Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Sergeant Jackson Hills straightened the lapels on his uniform jacket as he strode down the corridor to deliver unfortunate news to the prime minister.
Minister Emil Bellica was an exacting man, and keeping a tidy appearance was a well known way to temper his wrath if one had to deliver unpleasant information.
Hill’s gaze flicked down to his feet, and he noted a small scuff near the toe of his left boot.
He wondered if he could buff it out on a quick trip to the lavatory.
Focusing on the minutiae of his appearance was the only thing keeping his racing pulse in check.
Hills’s heart had been beating in overdrive ever since he’d answered the distress call from the Amplifier research outpost earlier that evening.
It was supposed to be a relaxing post. It had turned out to be anything but.
Nothing of note ever happened on that patrol; the sector was nearly deserted and the medivessel was run like clockwork by research droids.
The Amplifier was compliant, and would be for the foreseeable future.
So when the alarm sounded on the dash of his patrol vessel, Hills had assumed that the system was in need of an update.
Procedure stated he had to disable the alert from inside the medivessel, and so he plugged in the coordinates and went back to the novel he was reading.
There was absolutely no reason to hurry toward a false alarm.
Two hours and six chapters later, Hills had arrived.
He shoved an old fast food receipt into the pages of his book and suited up to switch between ships.
The airlock recognized his security implant, and the chamber went through its re-pressurization process while Hills spent the minutes wondering how long it took to master lassoing on horseback. He had some vacation time coming up.
The indicator lights dinged, and Hills removed his helmet.
He waved his wrist at the door panels, and the system pinged as it his security implant.
The moment the doors slid open, his stomach dropped.
Instead of a sterile entryway with an inactive droid behind the counter, Hills was greeted by a twisted mass of droid limbs that obscured the security checkpoint from view.
Hills had reached for his sidearm, a non-lethal blaster that would subdue the average humanoid, and started to clear the medivessel.
The research labs all seemed to be in working order.
None of the data had been compromised. The droids that manned those labs had remained powered down, their scheduled testing not planned for two more rotations.
The pile of droids seemed to be comprised entirely of the Security droids that had been stored in the entry level storage unit.
He climbed the stairs to the second level, dread flooding his system with every step.
Knowing he would find the stasis pod empty didn’t prevent the abject shock Hills experienced when he arrived at the chamber door.
The pod was left in the open position, and the rest of the chamber was left in disarray that was unusual for the occupant, regardless of stasis status.
Reports always classified the Amplifier as neat, polite, compliant.
The chamber looked picked over, drawers and doors left open, contents spilling out.
Hills wasn’t familiar with the contents of the Amplifier’s drawers and didn’t bother to attempt to catalog the contents.
What mattered most was that the Amplifier was MIA.
Who cared about the number of pajamas left behind?
Hills returned to the security checkpoint and turned the alarm off.
He filled out the incident report, and then spent an hour waiting for technical to show up with the tools to determine how the breach had happened.
Halfway through their analysis, his lieutenant informed him that he would be giving a report to the prime minister personally.
That was when Hills had started to hyperventilate.
Now he was moments away from meeting the prime minister, and that feeling of dread hadn’t dissipated.
Hills ducked into the lavatory on the right and gave himself a once over.
He buffed out the scuff on his boot and smoothed his hair down.
He wished he had tweezers to pluck an errant eyebrow hair or two, but Hills acknowledged that level of grooming would really just be stalling.
He took a steadying breath and exited the lavatory, continuing on his way.
The prime minister was finishing his mid-morning coffee in his office when Sergeant Hills knocked on the open door.
Hills felt stupid doing this, but he also would have felt equally stupid clearing his throat, so he went with what felt most polite.
The office was neat, clean, and had no personal items on display.
Dust motes would have to apply for special dispensation to enter the space.
The only acknowledgment that the room was anything other than a normal executive suite was the flag of Bauder in the corner of the room and the seal of the prime minister’s office engraved in the front of the desk.
