Chapter 3

###Virgil

General Matilda MacArthur stood up, and spoke to the assembled group. “As many of you may have noticed, Jason has recovered. Some of us have tested the improvements and declare that is true.” There was some hooting, flapping of arms and laughter.

“We have not wanted to overload him with information while he was having his rehabilitation. However, he has had his sessions for the day, and has requested that we continue with the daily routine. For the benefit of us all, I would like to provide an intelligence summary of our findings.

“Following the battle at Orelia, intelligence went through each ship type, and looked at the Mob technology and weapons systems. Surprisingly, our cyber warfare and communications warfare group were able to easily penetrate the AIs within seconds of our arrival, but the computers are more complex than we expected. There is some evidence of a mix of technological levels. We need to analyze their language and computers in more detail before we can intervene in combat. There has been much change since the second Mob war. There has been a large upgrade in these ships compared to the ones we captured.

“Of our cyber-destroyer deployed satellites and drones, some were able to attach to ships. We were able to recover extensive information, all of the currently used information on the ship and a very substantial amount of past information within communications intercepts. We will have a first pass analysis of this data in eight to twelve hours. We have to be careful of systems sabotage and booby-traps.

“However, what we can show you, are the tanks and gunships that they deploy on the ground.”

She showed pictures of small heavily armed shuttles that were designated as tanks. They could carry 8 to 10 soldiers, multiple missiles and had a number of energy weapons. They were capable of traveling into space but were in general carried by larger shuttles.

“The Empire uses similar systems. Their armor, which we were able to analyze, is quite thick; but they don’t have inertial compensation. The tanks are as a consequence much less maneuverable than ours, and their offensive energy systems are very old technology and would struggle to penetrate our shields and armor. That applies to their large cannon and missiles as well. That is part of the explanation for the lesser damage we sustained when we went head-to-head against them.

“Their large assault shuttles carry five hundred soldiers, ten tanks, and two gunships. The gunships can carry fifty soldiers and are largely but not exclusively missile ships. They have a number of small defensive energy systems, and two slightly larger energy weapons in the front, one of which can immobilize the dogs if they can hit them, but nothing of much import. We don’t yet have information on the missiles. The armor is effective. The soldiers carry an energy weapon, but it does take time to penetrate our armor. We were able to analyze this from weapons fire that was observed and our knowledge of the light characteristics of thousands of such weapons scattered through the galaxy.

“We recognized their weapons and know where they have sourced them, or sourced the design. I would propose handing on this material to our relevant groups for their own use, and to brief our people appropriately. Similarly, I have significant information on their missiles and other weapons systems on their fleets. We know that in the past that they appeared to have made significant technological leaps.

“From what we can see so far, there has not been significant improvement in Mob technology since the last war. I don’t know why they have ceased to progress. The Empire improved all older weapons; but as yet we have seen implemented nothing completely new.

“They are very vulnerable to our cyber warfare technology as far as their communications and data is concerned but the actual operation of the newer AIs and computers remains obscure. We penetrated and blocked all communications from Orelia. We can very easily infiltrate their systems with Jason’s dreaded viruses, and the new mutated variants that I’m sure that are even more horrific. As yet we are not convinced it will work, nor we can reverse what we do. We can get into the AIs and computers they have, but we don’t know how the latest generation works.

“We do need to remain cautious. There may be more advanced equipment that we haven’t seen. We chased down some of the missiles that missed. It was a dangerous exercise. They were all booby-trapped. We brought two disabled missiles with us for analysis. We shall report on them later.

