Tides of Mars (Omnibus Version) Read online

  “In that case Highness, you might consider stopping in the Marine barracks; I think they’re convinced that the WWE is real. I get five or six requests to ‘go fix the problem’ whenever they get to see another episode or event,” The Captain said, trying hard not to laugh at the stupidity of Marines.

  Sean cocked her head to one side. “Go ahead.” It was obvious she was listening to something no one else could hear. When it was finished, she acknowledged it, then straightened up.

  “Highness, the prisoner is awake, and has asked to see you,” Sean said.

  “Me? What the hell does she want to see me for?” Ariel asked as she started moving toward the door.

  “I’m not certain, Highness, but she’s restrained, and there are no more devices in her. She is also very healthy, so she isn’t carrying any nasty bugs we’re aware of,” Sean said as she followed Ariel.

  Ariel grinned back at her friend. “What about the bugs we’re not aware of?”

  Without missing a beat, Sean replied as straight as she could, “Oh, that test will be finished once your meeting with her is over.”

  The two marine guards at the door were turning really interesting shades of red in their efforts to remain looking stern and foreboding whilst trying to suppress laughter. Bri’tell and the other guard were openly chuckling at the joke. However the Captain only grinned.

  “Is the Captain alright?” Ariel asked once the bridge doors had closed. “Those are some wild mood swings, for a command officer.”

  Sean nodded her head in agreement. “Normally, such behavior would warrant a psych eval. Captain Tylersm of the Righteous Fire was her best friend since they learned to walk. With the exception of D’vrese, he was also the father of her children.”

  “Damn, and I was in there cracking jokes!” Ariel said, sadly. “I hope I didn’t hurt or offend her. She seems like a really nice person.”

  “Of all the Celestial Class Battleship Captains I’ve met, she is the sweetest, but also the most ruthless. I don’t know if you noticed, but she was only wearing soft-soled slippers while on duty, instead of boots. If she has to commit the Divine Light to battle, she has an almost supernatural ability to ‘feel’ her ship, and the battlefield around her. If she ever takes her slippers off, a lot of people are about to die,” Sean explained. “It’s the main reason I picked her as my Flag Captain. Once the paperwork has a chance to bounce off Aldus Forward, she’ll get a promotion to Fleet Commodore. It gives her the power of a rear admiral, but only within our fleet. Outside the fleet, she is treated as a high ranking Senior Captain.”

  They arrived at what looked like the door to Sean’s quarters. Sean motioned to Bri’tell and the other marine to take positions by the door. “Better yet, why don’t you guys head down to the armory for the ceremonial armor. We’ll wait here for you. Once you get back, and we’re all looking the part, we’ll head down to the hospital.”

  When Bri’tell looked at Ariel to see if she agreed, he offered her his pulse rifle. Ariel patted the .45 1911 in her shoulder rig, and shook her head at him. Bri’tell nodded and bowed his head at the same time before heading down the hall to the transport tube.

  “Highness, with your permission, I’d like to take Wendy to Tal’ba’s quarters so we can change, then go back down to the Maintenance Shack. I think it would be good for her training to get to know more of ship design,” Thorn asked.

  Before Ariel could answer, Sean cut in. “You better not let Tal’ba catch you two naked in the same room without her! You’ll be catch no end of hell for it!”

  Wendy looked thoughtful. “Hmm, why does that threat not scare me in the slightest?”

  Ariel chuckled with the rest and told them to get out of there. “Now that their gone, Sean, why are we here?” Ariel asked in curiosity.

  Sean tried not to smile. “I don’t think you noticed yet, but almost all the work stops the instant people know you’re in the area. The reason is not just because of your position, but what you’re wearing. Highness, with respect, you are one very fine looking lady. However, I was hoping I could talk you into changing before I had to start putting people in hack for dereliction. That skin-suit is very distracting.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Uh, sorry. I’m used to not worrying about what I’m wearing, so I simply didn’t notice. I’ll have to get something from you though, since all my stuff was destroyed with the mansion,” Ariel replied blushing a bit.

