Alien Courage (Rise of the Empress) Read Free

constellations. There were paintings of grand looking people
in dazzling uniforms. He looked around and saw a great number of people in the hall, they must be soldiers he thought. They wore many
different uniforms but nothing he knew or had ever seen before. The soothing
voiced kept asking, “Friend or foe?” at each individual he put his attention
on. I don’t know, thought Peter.
     
    Suddenly the image of a Japanese Officer and a sword
flashed in Peter’s mind, then the burst of an explosion. The green turned grey
and red symbols lined up in different patterns. Peter felt distress and danger.
The grey turned red with black symbols and the voice was no longer soothing but
certain and authoritative. It seemed every image Peter had in his mind flashed
itself on red. “Friend or foe?” The voice asked of
every human image and seemed to record his responses. The screen flashed the
recent figures and people in the great hall.
     
    “I don’t know,” Peter thought now realising he was
drifting into a nightmare. “Wake up,” he told himself. He felt the feeling of
motion, like standing up.
     
    “Friend or foe?” The voice continued over and over as images flashed
faster and faster.
     
    Peter started to panic, his mind raced and he felt
like he was in a very small space, getting smaller and smaller. The Japanese
and Germans are enemies, no he realised, the Germans surrendered.  Images
of them flooded in from his memory, the dark uniforms, the swastika and the
stern serious faces. ‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘that’s them, that’s them… bad
people…very bad people.’ Peter was becoming overwhelmed and started blacking
out. The voice continued and the symbols danced on red.
     
    “Targets locked. Weapons?” The voice asked. A new array of symbols appeared. Peter hazily noticed two of
the many symbols and they here highlighted instantly. Peter was on the verge of
losing consciousness and tried desperately to block out the images, symbols and
the voice.
     
    “Targets locked.”
     
    “FIRE! God damn it! Let me be…” were the last thoughts of
Peter Boland as he slipped into a welcomed oblivion.
     
     
     
    ---------
     
     
     
    The Great Academy Hall exploded into a mass of terror
stricken personnel. Great numbers of darker uniformed personnel suddenly ceased
to exist. Their bodies vaporised with deadly accurate fire. It took less than
two seconds for fifty six people to disappear.
     
    The T334 robot of the Trigealian Regiment scanned the
area in an instant and was satisfied all enemy were terminated. Having received
no further orders or instructions from its pilot assumed a pre programmed
defensive position to await further orders. It sat on the floor and deployed an
invisible force field around itself. It ceased to be visible or locatable by
any means except by physical contact with the force field and that would kill
any organic based life form and render inactive any electro mechanical device.
It simply ‘went to sleep’ feeling quite safe.
     
    Into the Great Hall rushed armed security soldiers.
The compound alarm was ringing loudly. It only ever sounded for malfunctions in
settings of atmospheric control or random drills. What had just happened had
never occurred before in the history of the Academy. In what is the most secure
location of the Imperial Confederacy – the impossible had happened.
     
    A distinctively alert soldier dressed in the uniform
of the Administrator of the Confederate Military Academy stood quietly and
surveyed the Great Hall. His calm, inquisitive features were mostly humanoid in
appearance as were over eighty percent of sentient beings in the Confederacy,
but they betrayed his true feelings concerning the Confederacy. Those he kept
expertly camouflaged as is the ability of those who were the descendants from
the quarantined and outlawed civilization of the planet Norfis. He walked with
confidence to the control console located on a raised platform in the centre of
the Great