“Our mines operated as specified, but now having analyzed their armor and ship architecture we can improve the mines to immobilize capital ships. It is clear that their sensors don’t pick up the mines. While our fleet was on the other side of the gas giant we released our mining probes and auto miners. The rings had mineral and metal filled rocks. The probes and miners returned to us after the battle. We had the opportunity to conduct some strategic mining with great success and we replenished our supplies, and our reserves our are back to a very healthy state as of now. We have also ordered replenishment from Fort Sentinel, the supply planet. Jason you will be pleased to hear we can get another forty-million Combat AIs, one hundred and fifty-thousand small Mechs, and fifty-thousand large ones. We will get all the rest of the assault frigates as no one has ordered them. Morgan said more were made than he expected. We will get four thousand of them. We don’t need to carry them in our ships, we can use them for boarding and as frigates. We can crew them partly with Combat AIs. Realistically we should call them Combat AIs or something like it.

“Most of our unused explosive mines were collected or returned to us and we should have the used ones replaced within hours. Two of our logistics/supply ships transferred all their missiles to our fighting ships and have returned for resupply to Fort Sentinel.

“We have seen their weapons in action. We know the ranges of energy weapons and we know the capacity of the missiles. We will meet again later to discuss our further findings. Information relevant to particular planning groups will be supplied to them.”

Andrea stood to address the group. “We have seen the capacity of the dogs that have offered service to Jason. I would propose that we continue to have dogs separately allocated and managed as if they are ship and ground soldiers. I will be directing ship and fleet activities. Admiral Felicia MacDonald will be in charge of the command of the dogs in attacking other ships. If that is of success we will split the task and I will become involved. Marines involved with the dogs will have their usual command structure.

“General Linda Andrews is in charge of ground-based attack, but will split functions with General Celia Ford. Jason, will the dogs be happy to be commanded by these people, your War-lordship?”

Jason smiled. Rover indicated his support for this proposition with visual imagery. Rover was very enthusiastic. He had taken a great liking to Andrea, Felicia, Celia, and Linda who had fussed over him. He indicated that they would be allocated dogs of their own and pack leaders to assist in the management of the dogs. Rover indicated that this was a usual occurrence and he liked the women generals and admirals.

Rover communicated that a number of the females of the pack would be delighted to follow a female warlord and that these four were no doubt formidable warlords. He also offered dogs to Admiral Peter Kane and to General Morgan James. Rover said he had watched them closely and they were in the upper echelon in his view of warlords that he had known. He said too many warlords were overcome with emotion, particularly rage, and made poor decisions. He said that these men and women had impressed him greatly and he would like Jason to tell them and then he would provide detail.

Jason stood up.

“The dogs are happy with the ideas and will allocate pack leaders to you. They are also happy to allocate dogs to Peter and to Morgan if there is a need in the future.

“From what I have been told about The Mob by Winston, there are two groups of people. There’s the original population, and there’s a group who were refugees that took them over.

“I don’t want to take up your important planning time, so I will just make some brief suggestions. The dogs have great range and great speed. They have greater range than our weapons. We are still five hours away from our target. I suggest they can do reconnaissance and send back images. They can enter ships. They can carry Marines and bombs into the ships. They can create havoc in shuttles. We have not trained them together with Marine AIs, nor with Marines. Let’s get as much practice as we can. We also need to integrate the dogs with our battle computers. I will ask Rover if he can get some more dogs over here for training exercises, and to provide reconnaissance. I don’t know if they can go somewhere if shown a star chart.”

Rover allocated pack leaders to General Celia Ford and Admiral Felicia MacDonald.

Linda sorted out a number of administrative issues with the group about times of meetings and reporting requirements, followed by Andrea who did the same for her naval group. A final planning meeting was arranged to be held in three hours.

“Jason, Linda, and I need to relax, we need a massage and some tender loving care. Let’s head off to your wardroom. Gracious, I forgot about the arm. I don’t know how I could forget! You had better lie back and we will help ourselves relax on your new sword.” Andrea said as she grabbed Jason’s good arm and pulled him gently to join her and Linda as they made their way along the corridor.

They fell into each other’s arms and then Andrea, gently lay him on his back. Relax and let us do all the work.”