  “I can get a uniform for you, Highness?” Sean asked, still grinning softly.

  Ariel gave Sean a sideways glance. “You know, I walked all the way from the hanger deck to the bridge, then spent some time talking to you, then the rest of the bridge. Why didn’t you let me know I was that large of a distraction earlier?”

  “Two reasons, Highness. First, the more of the crew that discovers an attraction for you, the more they will follow you when the time comes. You are very beautiful; I was giving you the opportunity to use that to your advantage with the crew. Your image was captured at least a thousand times today. I can easily promise that at least some of those will have been seen by our entire personnel compliment. No matter what their orientation, most all of them will be very attracted to you. You can use that as a foundation to build on. The more they get to know and trust you, the less they’re going to feel like traitors when we start our real mission,” Sean explained.

  “Okay, I guess that makes sense,” Ariel replied as she began pulling on a standard work uniform. “So what was the other reason?”

  Sean rapidly typed on her terminal and a full-color, life-sized, three-dimensional hologram of Ariel in her skin-suit formed beside her. Ariel could see just how incredibly sexy she was in the black garment.

  When Ariel looked back at Sean, the older woman had such an innocent look on her face that Ariel burst out laughing. “You are so bad!”

  When Ariel and Sean got to Medical, they found the woman sitting in her room, quietly crying.

  “You asked to see me?” Ariel asked the woman as Bri’tell and her other guard took up position in the room.

  “Yes, Highness. Before you have me executed, I wanted you to know that I’m from Earth. I was born in Minneapolis, myself and three of my girlfriends were abducted from Daytona Beach during Spring Break in 1986. We were beaten and raped repeatedly, then sold as slaves. I was given to the animal you killed in the park as payment to kill you.” The woman sobbed again, but tried to keep her composure.

  “I knew the bag I was told to carry was most likely a bomb, but I didn’t know it was that kind of bomb. I was given a gun, and told to kill you, or I would die in your place. I would have shot him and made a break for it, but he told me that would be a very bad thing. I didn’t know what he was talking about until you shot him. He had a gadget on him that was linked to the bomb somehow. When he died, the bomb was activated. I was trying to find the off button when I was knocked out,” the woman said.

  “If you’re from Earth, how do you know who I am?” Ariel asked.

  “I was held for years, Highness. It took us a while to learn the language and figure out what was going on, but we did eventually. Then after Lae Tannen dragged me aboard the Caldinnan he showed an image of you to me and the crew. He told us that we’d been contracted by a very powerful lord to assassinate the Imperial Heir on Earth. He ordered all of us to study the file he’d gotten on you so we knew who we were dealing with,” the woman said.

  Ariel nodded her acceptance of the answers. “What’s your name, and do you remember where Lae Tannen parked the ship?”

  The woman wiped her eyes with her hands and tried to sit up higher. “I’m Kaitlin Collins; but I go by Kate. Tannen was really paranoid about that ship.

  “When we got here, and the crew saw all these big warships, they started to panic. Tannen just grinned like a shark, and told them not to worry he got some super-secret new cloaking device from a slaver friend of his. They didn’t believe him at first, but once they figured out that no one was chasing us, t
hey settled down.

  “When we all left the ship to go kill you, he told them they’d better make damn sure he survived because if he died, the ship would blow up. He’d landed in an empty lot; but we had to be near the strip because I could see a few of the big casinos. Hell, we were almost right underneath one of them. I think it might have been The Palms, but it was hard to read the sign from our angle. It was my first time in Las Vegas, so I had no clue where we really were.

  “He left the cloak on, and when we got a few feet from the ship, I was hit with an intense pain, like I was being turned inside out. I fell forward to the ground, and threw up, but the pain was already going away. The rest of the crew had the same reaction except for Tannen. The bastard just stood there and laughed his ass off. Once everyone was back on their feet, Tannen gave them something called a temporal stabilizer or something. He said they’d need it to get to the ship again.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the interrogator this stuff, Kate?” Ariel asked.

