gesture.

“What’s going on out there? I haven’t been able to contact anyone for information,” she asked.

“Everything is a mess. Why don’t we go sit down?” I say.

“Sure, I can make you some coffee,” she says.

“I would love some.”

I walk towards the living room, taking a seat on one of the leather couches. It’s always nice to relax like this after a hard day’s work. It's nice to be able to sit back on a couch and just close your eyes. Almost too relaxing, my breathing slows down, everything seems so peaceful.

Explosions shake my surroundings, I can’t move my leg, I’m going to die here, without even being able to say goodbye to my wife.

“Mav?” Syreena says, her hand is on my shoulder, she must have shaken me awake.

“You fell asleep; you must be really exhausted to have fallen asleep that fast.”

“How long was I out for?” I ask.

“Long enough for your coffee to be ready,” she says, a steaming hot cup of coffee is in her hands.

“Thanks,” I say, taking the cup from her.

“So, you said earlier that everything is a mess? What exactly is a mess? The news channels have been down due to power problems.”

“We've been discovered,” I say simply; taking a sip from the cup, it’s delicious, although every time without fail the first little sip always burns your tongue.

“What do you mean? By who?”

“Other sentient beings. A race once known as the Akkessians -they took on the name of Hakorian when they were banished- they were banished for their beliefs apparently. I’m assuming that their beliefs were not in the best interest of all the races. Which is why they were banished, we can’t be sure till we get more information.”

“Where did you get this information from in the first place?” She asks, although she probably already knows the answer.

“We
extracted
it from one of the Hakorians.”

“I don’t want to know any of those details. But I need to know if you and I are in danger.”

“Well, I will most likely be in danger, but I will make sure that you won’t be. Our satellites have picked up a fleet heading this way, they won’t be here for a while though, and it will give us plenty of time to mount a defence against them.”

“All you military people think about is a violent way to resolve things; did you try to negotiate with them?”

“Of course I tried, you know me honey, I never want to fight, I want to make peace. However, in order to have peace sometimes you need to get your hands dirty. They refused to negotiate; all they want to do is exterminate us from this planet so they can have the Thopium deposits in the ground. They need it to get back to where they came from.”

“So, what is the military planning to do?”

“Well, we did manage to get some Intel about the mining operations going on around the planet, when our satellites find the locations of these operations we will be there.”

“We? Meaning the military, or you?”

“Well, I was one of the people that came out of that building alive with experience fighting against these things. Now, it was only one small skirmish but the military will think that little fight got us experience that others won’t have.”

“Does that mean you are going to be leaving again soon?”

“Probably within the next couple days, it shouldn’t take long for us to find where we need to go.”

“But why do you have to go? We are supposed to be on our honeymoon right now, not me sitting here worrying myself and you are going god knows where and doing god knows what.” She says irritably.

“Honey, I wish I could stay here, I really do, but like I said before, me and the Captain are the only ones with any real experience fighting these aliens.”