Chapter 524: Resurgence (1/2)

Vuxten limped into the command center, looking around for the Duty Officer. He motioned at a Treana'ad behind the desk, one Staff Sergeant Nan'Tz.

”Where's Lieutenant Grentip?” Vuxten asked.

”He stepped out to grab us all some dinner, sir,” the Treana'ad said. The com clinked and he grabbed it before the second chime. ”Headquarters, First Telkan Marine Division, Staff Sergeant Nan'Tz speaking. How can I help you, sir, ma'am, both or neither?”

Vuxten waited for a moment as the Treana'ad Staff Duty NCO forwarded the call to the Bravo Company HHC barracks.

”Sorry about that, sir,” the Treana'ad said. ”It's been hectic tonight.”

”I understand. Who's handling ground to orbit commo?” Vuxten asked.

”5th Signal Brigade. They're on the other side of base, though,” the Treana'ad said. ”Anything I can help with, sir?”

Vuxten nodded. ”I need to put a call through to General NoDra'ak as well as Division Command and whoever's handling MEDCOM out here,” he said.

The Treana'ad nodded. ”General NoDra'ak and his command staff are actually ground-side, right here at this base,” he said. ”The MEDCOM Commander is at the base hospital.”

Vuxten sighed, glanced at Casey, who was standing against the wall with a neutral expression. ”I think you better put me through to the General first.”

”Which one?” The Treana'ad asked, putting his hand on the comlink.

”General Vrawgarkwa, she's the current Division Commander,” Vuxten said.

Nan'Tz motioned at the ring on the floor by the wall. ”I'll shoot it over there, sir.”

Vuxten moved over and stood in the ring, activating it with his implant. The security came online. Someone would be able to tell who he was, and that he was talking to someone, but not who and not intercept any data or listen in on the conversation.

He waited while Staff Sergeant Nan'Tz put through the call.

Vrawgarkwa answered, dressed in a PT uniform, her hair messed up. ”Yes, Captain?”

”Ma'am, I've just come into possession of what I think may be critical data,” Vuxten said.

Vrawgarkwa narrowed her eyes, then shook her head. ”You've got a devil's slice of luck, Captain. Let's hear it.”

Vuxten inhaled, then launched into it. ”Currently, the SUDS inoperative and the cloning banks all keep locking up when we try to make any clones. I heard something about clone geneseed contamination,” he said.

She nodded slowly.

”Lance Corporal Casey has a 'no cloning' profile,” Vuxten said. ”Before you discount it, hear me out. If Casey gets cloned on an unauthorized system, it blows out the cloning array. Sometimes not just the one used, but the entire base cloning array and the local SUDS node all slag down.”

Vrawgarkwa rubbed her face and looked more intent. ”Wait, isn't Casey the Novastar VII pilot? The Ringbreaker Class guy they dropped on planet when we first got here?”

”Right!” Vuxten said. ”Everyone looks at that and says 'well, that's why the system slags down' but what if it's not?” Vuxten pointed at Casey, making it so Casey could hear him.

”Did you have to get cloned tissue or blood before you went Novastar?” he asked.

”No, sir,” Casey said. ”Not until I took a load of shrapnel to the chest.”

Vuxten turned back to the General. ”See, ma'am. They didn't try till after he went Novastar pilot. What if the problem isn't just the Novastar template, but his origins?”

The General made a motion and looked off to the side. She obviously scrolled through something then narrowed her eyes. ”Casey. Home of Record: Rigel-5 dot Sierra Charlie.”

Her eyes narrowed further. ”SC? That's not one of the moons. Hang on,” she made a few more scrolling motions. ”His home of record is Rigel-5, his Point of Entry is one of the space stations orbiting the Harkgawarka moon. No address listed. No mother and father listed.”

She made a humming noise, one of the musical sounds that a stressed or deep thinking Rigellian female often did.

”Ask him where he's really from. He's a Rigellian citizen, but I'm not seeing a place of birth or location of schooling, just that he tested and provided documentation of homeschool equivalency.”

”He said he's something called 'Tabulan' when I asked,” Vuxten said.

General Vrawgarkwa froze. Her protective clear inner eyelids clicked down and her lips firmed up and pressed together as she gave a sharp hiss.

”Are you sure he said Tabulan,” she asked carefully.

Vuxten motioned again. ”Casey, where did you say you were from? Exactly. Your birth people. A martial people, right?”

Casey nodded. ”Blathmin Township, Bhaile-Prime, Tabula-929 System,” Casey said. He gave a smile. ”We're kind of a martial people. We're not part of the Confederacy. I haven't really thought of them too much in a long time.”

Vuxten turned back to the General. ”Did you get that.”

She blinked her inner eyelids and nodded slowly. ”Yes. Yes, I did,” she leaned forward. ”Are you anywhere near a creation engine of any class?”

Vuxten looked around. ”No, ma'am. Well, there's a Class-I Nanoforge in the corner, basically a hard copy printer.”

She nodded slowly. ”All right. Good. Keep it that way.”

Vuxten nodded. ”I will. I think I know what's happening with the clone banks. Or at least, I've found something out that might point us in the right way. He said his people left Terra back when it was called Earth and haven't had any genetic modification.”

She nodded slowly, still protecting her eyes.

”What if it isn't the Novastar impressions on his DNA? What if it's the fact he's got Old Earth DNA?” Vuxten said.

”Why would that do it?” the General asked.

”Can Terrans still throw lightning?” Vuxten asked.

She shook her head. ”No.”

”The Imperium guys could. They're all Old Terra DNA, and I've seen them throw lightning. They're psychic, big time psychics,” Vuxten was talking rapidly now. ”I've even heard that humans aren't supposed to be throwing lightning. I overheard that there was consideration of pulling Terrans off the battlefield till some kind of psychic suppression could be enabled after Terrans started showing psychic abilities during the initial Atrekna attacks on Hesstla.”