“Enter. You may close the door behind you, Sergeant Hills.”
Hills gulped and did as he was told. He stood at attention in front of the desk and tried to avoid direct eye contact with Emil Bellica. Hills could feel the PM’s dark eyes boring holes into his chest.
“You wanted to see me, Minister.”
Sitting back in his chair, Emil Bellica laced his fingers together and rotated his thumbs in a circle.
He was a tall man, gaunt, pale with dark hair just starting to gray at the temples, and cold brown eyes.
Not a thread of his dark pinstripe suit or hair of his precisely trimmed goatee was out of place.
The desk he sat behind was ruthlessly organized.
Hills was convinced the In and Out trays were perfectly balanced, but he wasn’t willing to risk a second look at the desk.
“I have read the incident report you have filed, Sergeant. I require a verbal account. Leave out no detail. Nothing is inconsequential.”
Swallowing down his fear, Hills began recounting his experience on the medivessel. The prime minister stopped him occasionally for further questioning, but he got through his report without throwing up on his shoes.
“You seem to have followed procedure to the letter.”
“Yes, sir. We’re all aware of how important the Amplifier is.”
Hills thought he saw a brief smirk on the PM’s face, but it was gone before it really registered.
“The Amplifier is crucial. You must be thirsty after that report.” Bellica pressed a button on the communications panel on his desk. “Janice, bring the sergeant a water.”
Sergeant Hills took another steadying breath. He felt the tension in his shoulders ease a fraction now that the worst was behind him.
I don’t see what all the fuss is about. He’s cold, but not that bad. Professional.
The door behind him opened, and a short, plump woman in a severely cut gray pantsuit brought in a glass of water on a tray and offered it to him.
When he plucked it off the tray, she retreated backward out the door.
Hills took a sip. The cool liquid did wonders for his dry throat. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was.
“Thank you, sir. This was just what I needed.”
“Of that, I have no doubt.” Bellica sat back in his chair again, eyes level over his clasped hands.
Jackson Hills swallowed the last sip of water, then held the glass loosely, unsure of what to do with it.
There were no handy side tables cluttering up the PM’s office.
Pins and needles began to tingle in his fingers and toes, spreading up his limbs.
The perfect posture he’d maintained throughout the debriefing became impossible to maintain.
The glass slid from his fingers and rolled across the ground, stopping at the base of the desk.
Hills’ knees buckled and he fell, face forward on the floor at Emil Bellica’s feet as the paralytic agent took effect.
Okay, so the stories were true.
Bellica pressed the button on his communications panel again. “Janice, you may send in the cleanup crew. I need someone to contact the Witch. We need the Twins.”
Halfway through Sergeant Hills’ debriefing, Emil Bellica knew he’d have to see the medivessel with his own eyes.
While Hills’ report had been thorough, there was no telling what effect the sudden disappearance of the Amplifier would have on the success of his projects, not until he could see the energy tanks himself.
He spent the journey reviewing budgetary spreadsheets and bids for future construction projects, a new training base on a satellite of Tanalia’s moon.
His efficiency was greater than he’d anticipated, and Emil ran out of paperwork before he arrived, and his mind drifted to thoughts concerning the medivessel his ship was hurtling towards.
Few people knew how truly valuable Evelyn’s contributions were to Bauder’s future.
Most had only a nebulous understanding of what the Amplifier did; they assumed her function was strictly for the betterment of the enlisted psionic soldiers.
Emil preferred it that way. His plans were layered, and operating on a need-to-know basis kept intelligence from leaking.
Besides, nearly a hundred years of propaganda and selective retellings of events could easily obscure one princess and her foolish, altruistic self-sacrifice from public memory.
Five years after the Tanalian princess had grudgingly accepted his deal to assist with their psionic military research, Emil knew that the next five would never be enough to get the results he needed to breed the next generation of super soldiers.
People on Bauder kept manifesting useless talents, completely unsuited to field application.
A handful proved promising for intelligence work, and he’d focused on their training heavily.