Unknown Heroes - Chapter 14 (complete chapter)

[Warenwolf]

I have not done much work on UH last month but since it has been long I posted a new chapter, I decided to post what I have done as it is. I will add more "meat to the bone" in nearest future. To be honest I havent had much inspiration lately so I will cut down on the length of the story (so that "the Assassin" part is done by February/March).

I had plan of writing of writing a story in three parts (The current "UH: The Assassin" being the first) but if readers are simply not intrested in reading another 200.000 words of UH, I will instead finish the story in this part (THE END in chapter 20 perhaps) and go to other projects. So in order to found out whether there is a interest in another 200K of words of UH, I have started a poll to found out what people think I should do...


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Links to other chapters:
Chapter 13: Cargo to die for
Chapter 12: Demons in Paradise
Chapter 11: The Elysium
Chapter 10: The Khaak
Chapter 9: New Player
Chapter 8: The Hunt Begins
Chapter 7: Among the Rogues
Chapter 6: Anger of the Giants
Chapter 5: Awakening of the storm
Chapter 4: Trade run to Hell
Chapter 3: Old connections
Chapter 2: Means for revenge
Chapter 1: First kill

The glossary of Unknown Heroes
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Sins revealed









Suad Khan lay down on his bed with a wet, hot towel on his face. The light in the room was off. The pain in his eyes had eased somewhat but he knew that only sleep would cure it entirely. He simply had stared at holographic projections too long, to the point where the white in his eyes had red color... The reason was that during the wozura he had renewed his efforts to discover what kind of conspiracy Erich had stumbled upon. Hours of staring at holograms had strained both his eyes and mind.
His focus had been at Mr. Rudel*. The assassination of this man was what had started it all, so he was the logical choice. Mr. Rudel had been the commander of infantry contingent aboard the carrier General Donahue* before taking over NSM as CEO. It was even possible that he had sometimes walking in the corridors of the carrier, bumped into his future assassin, then private cyberborg Erich Campbell. Strange when one thinks about it, Suad thought. The Universe is small, as they say… Shortly after the Argon Pride tragedy*, Mr. Rudel left the service and took over his brother’s company when later died. The NSM* was struggling until Boris Gellar* comes along and sells rights to some very high yield Nividium rocks, location unknown… A gram of Nividium is worth 24 Credits and NSM had sold several hundred metric tons, mainly to Paranids. No Nividium find has ever been that rich, Suad told himself. Still, it was nothing suspicious in itself. The events afterwards on other hand….
When Mr. Rudel dies by Erich’s hand, Boris Gellar takes over NSM and tries to track down Erich at any cost. It could be explained out of friendship to Max Rudel, who Boris Gellar may have befriended while former served aboard his flagship. Again, nothing unusual. But it was the addition of Binyamin Halevy* to the wanted list that hinted to Suad that something else was the real reason. Because Mr. Halevy was dead, killed seven jazuras ago by Erich when Mr. Halevy’s mind went EVA.
After much research and pulling of strings at the navy’s intelligence archives, he managed to get his hands on Binyamin Halevy’s file. Instead of answers, he got more questions. The man was deep space trained and was aboard Vaasa station when station was its supplies lines were cut off by Xenon. Suad had heard about the incident. Despite the cover up by Navy, the details of cannibalism leaked out. Public did not know, but intelligence world was fairly well informed about the disaster.
After Binyamin Halevy was rescued, he became captain in the Army, posted at carrier under command of then admiral Boris Gellar. Max Rudel was his direct superior aboard the General Donahue*.
Suad massaged his temples. By assassinating Max Rudel, Erich had stumbled upon some great conspiracy. The question was what that conspiracy was.
Suad stood up and decided to call up the news articles about NSM in the archives.
“Computer, give me access to station’s news archives, authorization code Suad-7812”
“Access granted. Define the keywords for the search”
“NSM, Max Rudel,” Suad began, just as he had done so many times before. First listing up all articles containing those two words and then going from there, checking article by article, refining the search, until something came up. Suad hoped at least that it would. Then he got an idea, “Computer I want to redefine the keywords. Find me anything about NSM, Max Rudel and present me with list of names that occur in the articles”
The computer presented a long list of names. Suad thought a bit. The list did not seem out of the ordinary. He ordered computer to isolate the articles mentioning Erich Campbell.
“Why didn’t I see it the first time,” he said to himself focusing on one particular name.
“I bet you too served aboard General Donahue,” Suad said quietly, checking if it was so. Computer confirmed his theory.
“Oh, boy… Those are sure powerful enemies”





