The Lost Aria (Earth Song Book 3) Read online

  “Poetic,” Minu offered.

  “And improbable,” Bjorn laughed.

  “Sure, sure. The last theory, and the one I subscribe to, is of an ancient species, maybe the oldest in the galaxy, maybe from outside our galaxy, was possibly the first to become a space borne species. They then went around helping every species they found bootstrap themselves up and or rescuing those about to die.”

  “Much more probable,” Bjorn nodded, Minu as well.

  “But what happened to them?” Minu asked.

  “Who knows,” Bjorn shrugged and finished his drink with a flourish. “Long gone. What was the first civilization on earth? No one knows, and there was probably no evidence left.”

  “Yes,” Minu said, then added, “but they weren't a super technologically advanced species spanning millions of light years of space and responsible for creating an empire that encompasses an entire galaxy.”

  “Maybe they pissed someone off,” Ted suggested.

  “As good an explanation as any other,” Bjorn said with a sense of finality.

  “What do you call them, Ted?”

  “The Lost.”

  Minu thought that if it didn't matter, or was that cut and dried, then why had Strong Arm brought it up? Were they the Lost, as Ted called them? No, it just didn't feel right. She couldn't believe that a species so powerful, so potentially benevolent, could become nothing more than nameless wanderers. No, they weren't the Lost, but they knew more than they'd told. The others with Strong Arm made it obvious they didn't like what little he had said.

  “So how comes the War College?” Ted asked.

  Minu spent a few minutes talking about the reactions she'd gotten to the first semester of classes as well as the students. A nearly even mixture of the curious and the seriously interested. “I've given a lot of thought to your theories of the Concordia.”

  Ted nodded his head and watched her with his perceptive eyes. “And what conclusion have you come to?”

  “That you are right, the Concordia are in decline. It is all but obvious.” He nodded to her and smiled; Bjorn just scratched his chin and listened. The two had developed their theory long before Minu was born, and did so with her father, Chriso. “The real question is why.”

  “Bingo!” Bjorn cheered, gesturing with his drink and sending an arc or fluid across the room. Minu looked confused and he waved her off with the same hand, forcing her to duck the spray. “How could they begin this contraction, this decline? No signs of major wars, at least for eons, and no evidence of internal decay beyond the typical avarice and hubris you see of egotistical types like these so called higher order species.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?” Ted wondered.

  “Nothing, now. My field time is limited. But that doesn't mean I've stopped developing for the Rangers and such.”

  “Oh, really?” Bjorn looked excited. “Please, do tell?”

  “Have you ever heard of combined munitions? They were a type of artillery under development before Earth was destroyed. And what about rockets or missiles or artillery?”

  “The Concordia don't use them,” Bjorn told her with authority. “A few youngsters like us employ chemical powered rounds, and some are big enough to be artillery, but no combined rounds if I'm familiar enough with what you are referring. And as for missiles, I can't say I've ever seen them anywhere in the Concordia.” Ted nodded in agreement and took a sip of his tea.

  “Might be worth pursuing. What about nuclear weapons?” Minu asked.

  The normally proper Ted spat his tea out, almost choking on it. “What, are you mad?”

  “No, just curious.”

  “I'm sure they wouldn't. I mean, it would be insane, wouldn't it?”

  “Really?” Bjorn wondered aloud, nonplussed by the tea on his shirt, “I wouldn't be so sure.” Ted gave him a look as if the older man just suggested they go running through the complex naked. “There is ample evidence that the Concordia, at least in the past, had the capability to destroy entire worlds!”

  “Exactly, so why bother with nuclear bombs?”

  “You can't run, until you walk, or crawl.”

  “Boys, give it a rest.” They both turned to Minu, remembering that she was there. “My question is could we build them if we wanted to?”

  “This planet is so poor in heavy metals that I doubt it,” Ted said.

  “We've encountered plenty of radioactive elements on other worlds,” Bjorn prompted. “In fact, I recall a sensor survey from the one trip our people took to Remus that it is lousy with several uranium isotopes! As for actually building it, the plans are lacking in the Concordian database given to us by the Tog, but I have at least two legacy files from Earth with detailed plans including how to enrich uranium or make a breeder reactor to produce plutonium...”

  “The only real challenge would be building the cyclotrons, or centrifuges,” Ted was forced to agree. “The rest is just fancy explosives, designs, and some inherently risky engineering work.”

  “Have either of you heard about progress made with calibrating Concordian high tech medical devices, like the cerebral nano-bots I read about?”

  Ted and Bjorn looked at each other then around the room. They both knew why she was asking, Pip was not only a friend, he was Bjorn's nephew. “They're continuing to work on it,” Ted told her. For a time they all sat quietly, each with their own thoughts.

  “What if I said I think I might have a track on a matching physiological codex,” she said and held up her right hand.

  “I thought Tasker said we have a good sized stock pile of those cybernetics? I mean, they're not perfect, but they're perfectly attuned to our physiology.”

  “If you don't mind gray skin,” Bjorn added.

  “And three fingers,” Minu said and flipped them her unique bird. “Arms and legs are nice, but I'm talking about the whole deal.”