Linda gently caressed him and he found himself intimately in both their minds and both of them in his mind. Their lovemaking evolved into one of the most intimate gentle and passionate experiences of his life. Afterward they lay back pleasantly exhausted, one woman on each side.

“Jason, Janet told us you are still consumed with guilt about having a sexual relationship with a woman other than your deceased wife?” Linda asked.

“Yes, even after our wonderful first experience I felt some guilt, even though I fell in love with you, and then Andrea. I even have very strong feelings, I am embarrassed to say, for Celia and Felicia. I then feel guilty about that, as if I am betraying you,” said Jason feeling very awkward. “Then after Marie I also felt guilt, but Janet and Phoebe calmed me down. I am slowly learning to handle the very odd Empire norms. I always regarded myself as a one woman man. Now I find myself in love with a number of women, and it conflicts with all my values. I can’t get rid of feelings and emotions of a lifetime in a few months.

“It’s not the only thing that I’m struggling to grapple with. My life on Earth was a relatively simple one. Life was for the most part simple and pedestrian. I had my wife, I had my children, my friends, my exercise and my work. I had a difficult time in Vietnam fighting a jungle war but I tried to forget it, except for the great friends I made there. I did bad things I never thought I could do. I don’t think I ever left it behind me even now, but I thought I was reconciled to it. Much was good in my life and it was simple and ordered. I had heard about the Empire, but it seemed so distant and very much a fantasy. I grew old, my wife died, and I thought that I was going to die very soon.

“Throughout my life I largely felt that I knew myself. I can’t say that I felt much in the way of any kind of conflict within myself as I got old, though I must admit I hated getting old. My values were very rarely threatened except during the war. Afterward was hard as so many of our people turned against us, but I moved on. I felt I knew what I was doing and I felt competent in my work and at home. In the end when I got really old and started getting frailer, I was reconciled to selling my house and moving into an area with other people of my age.

“All of a sudden everything is thrown into turmoil. Stan arrives, I am accused of helping my wife die, I say farewell to absolutely everyone I know; and off I go on this humongous battleship. I was fully expecting a simple trip, meeting the Emperor, visiting my great-grandfather and helping him manage the Duchy. The Empire was supposed to be this civilized place.

“All of you know what has happened to me. I have had external conflict, I have had internal conflict and my entire value system has been shattered. All the war stuff is back with a vengeance.

“I do often forget or repress my wartime jungle experiences. I certainly had a very difficult time in that war, and I returned very traumatized. In that war I was very frightened on every operation. I lost many people and I did things that disgusted me. I preferred not to speak about it afterwards, and over time the nightmares gradually disappeared. The roles of men and women are reversed in the Empire and my beliefs have been found wanting. I had one wife now I am involved with so many women and will have a multitude of children. This stuff is so unreal and that is not the worst of it. I am divided into parts.

“I feel like I am in three parts. There is the old man from Earth, there is the new man of the Empire, who is some kind of resurrected old man who is young in the Empire. There is this unknown ancient part of me of which I know virtually nothing and it possesses me at times. Lastly there are the crystals that give me powers and some kind of ancillary artificial intelligence. I also have a mystery crystal, that was allegedly destined for a warlord. Lastly, all of the crystals have unified, an unprecedented and unknown event. I can’t forget the Una in a trans-dim pocket. None of this makes sense and too much has happened too quickly. I have cognitive dissonance of major proportions.

“One thing happens after the other, each event appears to be more unlikely or bizarre than the last. This whole adventure confuses me. I find believing that there is an ancient people who have somehow inserted themselves into me, to be very disquieting. I like the idea of having powers and abilities, but every time I develop one of these I encounter something else with equal or greater powers.

“I don’t know what else is out there, but I do know that we are going to face some pretty nasty stuff. I don’t like being in the situation where I’m completely out of control. We are constantly reactive to circumstances and I have lurched around out of control since the priest tried to poison me and we encountered the Pirates.