  “No one but you has asked me anything Highness. I know I’ll be put to death for what we tried to do, but at least everything turned out alright, and no one got hurt,” Kate said wistfully.

  “Has no one told you what happened after we captured you?” Ariel asked.

  “Uh... no. Since I’ve been allowed to live this long, I just assumed that nothing really bad had happened,” Kate replied.

  Ariel believed the girl was speaking the truth, so she made a decision. Ariel spoke to the room at large. “Admiral, can you please replay the events beginning right before Miss Collins was taken into custody?”

  On the wall to one side, a screen came to life and the lights in the room dimmed. The scene that played out was very graphic, and gave Ariel a frightening perspective of the events of the evening. Finally, they watched the detonation of the Righteous Fire, and moments later the bomb that Kate had been carrying. Ariel asked for it to be stopped.

  Kate was crying, and had her head in her hands. “How many... How bad is it?”

  “The officials on Earth may never know for certain, but our ships calculate the death toll on the planet to be one hundred forty-seven thousand, six hundred and ninety-three. An additional seventy-two were killed aboard the Righteous Fire.

  “Fifty-four thousand are wounded, twelve thousand seriously, seventy-five hundred, critically. The Palms hotel tower collapsed, I think we know why now. There are at least twenty thousand more homeless,” Ariel said, as gently as she could. “If the Righteous Fire had not taken that bomb away from the planet, there’s a very good chance Earth would be gone.

  Kate shuddered. “Before you have me executed Highness, I would like everyone to know if I had known what was going to happen, I’d have made Tannen shoot me at the ship.”

  “That wouldn’t have mattered except for the fact that we wouldn’t have known about the bomb at all then, and it would have detonated in down-town Las Vegas when Tannen was killed.” Ariel said dismissing her self-blame. “The real question is; who gave Lae Tannen his orders, and who gave him that firecracker?”

  “I imagine it’s the ‘Powerful Lord’ that Tannen told us about. I am sorry I can’t be more helpful, Highness,” Kate replied.

  “Ariel, she’s telling the truth as far as she knows. She could have been made to believe these events are the truth, but in this situation, I find that to be very unlikely,” Cole reported.

  “Does she have the genetic markers needed to become a guardian?” Ariel asked silently.

  “Negative, although she does have higher than normal intelligence indicators,” came the AI’s reply. “Her past school records show that she would most likely have gotten a doctorate in Mathematics or Computer Science.”

  Ariel considered for a moment. “Do you think she’s trustworthy, Cole?”

  “Unless there is some very deeply ingrained programming we can’t detect, she is free from the control of her ex-captors. However, it may be that her personality is such that she couldn’t keep us a secret,” Cole replied.

  “I don’t intend to set her free on the planet, Cole, She’d be a target then. No, I was thinking about giving her the opportunity to finish her education here on the ship, and later on the base,” Ariel replied.

  “Ah, I see. In that event, yes, I do believe she’s trust-worthy.”

  Ariel nodded in agreement. “Guard? Would you please remove her restraints?”

  “Highness?” Kate asked.

  “Miss Collins, I intend to pardon you, since you were an unwilling participant and had no idea of the repercussions the actions on the planet would be. However, that being said, I think simply releasing you back on the planet might be a complicated solution. You’ve been gone long enough that the state declared you dead. You’re family held a funeral for you so they could move on with their lives. You would have no way to tell them where you’ve been for the last nine and a half years, and a medical examination would generate more unanswerable questions.

  “I also believe that if we put you back on the planet, the bastards that took you in the first place would either recapture, or simply kill you. Even though they know we wouldn’t release you until we were satisfied we had all the information you could give us, they wouldn’t be willing to risk a memory surfacing that would identify someone important.

  “So, how would you like to be allowed to finish your education either up here, or on the base I plan on building? From looking at your old school records, we could sure use your help!”