The messy office of Colonel Forsyth looked as usual to Jane. The stack of datapads and heaps of documents were on the same spot as last time, with the same stains of coffee on them, together with few new ones. Floor was littered with pieces of paper and wrappings of the chocolate the Colonel loved so much. The man himself, the king of this chaos, greeted her with smile from ear to ear, just as he always did.
Yet something was out of the order. She could feel it on her way here, in the silence on station, absence of the sounds and whispers in corridors, the tension of the secretary greeting her, the way her colleagues guarded their words when speaking.
“Something is wrong, I guess,” she said to the Colonel.
“Why would you say that?”
“You called me all the way from Teladi space, the way everyone is behaving…”
“In other words, you gut feeling is telling you something is wrong”
“Yes,” she agreed with him.
“Your instincts are correct. But I can’t tell you what is wrong,” Colonel told her.
“That serious?”
“Correct. Suffice to say that politics are involved. You will be put in charge to capture Erich Campbell and you have been assigned a team to assist you. This mission will be your top priority from now on”
“Do I get a RDF* team too?” Jane asked.
“No”
“That’s strange…”
The Colonel smiled. Jane understood. The politics… She was to locate Erich Campbell, but not to capture him. Yes, that sounded definitely as something a politician would come up with… She rolled her eyes, something that produced laughter from the Colonel.
“I see that you get the point. Of course you are supposed to report in every day, sending over a detailed report on you progress”
She rolled her eyes again. Why couldn’t intelligence services work without meddling of politicians?
“Such is the way of our tradecraft,” the Colonel commented, “we are the extended arm of politicians and are their tool. It has always been like this, one way or another… And it always will be”
He took out a DSD and inserted it in the hologram projector. The next half stazura he filled in Jane in the details of the mission and the latest data regarding the suspect. Once again, she would go hunting Erich Campbell.





“You think Ni Lan will survive?” Otto asked doubtingly, watching the Boron waiving his stalks in a comical imitation of the human gesticulation. The Split next to him was visible getting irritated.
Erich smiled, “Ha’nt had plenty of chances last wozura of getting rid of Ni Lan”
“Perhaps he wanted no witnesses around?” Otto commented steering the Bayamon out of the station’s docking tunnel.
They were supposed to receive communication from Suad and they wanted to be in place in good time. As the doors of the tunnel closed, Otto typed in the coordinates for their gateless jumpdrive. It would be the very first test of the jumpdrive too. As he pressed confirmation, the familiar blue tunnel opened.
To Ni Lan and Ha’nt it appeared as if the ship disappeared in bright flash of light.

“The Satellite A14-3N have picked up the target on its scan,” the operator announced half turning in his seat to see what Jane’s orders would be.
“Do we got visual?” she asked.
“Just moment…Yes, it is grey camouflage colored Bayamon”
“Give us H-projection,” the captain ordered.
The strategic hologram in the center of the command bridge was replaced by image of the Bayamon flying in space. The magnification was on its max so the projection was of poor quality, yet Jane was confident that the Bayamon was the ship they were looking for.
“This ship is capable of the microjump procedure. I can…” the captain began but Jan shook her head.
“We got our orders. Report in as soon as we achieve contact. Open a channel to AP5,” she said. Even if the captain managed to microjump next to the Bayamon, she doubted that they would catch Erich Campbell. Otto Dahl was probably piloting that ship and she had seen him evade a light frigate, a much faster ship than a lumbering Centaur corvette. Especially this corvette, she thought looking at the visible old interior of the ship.
“The channel is established”
Time to report in, Jan thought.

“I have received the report on their whereabouts. I am sending the coordinates,” Senator McCarthy said.
“Got them, Sir,” Olav Lie confirmed.
“Tell this… Mr. Blue that he will be well rewarded”
“I will, Sir”

Watching the scans was getting tedious and his stomach was protesting so Erich decided to fetch one can of beans from the cargo hold. Finding one, he hurried back to his seat, in case that something might have happened while he was away. He glanced on the screen.
“Just as I thought – nothing!” he said seeing nothing.
“What?” Otto asked. He was taking nap in his seat, letting the ship fly on the autopilot.
“Just speaking to myself”
“OK, just do it silently,” Otto said, closing his eyes again.
Erich looked at the monitor linked to the outside camera. He rotated the camera around slowly studying the sector. Elisa’s Elysium with its lights was the looking like jewel in a sector otherwise devoid of light. A hulk of destroyed station, latest victim of the local warlords, was clearly visible. Then he saw two ships entering through the gate. He looked at the scanner to see what kind of the ships they were.
Paranid produced, he guessed and he was right. The ships were identified as Perseus short-range fighters, M3 class. He looked at the monitor again. The ships were not on the monitor. That is odd, Erich thought. Perhaps the camera faces the wrong way. He looked at the scanner again, hoping to get an explanation.
“Otto, we have a problem”