“I’m not trying in any way to negate wonderful experiences that have happened along the way. I have fallen in love in a way that I never had before, and I have enjoyed levels of intimacy that I did not know even existed.

“The fact that I could help you guys have a life, and then have children with you has been a great blessing.

“Some days when I run with the dogs I think how blessed I am to be living in such an interesting and stimulating time. I feel in many ways fulfilled, far more than I did in my last life, because it does feel like a last life, it is just so different. Other days I wake up in blind terror, having woken from a nightmare of past warfare in the jungle, but with an added element of additional unknown horrors from these times.

“In daylight when I put it all in perspective, I laugh at my guilt and the values that I held in my past life. It is at times of doubt and at times of fear all kinds of thoughts return to haunt me, but enough of all this gloomy stuff. I love you guys both very much and I will be delighted to have children with you and I hope that one day we can have a peaceful life,” said Jason hopefully.

The Gym

Jason looked at his watch and saw that it was early morning. He decided to take his dogs for a run and go to the gym. He needed to test himself, and to know his capabilities before facing any dangerous enemies.

The three dogs were enthusiastic about running with him. He ran quickly and noted he was very fit. This pleased him. They ran to the gym where he did some resistance training before joining his martial arts group.

Staff Sgt. Lucia Pablo was in fine form. She said that it was time for Jason to show them what he could do after he had been hanging around in a medical pod worrying them all.

“I’m going to start off with less challenging opponents and then we will see how you are progressing.”

Jason demolished his first opponent in seconds.

“No more ‘mister nice guy!’ Now you face some real challenges. Let’s see how you go with two people. None of you are to use trans-dim! If I can beat six of the best in competition let us see if you can manage two,” said staff Sgt. Pablo smiling wryly.

Jason fought the first pair who he thought were easily beaten. The second pair was even easier. He dealt with them in seconds. He was very pleased. He felt that he had speeded up considerably.

“Staff Sgt. I do think that I am much faster than I was before. I would like to try six and if I can’t manage that, four. I want to try this as time is short and I think I am going to fight a very dangerous opponent, soon. I need to test myself and my limitations. When I fight the pairs they seem to be in slow motion. I have a lot of spare time to easily defend myself and deliver the necessary killer blows. I’m also feeling very strong. It is easy to counter their blows and push them aside.

“I’m not being boastful or overconfident. I do have an urgent need to be able to test myself.”

Lucia Pablo looked at him and nodded.

“Jason I can see a lot of progress. It’s not an unusual request. Fighting six is a dangerous proposition, you can easily get hurt, or they can get hurt. Give me a minute and I will get an experienced group together for you.”

Lucia went around the gym and selected six Marines. They were a formidable group. They were all group trainers. Four of the women were powerful bodybuilders and martial arts champions and the other two were martial arts specialists and trainers of trainers and were exceptionally fast.

Staff Sgt. Lucia Pablo had always felt that Jason had talent and speed but thought that he was exaggerating the improvement in himself. She chose the trainers as they were the best, but also least likely to cause serious injury or be hurt in such a fight.

She thought that the six outstanding Marines would encourage a little humility in Jason. The whole gym came to a standstill as everyone wanted to watch. Not a single person believed that Jason had a hope. Most people thought that he would not be able to beat a single one of them.

A few minutes were needed for people to take bets and then staff Sgt. Pablo explained the rules of the contest.

“These fights are very dangerous. I have picked experienced fighters to reduce the chance of harm to Jason. He will need to do his best not to injure the others. There are no points. These fights are judged on deathblows only. All contestants will restrain their strikes before impact. If you know you have been killed move away. I will try and call it if I see it. I have asked ten of the trainers to stand around the fighters to assist me and call out successful strikes. No one will call out strikes that would cause injury. They will simply call out the name of the person who has been taken out of the contest. I will call start and then we will begin.”

She lined up the six facing Jason. She called “Start.”

She watched Jason carefully. The group tried to surround him and then fight him together in a coordinated fashion to make any defense ineffective.