  Kate looked very surprised. “P... please call me Kate, Highness. If it were my decision, I’d ask to stay off planet anyway. I do love and miss my family, but I don’t want to put them through all the grief my return would bring them. I’m dead down there, I think it would be best if I stayed that way. Besides, I’d love to learn how these computers and AI work! I only wish I could do something to stop the raping bastards from taking more people,” the woman finished.

  Ariel gave her a half-grin. “We’re already working on that. Come on, I wanna introduce you to a couple friends of mine.” She looked to the ceiling. “Admiral, I’m releasing Miss Collins, and ordering all charges dropped. I’d like to take her to see Denise and Tara.”

  “I’ll ask the Purser to assign quarters to her near the engineering crew. How should I list her?” Sean asked through the speakers.

  “Civilian; a free citizen of House Parker. Occupation; Student. I’ll sponsor her until one of her instructors picks her up. Upon ‘graduation’ she can either remain a member of My House, or she can claim neutrality as a citizen of the Federation.”

  Kate snorted. “If you’re going after those bastards that took me and the others, you can pretty much count on me staying with you, Highness.”

  “Trust me here, you’re welcome. Now, I think you might like these two. They’re together, but both are really sweet ladies. Denise is one of the top engineers on the ship, and Tara is studying hard to catch up to her,” Ariel said.

  Kate looked excited as Ariel and Sean led her to the area where Ariel’s engineers were continuing to make adjustments to the detection network and to integrate and analyze the latest data from the pursuit fighters, and ship’s sensors. The room they finally arrived at looked like the inside of a computer to Ariel. White-shirted techs were moving about aiding the researchers as much as they could.

  When Denise saw Ariel and Sean, she and Tara approached them excitedly. “Highness, we’ve made some progress on the slaver’s cloaking device! It’s not actually a cloak at all; it’s some kind of temporal displacement generator!”

  Sean looked confused, but Kate was whispering to her, and Sean was nodding her understanding shortly.

  “I had no idea something like that was even possible! Any idea how they’re doing it, or more importantly how to track them?” Ariel asked.

  Denise shook her head. “Not yet, Highness. We’re trying to calculate how far ahead they’ve gone, but haven’t gotten it yet. It can’t be far though; temporal shear would rip them to shreds if the
y’d gone very far.”

  “I’m sorry, I know I’m the new girl here, but I don’t think it was a forward shift. It had to be backwards, and if it was, they could theoretically be just about any-when,” Kate offered.

  Both Denise and Tara looked very interested, and Tara asked her to explain. Before the three women could disappear into the place only engineers know, Ariel made introductions. She did wonder if the women even heard her as Tara and Denise pulled her with them over to a holographic, three-dimensional ‘white board’.

  Sean chuckled as she watched the young women. “She sure fit right in with this crowd; I’d say she’s found a new home.”

  “Damn! Look at her go! I thought she’d need to finish her education before she could jump in this deep!” Ariel replied in awe. “I’m starting to feel a little intimidated.”

  “Don’t worry about it too much Highness, it’s simply a matter of your skills being in a different discipline,” Sean said as they led Ariel’s guards out of the room.

  “You know, I’m whacked. I think I’ll go see if Cole’s done, and see about getting some sleep,” Ariel said tiredly, excusing herself from Sean who looked almost as tired as Ariel.

  “Ariel, you know I’ve been finished for over an hour. However, I do have your cabin ready. Would you like a meal before you sleep?” Cole asked.

  “Where did all our people finally end up?” Ariel asked her friend.

  “Most of the household guard and temporary staff returned to the surface with Lady Parker. Tewney’s loaning a bunk to Wendy for the night, John and Betty are staying with Sean, of course, and finally Tara and Denise are sharing quarters right next to our newest member Kate,” Cole reported. “Everyone’s safe for the night, Highness.”

  “You know, it never occurred to me, but the better part of this fleet are fairly close to Earth, and should be easily visible. After the celestial fireworks from earlier, they have to be looking skyward. How badly is the planet freaking out?” Ariel asked.