A89.0001 was puzzled. He ordered the satellite to do a self-test, but the feedback it got was confirming that satellite was working fine. The Xenon ship found this interesting. Ever since it had discovered the EYE network, it had watched the space controlled by organic species, learning by observation. It was especially interested in various struggles between species or even inside the species themselves. This information was of great value for the Network, so A89 recorded everything. Right now, it watched a gravidar feed from one of the satellites in sector codenamed Elena’s Fortune by Humans. What puzzled it was the disappearance of the two ships and sudden appearance of an asteroid swarm instead.

“We got plenty of rocks incoming according to scanners, yet when I check the visual, nothing shows up!”
Erich’s words woke up Otto in as split of sezura. He checked the scanner that had warning lights flashing. Then he checked the monitor linked to the cameras outside. Nothing was visual.
“Decoys…Erich, was there any ships outside there?”
“Two Perseus fighters, but they seem to be gone now”
“Sure are, they have launched ECM drones,” Otto explained checking other cameras. He turned on radar and got same results. Collision alert sounded. Erich peeked out through cockpit window for thousandth time. Nothing seemed to be out there.
Otto seated himself in the pilot seat and started flying evasive maneuvers while firing now and then.
“What are you doing?” Otto asked, strapping himself in cockpit seat.
“What does it look like? We got at least two ships after as and they cloaked or something”
“What?”
“First we get a collision warning saying we are flying into bunch of rocks that are not there. Just before that, you loose visual with two fighters. Is it not obvious? They are using something to confuse our cameras while ECMs are there to fool our sensors”
Erich nodded. Otto had survived long time as semi-pirate by acting on his instincts. If those instincts told Otto something was there then something indeed was.
A missile impact two sezuras later reinforced that line of thought.

“Sir, the three satellites covering the area where the Bayamon is just went offline”
“What!? Get me Argon Prime, I want those satellites back!”
The captain turned to Jane, “Would you think that someone informed techies that this was not the time to do a sector system check on our satellites there”
Jane smiled saying her agreement. The captain went on telling her about operation where the similar thing happened but Jane’s was not listening. She doubted that there was someone in Argon Prime doing a system check.

The Perseus uncloaked once again, firing a missile before cloaking again. The missile nearly hit the Bayamon but thanks to Otto’s quick reactions, honed by jazuras of life in the space, the Bayamon change course just enough for missile to miss it. Otto turned his weapons on the missile, destroying it before it could turn back on them.
“If I just could see them,” Otto told Erich, “we would have a chance”
That gave Erich an idea.
“Infrared emissions!”
“Wont work, the principle by which cloak is probably working...”
“Not the exhaust from the engines,” Erich interrupted Otto’s explanations. He started to recalibrate the scanners, linking modified readings to the HUD so they could see their attackers.
“It’s working, I see one of them 1200 meters to our two. Where is the other?”
Erich checked his autocannon monitor. The other Perseus was almost upon them! Less than 40 meters away, slightly below them the Perseus pilot was having no trouble hanging on their tail. Any second the Perseus would uncloak and empty its weapons on the Bayamon. At this range, they would never get any chance.
“Red Dive!” Erich yelled to Otto. The Perseus was out of the vertical firing arc of the autocannon and Erich had to put him into that position. Otto performed the sharp and very unpleasant dive by putting the flight stick all the way forward. The Perseus started to uncloak, opening fire at same time. The Bayamon shook from the hits it was receiving. The Erich pressed in trigger and held. The fire of the autocannon blinded the camera.
“You can stop now, Erich”
Erich let go of the trigger. The computer told him that he had only 30 shots left. He could see now, unaided by the scanners the debris of the enemy ship.
“You must have hit his weapons power generator. They got them almost under the pilot seat on those Perseus fighters. Good thing too. One more hit from his HEPTs and we would be gone”
Otto flew in spiral towards the second Perseus who apparently still thought he was invisible. It tried to come behind the Bayamon, just as his friend did. Otto came from his nine, with all four particle accelerator cannons firing. The missile compartment on the Perseus was hit several times and in series of explosions the Paranid fighter met its end.