What surprised her was Jason’s new rapidity of movement. He moved so quickly that even her experienced eye could not follow his movements. She saw him jump and arc gracefully backwards and somersault through the air to behind the encircling group having already dealt a critical blow to the middle attacking Marine who was slightly ahead of the others. Three judges called that out.

Those now in the rear turned to defend themselves. They hardly moved before he took out two more. Four judges called them out. The remaining three rushed to attack him from three sides. He darted to their left side preventing them from encircling him, threw one at another incapacitating both, and defended against a deathblow while delivering his own.

He returned to the last two. They tried sophisticated very rapid attacks from two sides. Jason was too fast to allow one behind him. He circled and moved continuously, evaded and rapidly moved to deliver death blows to each.

There was a profound silence in the gym. Pablo hushed the increasing applause.

Lucia asked the AI for a replay in slow motion.

The whole gym clustered around the large sized hologram to watch a repeat of the extraordinary spectacle.

“Never in all my days of Empire wide martial arts tournaments, have I ever seen anything like this.

“All of you back to your groups. Carry on as usual.”

Lucia turned back to Jason. “Jason that does not entirely let you off the hook, as today is an assessment day. I need to have a look at your skills in trans-dimensional attacks, today. The day after tomorrow we will look at defenses. We don’t have enough time to do both today,” she said while moving out a series of very thick metallic sheets to be placed on some massive ship support columns, “as I expect you will be too tired after the session to do very much.”

Jason was indeed interested to review his progress. Winston had been training him in offensive and defensive techniques. He did the mental exercises, twice daily, as suggested by Winston. Jason was keen to see how he went with the metal sheets.

“I am not prepared to damage any more of my posts. I have got some heavy sheets that I moved on the trolley from engineering that are made from ships’ armor. They are so heavy I have to use an anti-gravity lifter. It took four Marines each to lift them into position. They should provide you with a reasonable challenge Jason.

“Now Jason I want you to try an impact technique, as fire and lightning are likely to do very little.” She smiled at him as she thought that she would hear a little bang. No one had made any impact on the sheets at all. Lucia Pablo was regarded as a powerful practitioner. She could barely hear the effect of her impact technique. No one that she was aware of had bent the sheets using any technique.

Jason looked at the sheet placed five yards away pushed out his hand and applied a moderate impact. He heard a terrible bang that resounded through the entire gym and saw the sheet bend as if a giant fist had hit it. He was worried that the column behind it was damaged.

He felt terribly embarrassed and turned to apologize to Lucia. He saw her standing with her mouth open. The entire gym was silent with most gaping at what they saw. The ship Marines had been around for years, but no one had ever seen anything remotely like that. Those standing on the far sides of the plate could see the ship reinforcing column was slightly bent backwards.

The impact had led to a quake being felt throughout the ship. It set off collision alarms and the battleship along with the fleet had emerged into normal space. Lucia, hearing the alarms blaring, began to laugh. She quickly got herself under control, and let Stan know that it was Jason showing his strength in the gym.

“Jason, dear,” she said sweetly, “could you carefully and very gently see if you can use your powers to warp one of the sheets as you have seen demonstrated? I know you have only been practicing a few skills at a time but if you’re not too tired, perhaps you can try and see if you can do the technique.”

She sounded as though she could not believe what she was seeing. Jason was not the least tired. He was feeling full of energy and excitement. What she had said sounded like a bit of a challenge. He would not disappoint her.

He slowly and very gently crunched the sheet like it was a piece of tissue paper. He could hear the excited mumbling around him.

“Jason dear perhaps this armor isn’t quite what we expected it to be. Do you think that you could perhaps burn a hole in it, just a teensy bit and not go through to avoid further damage to the column? I would accept even the start of a hole?”