  “Full physiological/biological codex?” She nodded her head and he smirked. “That would be something.”

  “There aren't any other hominids around,” Bjorn said, “all we have to work with is leftovers from a species long gone.”

  “Why aren't there more hominids?” Minu asked. “It doesn't seem to make sense. I mean, look at how many species there are with similar bilateral symmetry!”

  “The young lady has a point, even the snakes look a little like us from the chest up.” Minu and Bjorn both shivered at Ted's comparison between humanity and arguably the most dangerous species in the galaxy.

  “So how come the monkey descendants get such a raw deal?” she renewed the question.

  “I don't know,” Bjorn said, “but I want to know more about the codex you have a line on.”

  “It's no guarantee, mind you, but I have some good leads. Good enough that I'm thinking of going off the leash on this one.”

  They were silent again as it sank in. Taking a team and going without filing a plan, or getting permission, was akin to mutiny. You didn't do that without a good reason. “You know,” Bjorn said and pointed at her, “there is no small amount of irony that it is you talking about that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the only other Chosen to ever do that, and come back, was your dad.” She looked at Ted who nodded his head.

  “Then why wasn't he disciplined, or something? I've never heard about it.”

  Bjorn gestured to Ted to let him explain. “When you go against orders, you better have a real good reason, or bring something back worth the risk. Chriso didn't have a good reason, but he did manage to bring back something that was worth it. About a thousand medium sized EPC, fully loaded. Damned things looked like they were brand new, right out of the box.”

  “I've never seen an EPC that didn't look like it was rolled down at least one flight of stairs,” said Minu.

  “Neither had I, until that day. He obstinately refused to say where he'd found them.”

  Bjorn nodded his head and laughed. “Jovich was fit to be tied.”

  “That was when J
ovich was still First?”

  “Yep, in fact your father was only a four star. The council, myself included, saved his bacon. We were pretty poor, in credits and power back then. A good part of our industry and capabilities today are a result of that cache of EPC he brought back. Of course now that golden pile would have lasted maybe a month, back then it was years.”

  Seems every time someone talks about my father, I learn something more. She made a mental note to read through his logs and see where he'd found those capacitors. She leaned back and a pain jabbed in her abdomen. She hissed in pain and bent slightly forward.

  “You okay?” Ted asked.

  “Yeah, just girl stuff.”

  “Ah. Well, please keep us in the loop on your plans.”

  As the meeting broke up and she gave both men hugs and kisses on the cheek, being careful of where Ted put his hands. She was walking down the hall towards the garage, doing her best to ignore the stabs of pain in her abdomen from each step, when someone called her name.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Are you Chosen Alma?”

  “Yes,” she said and turned to face the young man wearing five silver stars, “what can I do for you.”

  “Dr. Rico sent me to get you; he heard you were in the facility.” Dr. Rico, she thought, trying to recall the name. “I've been running all over the building, always a couple steps behind you.”

  “Did you consider having an operator page me?” He looked crestfallen, then embarrassed. “Never mind, what does this Dr. Rico...” she suddenly remembered him, “the xenophysician, want with me?”

  “It is his patient, the Tanam. She wants to see you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, she asked for you by name.”

  “So lead the way.”

  Chapter 8

  December 16th, 521 AE

  Secure Medical Ward, Chosen Headquarters, Steven's Pass, Bellatrix

  The young Dr. Julio Rico met her outside the small special needs wing of the Steven’s Pass hospital. It was the same place her cybernetic arm was implanted, that job now moved to a new high tech hospital in Tranquility. Now they were using it as an isolation ward for the amazingly still alive Tanam. As when she first met the doctor more than half a year ago, he was not happy with her, only this time she wasn't doped up with mangled legs. “You bellowed for me?” she asked as she walked up.

  “You seem to be doing well,” he said as he watched how she walked.

  “Well enough, what’s going on?'

  “Seela wants to talk to you.”

  “Why would the cat I shot up want to talk to me?”

  “She wouldn't say.”

  “Weren't we going to ransom her back?”

  “I think that was the council's plan, but we can't reach their leadership through diplomatic channels. I don't think they want to talk to us.”

  “Maybe not, after we kicked their asses and ended up with a thousand tons of their best gear.” The high point of the whole adventure was the goodies list afterwards. The two dozen transports abandoned by the Tanam in the hasty retreat she'd forced on them were worth millions. The heavy energy weapons many times that. To rub salt in the wound, Gregg and the Rangers had turned back two raids on Coorson last month. The Traaga were ecstatic and more contract offers came in daily. “Is she restrained?”

  “She's lost a mid-arm, and her left hip is pieced together from scraps of that lost leg.”

  “And that makes a difference, how? These damn cats start at three hundred kilos, and just get bigger. I watched one tear a man’s head off without a strain. Now, is she restrained?”

  “There is an on demand hoverfield that would crush her to the floor should she move off the bed without permission, and two of your Rangers are there with those horrendous shocking rifles.”

  “Shock rifles,” she grumbled and slipped by him into the room.