A89.0001 was a machine, not an emotional creation. Yet it found itself wishing that the outgunned and disadvantaged Bayamon would prevail against two Perseus. Its probability software and strategic evaluation programming reminded him that chances for that were small and that Xenon Network would not be affected by this battle, no matter what outcome. Still, A89 almost hoped that the Bayamon would win.
It analyzed the tactics of the three fighters and noted that the Bayamon won despite its disadvantage. A89 assumed that the Bayamon crew came with solution to modify its sensors just as A89 did with satellite in the sector.
Its analysis of the event was interrupted by incoming spacecraft that A89 recognized to be freighter of Argon origin. Probably the repair crew was on its way to see why their satellite was behaving strangely.
A89 quickly initiated the satellites self-destruct sequence and detached itself from the satellite. It speeded away before it could be detected by freighters sensors.
The freighter, oblivious to the presence of Xenon, continued slowly on its path. Just as the freighter was two hundred meters away, the satellite exploded, its pieces scattering to all directions. The Argon ship stopped as if thinking what do to next. After few mizuras, it turned back and headed back the same course it had arrived. To A89 its decision was logical and predictable. Satellite’s onboard explosive device was placed there to prevent scans by non-Argon party and powerful enough to ensure total destruction of the satellite.
A89 knew that the Argons would find the explosion happening moments before the scan by their freighter, highly suspicious but A89 was confident that explosion left no clues to investigate.
Nevertheless, it was time for A89 to fly towards the Xenon territories. It knew that if it remained longer in the sector, the sector’s inhabitants would notice its presence and do something about it.





“Shield projectors were off,” Otto commented the rapid demise of last Perseus fighter, watching the wreck drift in the space. A swarm of metal pieces was forming around the ship as the bits of the ship began detaching. Two missiles were floating near the Bayamon but Otto knew better than to try to pick them up – the explosion in the ship may have messed up their detonators making the warheads unstable. More than one pirate had shared the fate of their pray after succumbing to their greed after the battle had ended and picking up seemingly working weapons and missiles. He scanned the area to see if there was anything of interest worth picking up but it seemed that explosion had destroyed almost everything onboard the Perseus. The only salvage from the entire battle was one semi-burnt 20 liters can of bean soup.
“We lost aft shield projector, one more shot there and we will share same fate as the Perseus fighter,” Erich said assessing the damage the Bayamon had received. The internal systems had only superficial damages and with few adjustments worked normally. All sensors were online and functional. Only the mentioned shield projector was overloaded and not repairable. If the Bayamon had been in Federal or Kingdom’s sectors this would not present a problem but here in Independent space…
“Hmm…We got to find a way to replace it,” Erich said holding the burnt out power unit and melted amplifier.
“Easiest way would be if we could dock with Elysium and buy it there”
“Which is out of the question…”
“Right. We’ll have to take one of the shield projectors from the other Bayamon”
“Let’s hope that no more fighters will jump us”
Otto nodded in agreement setting course to the contact position. This time both he and Erich stayed awake during entire trip.




Without energy for its jumpdrives, A89 had to take long roundabout course around the sectors it traveled through, staying away from the most traveled routes. The organic piloted ships, if encountering A89, usually gave it a long berth but few times couple of enemy fighters tried to catch him. A89s superior speed gave it the necessary edge and A89 managed to get away each time. However, the Xenon ship realized that sooner or later, it would meet hostile fighters capable of overtaking the Xenon ship. The best course of action, it concluded, would be to make contact and ask for support of other Xenon ships.
A89 set course for the system that Humans called Xenon Sector 101. The detour would cost A89 some time, but that did not bother A89. It had no concept of time like the one organics had. The only thing that worried A89 was the ever-watching EYE spy satellite network. It calculated that probability of Humans sending a fighter force to intercept it was 0.0034, significant enough for A89 to give it yet another reason for finding some escorts.
Calculating the safest route, the Xenon ship sat course for Xenon Sector 101.