Jason was beginning to enjoy himself. So far he had surprised himself and he had no idea if he could do it. He did not know that it took a temperature close to that of the sun to melt the metal. Lucia knew that. The engineers had boasted that nothing that any Marine could do could even slightly damage this armor.

Many of the more experienced Marines knew that most trans-dimensional flames could burn people and wood; but very few had ever melted any metal, not even lead that melted at low temperatures. Some in their group had some facility with bending metal but it was a rarity. During training, they had all had ample opportunity to practice against ship armor as it was used for practice in most military gyms. The engineers knew the effects of trans-dim powers and knew that armor would not be affected. Most gyms provided thin metal that could be bent for practice purposes. No one had ever made a hole in ship armor. The engineers had special cutting tools to work with the armor.

Jason of course did not know any of this. He had no hesitation in trying and burnt a perfect hole into the sheet in two-seconds.

Lucia could not wait to boast to her great friend Janet Malone who was one of the most powerful trans-dimensional practitioners she had ever seen.

She was delighted to see Janet re-enter the gym after her run with her team.

She called her over. She told Jason not to say a word. She walked Jason and Janet to another sheet.

“Janet, do you know what this sheet is?” she asked maintaining a straight face. The growing audience was grinning while waiting to see the evolving encounter.

“Are you playing me for an idiot Pablo? That is ship armor. You are not going to fool me into trying to do something to it. Find some other mug.”

Jason was watching the byplay with much amusement.

“Humor me, for a few moments. Please try and burn a hole in the armor,” Lucia asked Janet.

Janet looked at her quizzically.

“Fine I will do it. I know you are planning a practical joke, or you must need this for a deeper purpose, but I will try.” She turned to face the plate and put out her hand to issue a stream of flame. She continued for approximately thirty-seconds and seemed quite tired. There was no impact on the armor.

“There you are I did it full power. No one has ever made a hole, dented, or done a damn thing to that armor. I hope you are satisfied,” said Janet quite puzzled by the events.

“I am willing to bet that someone using trans-dim powers will be able to make a hole in the armor and then bend it. I will bet you hundred standard credits.”

Janet did not hesitate. “Done, there is one condition, if this miracle occurs I will insist that an engineer friend of mine verifies that it is genuine ship armor.”

“Of course Janet, your friend Dorothy supplied me with this armor. I am sure that she will be happy to confirm it is the same armor that she gave me.”

Jason was very amused but kept a straight face.

There were number of engineers in the gym. They had seen the previous demonstration and happily told Janet that it was armor and she could see the mark on the back. Dorothy had put her mark on all of the sheets.

Jason could see there were a number of onlookers who had probably seen these two place outrageous bets against each other in the past. The audience enjoyed Pablo setting up her friend. One Marine officer placed her towel over the plate with a hole, before Janet turned to observe. Others were standing in front of the other damaged plate.

Janet formally agreed to the bet formally each placing the right arm on the left shoulder of the other.

“I would like to introduce you to Jason, who will show his powers and demonstrate that the power of the mind has no limits. He will act as my champion in this bet,” said Lucia Pablo dramatically.

Lucia looked at Jason quizzically and then at the onlookers. “Jason, do you think that you might be able to achieve this unknown feat, an achievement that would shake the imperium, an achievement that could shake the ship?”

Jason could see Janet looking at both of them suspiciously. He could see her brain churning, and knew that if she had felt the shaking of the ship, she would have to be very suspicious of being set up.

Jason felt he knew exactly how to deal with this. He decided to inject some drama and suspense into his performance. He linked his fingers and raised them above his head to stretch his back. He bent down to catch his left foot behind his back with his left hand to do a hamstring stretch and did the same on the other side. He moved his neck around all the while looking quite uncertain and doubtful. He bent down to touch his toes and slowly stood up.

Lucia and the informed onlookers were looking at this display with great amusement and were battling to keep straight faces. Jason then looked at Lucia and very sadly said, “I don’t know if I can, but I will try my best. At your request I will attempt to do what honor requires.”