  She immediately recognized the two Rangers on guard duty by face if not by name. Both were expert marksman with the Shock Rifles, and veterans of the Tanam campaign. They each held their rifles across their arms; at rest but able to bring them to bear in a heartbeat. She nodded to them and got the same in reply. On two beds combined into one large one lay the recovering Tanam, and she was watching Minu intently with all four front eyes. “You are the human who shot me.”

  “I am,” Minu said, “Minu Alma, Chosen in service to the Tog.”

  “I am Seela, Second Daughter to the Matriarch of Tanam.”

  “Second Daughter? I would think your mom would be desperate to get you back.”

  “Before now I would have thought the same though I am not first born, I am senior among my siblings.”

  “Who was the one I killed?”

  “Kelaa? She was youngest and lowest in status. Her impetuousness and impatience was her downfall, and when she met you in combat ultimately her undoing.” Minu just nodded her head. “The fact that you have not ransomed me says either you are lawless beasts and mean me ill; unlikely since my injuries are being tended to, or that you cannot contact my government.”

  “The latter,” Minu confirmed for her prisoner.

  “Then it would be better were you to simply kill me, though it seems illogical. Can you tell me what transpired after my wounds rendered me unconscious? These very well disciplined soldiers of yours will not tell me. They are not Chosen, are they?”

  “No, they are called Rangers, a new soldiery that I have trained personally. They are the troops you met in combat on Serengeti.”

  “And likely the reason for my being a prisoner. We did not expect a young species, not yet Awakened such as you, to muster a true army. Most unusual. You are to be complimented.”

  “Thank you. I don't see any reason why you can't know the outcome after our encounter.” Minu took an empty chair and told Seela how it all ended, including a brief but detailed blow-by-blow of the fight with her sister Veka and ending in Minu ripping her tongue out, and almost losing her legs.

  “You truly tore her tongue out with your bare hand? I find this dubious at best.”

  Minu held up her two hands, side by side, for the Tanam to see. “This one is real, this one is cybernetic.”

  “Unfortunate for my sister. And you stabbed her in the eye with a knife. It is possible she is dead then.”

  “I'm sorry, but I have no way of knowing.”

  “Of course. Well, I thank you for treating me as an equal and coming to speak.”

  “Your actions during combat and afterwards proves you are deserving of it.” She thought for a second then remembered a question she wanted to ask. “When I spoke with Veka before she challenged me, she referred to the freed Squeen as Gracktaag.” Minu struggled to get her lips around the Tanam word and seemed to manage from the look Seela gave her. “What does that word mean?”

  “You are not awakened, I cannot help you.”

  Minu nodded and left with another piece of the puzzle. Her translator would not handle the word, and that meant it was part of the language dictionary not uploaded to them through the Concordia database. Like everything else, it was all tangled up with the 'Awakened' subject. “This is getting old,” she said as she walked by the doctor on the way out. He looked confused as she addressed him directly. “Will she recover completely?”

  “Without access to their codex of medical therapies, I can't fix the lost arm, but I've managed to fix the leg at least well enough that she'll be able to walk.”

  “Has Jacob said anything about her fate?”

  “I think he's ordered her held indefinitely and he was to be informed when she was well enough to travel.”

  “Do me a favor?”

  He made a face and shrugged, so she took it as a positive. “Let me know when you make that call?”

  “I can do that.”

  “Thanks,” she said and turned to leave. Her meeting completed she planned to spend a long overdue weekend at the island to unwind before going back to the training center.

  All during her interview with Seela
her side hurt her intermittently with random pains of varying intensities. As she walked out to her car another stab of pain went through her middle. What she'd thought at first was her period starting was obviously something else. The pain was different, and in the wrong place. Hoping it would settle out or just go away, she guided her car from the garage and into the afternoon sky.

  An hour into the four hour flight to her island the pain was getting to be too much. She'd resisted reaching into the combat pack stashed behind her seat for a pain pill until now, and when another shot of pain hit hard enough to make her yelp, she gave in and reached for the pack. The flexing of her torso to reach over the back seat sent a lance of agony through her stomach and out her back. Lights went off behind her eyes, and then everything went dark.

  Minu came to with the blaring of the aerocar control system so loud it hurt her ears. Even before she was fully conscious she was checking the controls and struggling to concentrate through the stabbing pain in her side. The car was in level flight at ten thousand meters, on the same course and slowed to two hundred KPH. She'd been cruising at fifty thousand meters and going over five hundred KPH when she blacked out. Of course she'd been on manual control then too.

  With her sight clearing she checked the log. Once she lost control the craft plummeted four kilometers. As the ground approached the computer took over and saved her life. She thanked whatever God was listening that even basic Concordian technology was so infallible, and then started looking for the nearest city of any size. To her painful amusement, it was Tranquility.

  Minu accelerated the car and set the course, carefully programming it into the computer before struggling to find a comfortable way to sit. There didn't seem to be any good way. Reclining the seat slightly, she lifted her shirt and examined herself. There, a few centimeters below her left breast, was an angry blue/black bruise. “Where the hell did that come from?” she wondered. It was in the right place for a broken rib, but no one had laid a hand on her there in at least a week. She probed it with a finger and pain shot deep into her insides. Not a rib, but something more sinister.