“I am sorry to inform you about the sad outcome of the mission,” the man Lie only knew as Mr. Blue said, finishing his report. The most capable assassin company or guild, the best in Known Universe as far as Lie knew, failed for second time to eliminate Mr. Campbell.
“And as I have said before, this means, since we are unable to fulfill our obligations, that we will pull back from our contract…”
“But surely…”
“I am deeply sorry, Mr. Lie. You see this sort of things had only happened once before in the history of our organization…But, every good assassin must know when to walk away. You will of course get your money back”
“Is there anyway I can talk you into not walking away?” Lie asked.
Mr. Blue smiled sadly and shook his head. “No Mr. Lie. The losses are already great, both sustained and potential…”
“I can increase the reward,” Lie offered.
“Mr. Lie, the losses in materials are easily replaced. But the loss of men, five so far is not replaceable. Each of these individuals was talented and well trained making them more valuable than any reward… Mr. Campbell is a fellow colleague in our tradecraft – just as he knows to take life, he is equally capable of protecting his own, something he proved twice now. The potential loss of operatives before we could be successful in eliminating Mr. Campbell outstrips any reward. In long run it would hurt our capability of taking on other contracts,” Mr. Blue explained.
“I understand…I am not happy about it but I understand”
“Again I apologize. The Credits will be transferred back to your account by end of the day, your local time”
The hologram projection dissipated as the COMSAT link was turned off, leaving Olav Lie in darkness, pondering what to do next.





“This location is covered by EYE network, so despite having much to tell, I will be brief as much as possible. I don’t want any more invisible enemies attacking you,” Suad Khan said. Erich and Otto had told him about the attack by two cloaking capable Perseus fighters, a story that disturbed him.
“What did you dig up?”
“Who your nemesis is. It started with you killing Max Rudel, agreed?”
“Right,” Erich said. Indeed, all his troubles started with that mission. He should have trusted his instincts. Well, it was too late for that now…
“When the news about Mr. Rudel’s death got around, two things happened in short period of time. NSM, owned by Mr. Rudel was taken over by Boris Gellar. Also, the NSM ships besieged Terracorp’s Solar Power Plant station in Ore Belt demanding them to hand over the man that have hired you, Erich, in first place… Now this action would have led to intervention by Argon Federation’s Navy, but in this case, this was prevented by machinations of Senator McCarthy Senior. Soon after, a warrant for you and certain Binyamin Halevy was issued…”
“We already know this, the only new information is this about Senator McCarthy,” Otto said.
“Just wait… All mentioned people served onboard the carrier “General Donahue”…”
“Including the Senator?” Otto asked.
“Senior Intelligence Officer, rank of Colonel…. Otto, have you ever heard about Vaasa incident?”
Otto nodded affirmative. Erich have told him about the lost station.
“Binyamin Halevy was one few survivors that got rescued. Leader of entire rescue operation was McCarthy while carrier “General Donahue” under command of newly appointed Boris Gellar gave cover. Two years later he and Mr. Halevy would be posted at the carrier already mentioned. What happened then, I don’t know, but both Halevy and Erich were left behind when “General Donahue” retreated during Argon Pride Tragedy. I decided to crosslink any references of the names I had and I found out that sometime after the Argon Pride tragedy, McCarthy, Gellar and Rudel probably went to the some system deep in Xenon territory”
“Probably?” Erich asked.
“I crosslinked the records of purchases done by those three men that happened at one wozura time interval. Rudel rented a Pegasus* D, a racer spaceship. At same tazura Boris Gellar registered as independent prospector while McCarthy tazura later obtained sophisticated mining probe. Wozura later, all three were in Montalaar system. I have taken the liberty and assumed that they boarded all the Pegasus that a border post registered heading through gate to XS 1051. Whatever they did there, a Xenon invasion occurred soon after resulting in a battle that destroyed the gate leading there.”
“So how did they come back?” Erich asked.
“Listening post, in what now is known as Getsu Fune system, registered a Pegasus D emerging from the gate to XS 534. But now comes the interesting part: Mazura later, Max Rudel takes over NSM, Boris Gellar strikes Nividium and McCarthy becomes politician, buying stations in several sectors, automatically getting right to a seat in the Senate both for him and his daughter…”
“So if I get it right, Boris Gellar gets his hands on lot of Nividium, NSM is used to sell the Nividium and money earned is used to finance McCarthy’s seat in the Senate?” Erich asked. The theory sounded somewhat far-fetched and he would never believe it if someone else beside Suad had told him about it.
“Hmmm…I am more prone to believing that three men split money three way, each using it as they saw fit. Boris Gellar lives a life in luxury, Max Rudel revitalized a dying company, while McCarthy as you said bought himself a seat on the Senate”
“Still we don’t have a clue to why Boris Gellar and that senator is after Erich after Rudel died. After all, most people of the caliber I suspect those two to be, would have been happy about one of the trio dieing. One less witness that way…” Otto said. Erich too agreed. Suad may have uncovered that the cause of the three people’s wealth is suspicious but that still the link between that and Erich’s recent problems was not perceptible.
“But remember what I said about Mr. Halevy – his rescue was planed and executed by Colonel McCarthy. Halevy is left behind when Admiral Gellar orders the task force out of the XS 1051. Halevy is killed by Erich on suggestion by Corporal Fitzpatrick”
“It wasn’t on his suggestion. Everyone could see that he was loosing it and placing us all in danger. I was merely selected as the Corporal trusted me most”
The channel went silent for moment. Despite Erich not being able to see the face of Suad, he could sense that what was to be said next was difficult for Suad. Suad took a deep breath before continuing, “When I first met you I insisted on you talking about what you and Buck went trough. I took notes of our conversation. It was back when I still believed that I could arraign the Navy for its actions… When I discovered that McCarthy organized rescue mission to Vaasa I checked the rooster for that mission. One familiar name popped up… Corporal Fitzpatrick.”
Erich thoughts raced to that day when he, Buck and Corporal spoke in that jungle clearing overlooking the camp. Despite all these years he did not forgot what happened these days. He could not forget even if he wanted it.