The General frowned, then nodded. ”OK.”

”I checked. You can't run off an old style human. I looked up someone called Herman ”Khan” Noonan-Melville and asked it I could run a VR or clone of him to ask him questions. I was informed that due to about eight pages of legal jargon that I couldn't because he would be considered dangerous,” Vuxten said. ”He's from just prior to the Glassing. I checked on a few famous Terrans after the Imperium Era, and I could run off VR versions, but nobody pre-Glassing.”

The General nodded. ”I'll alert Smokey 'No. You're onto something. There's data out of the First Battle for Hesstla that you don't know,” she reached out and grabbed her adaptive camouflage top. ”Clear a SCIF room with a Whiskey Clearance.”

”Maybe the MEDCOM commander?” Vuxten suggestion.

”Among others,” she said. ”Read this. Decide what to tell Lance Corporal Casey. Then you make sure Casey can't access any creation engines and keep your eyes directly on him.”

”Yes, ma'am.”

”General Vrawgarkwa, out.”

The call terminated.

The field wouldn't let Vuxten leave until he read the file. Sighing, he opened it up and looked at it. It was read-only, retinal-link only.

It was only two pages.

What he read made his blood run cold.

He deleted the file and counted to five before he let the security field drop.

”Fun call, sir?” Casey asked.

”Not really,” Vuxten said. He moved over to Staff Sergeant Nan'Tz. ”I need a Whiskey Clearance enabled SCIF cleared. Coffee, donuts, cigarettes, and some Liquid Hate.”

”Yes, sir,” the Treana'ad said.

”I'll be right back,” Vuxten said. He motioned to Casey. ”Come with me, Marine.”

Casey grinned. ”You know, technically, I'm not a Marine. I'm a soldier. Army.”

Vuxten just nodded, pushing through the door.

Across the street was a large field used for morning PT (Physical Training) that was empty, big enough for a Battalion to hold PT or do a PT test in. Vuxten walked across the parking lot, across the street, and kept going until he was in the middle of the field. He looked around carefully.

The nearest vehicle was at least a hundred meters away. Nothing easily damaged. Local equivalent of grass with dirt underneath.

Casey walked up and looked around. ”OK, sir, what's going on?”

”You're from Tabula-929,” Vuxten said.

Casey nodded. ”Yes.”

”Have you ever been back?” Vuxten asked.

”Once. After my first ten years. I was exiled though,” Casey said, his face tightening. ”I'd accepted longevity treatments as part of my enlistment requirements. They exiled but didn't excommunicate me.”

”You joined because of a woman? Suicidal?” Vuxten asked.

Casey shook his head. ”No. I wasn't suicidal. It was just... everything was too small suddenly. We're an emotional people, it's part of our culture,” he sighed and ran his hand through his hair. ”It wasn't that long ago that we still did Carousel. Dead at 31.”

He looked up. ”I was in the militia already,” Casey said. ”I don't really think of it that often any more,” he gave a sigh. ”She had flawless blue eyes, hair so black it was almost blue. Her laugh brightened everything. She loved Old French poetry and British Empire epics and would read them in their original languages. She painted little ceramic figurines. She wanted to be a potter. We met in school.”

Vuxten stayed still.

”We were young, we were in love, but the Genetic Pairing Council paired her up with someone else,” he gave a sigh. ”She was happy with him. They completed each other. I was happy for her, but I still felt lost and adrift without her. The Genetic Pairing Council Computer said there were no viable matching for me that year, try again next year, so I left.”

He shook his head. ”I took a junker out. Junkers showed up like once or twice a year and I got lucky. I was wandering around the old spaceport, which largely went unused for anything really, we were isolated and happy that way. When we got to Rigel-5, I discovered that as a Tabulan I had dual citizenship due to the Foundation Documents.”

”And you joined Space Force,” Vuxten guessed.

Casey nodded. ”I needed somewhere to belong. I belonged back home, and I missed it. So I joined up.”

”And you went back later?” Vuxten asked.

”Once. After my first enlistment was up. I did ten years, got a waiver for my other forty years of obligation, and went home,” he sighed, made a fist, and looked at his forearm. ”I'd taken longevity treatments. It was part of the benefits.”

He relaxed his fist.

”I wasn't even allowed out of the space port. I got back on the junker and left, came back, signed back up and the rest is almost forgotten history,” Casey said.

”Never went back?” Vuxten asked.

Casey shook his head. ”Exile. I appealed it, they pointed out that my DNA was altered and I could no longer father children. It wasn't that I broke a religious tenet, it was that I broke a social tenet,” he shrugged. ”Water under the bridge, sir.”

Vuxten waited a minute. ”There's something you need to know. Something nobody told you because nobody knew to tell you,” he paused. ”It's classified data. If they don't want me sharing this, then they can file court martial charges on me and be damned with them.”

Casey shook his head. ”Sir, whatever it is, I doubt it's worth your career.”

”It has to do with Tabula,” Vuxten said.

”What? They joined the Confederacy?” Casey gave a slight snicker. ”I can see the Blood Council bending to the Confederacy's Twelve Basic Rights.”

”It's gone,” Vuxten said, just ripping the bandage off.

Casey froze.

”Wiped out. Completely. Recon showed that the planet's dead. Barren. Just a few destroyed cities covered by shattered domes, dirt, and weeds. Not a single living being beyond bacteria and small water and soil based organisms,” Vuxten said.

Casey clenched his fists. His eye began glowing amber.

”It looked like, to the recon team, that it was a Lanaktallan bioweapon attack,” Vuxten said.