“Look at him,” corporal pointed at the camp below. Every morning the last four tazuras, Buck, Erich and the corporal met at a spot in the jungle and discussed what to do. From there it was possible to observe the camp unnoticed and more importantly, to see if someone had followed them. Right now, they could see the captain walking below, talking to himself, clenching and unclenching his fists. He paced quickly around in the circle, stopping sometimes to look at the sky above him, before continuing his pace again. Other soldiers took a wide detour around him, avoiding any eye contact with the captain.
“What’s wrong with him?” Erich asked. The corporal was silent few moments, looking at the jungle around him. Buck, waiting for the answer was crushing a dry twig between his reinforced fingers.
“You ever heard about the space battle station Vaasa*? Captain served there when it went to hell. My guess is that he is afraid something like that will happen here” corporal finally said.
“Vaasa battle station, Sir? I am afraid I never heard about it, Sir” Buck said. Erich nodded, for him too the name was not familiar.
“What, they didn’t teach you about that in Basic Theory*?” corporal asked surprised. “Well I guess some “vampire” is still frightened that Vaasa affair could ruin his carrier”.
A “Vampire” was Armed Forces’ slang for the admirals because of the blood red stripes on their uniforms.
“I heard about it from one intelligence officer my former company rescued from a mine in Split territories few jazuras ago. Vaasa was a middle-sized space battle station, intended to serve as an outpost for logistic support - for those expeditions in Xenon space our intelligence keeps sending all the time…


His thoughts coming back to present, he silently said, “The Corporal claimed that he heard about Captain Halevy from one of the intelligence officers his company rescued…”
“He lied Erich…I saw the rooster list. He went to Vaasa…”
“Why would he lie about it?” Otto asked, confused by what Erich and Suad were saying.
“He planted the thought of the Captain Halevy being unstable and dangerous inside Erich’s head”
“Yeah,” Erich said. He remembered the conversations, the subtle suggestions. Looking back, he realized that the odd behavior he took as sign of the captain’s madness could in fact be interpreted as the behavior of a man under heavy pressure. The Corporal was the one to brand Captain as crazy and dangerous. Everyone else just accepted Corporal’s reasoning as their own. As all good soldiers do…
“Damn!” he said.
“And when Erich shows up after all these years and kills Max Rudel, the rest of the trio gets scared. They think Halevy is alive and is directing Erich’s actions. Why else would someone kill one of them? To them any survivor from that planet is dangerous, a potential Halevy convert…”
“I see now… But still why would they fear Halevy that much?” Otto injected.
“That is something I don’t know. Perhaps it is linked to their present wealth, perhaps not. This kind of people will not go away… All we need to know who they are and that they will not rest before Erich and anyone linked to him are dead”
“You now discovered who they are and to the later – well, after the Perseus attack I am prone to believe that too,” Erich said.
“Right. Anyway, in my opinion, now that we know who our enemies are, we need to act quickly and eliminate them. The “why” part is irrelevant as the things stand now”
“I agree,” Otto said.
“Me too,” Erich added.





Machines are perfect creations. Logical and rational, not hampered by emotions and complex psychology dependent on the early experiences in the life that are totally irrelevant to the presence. The machines have no need for development before reaching the operational status – once online they are ready to perform unlike humans that are incapable making rational decision or even sustaining themselves for the first portion of their life.
The Xenon A89.0001 wondered why the Network bothered with Humans or other organics for that matter, at all. After all, the Network stretched over countless systems and did not need to bother with tiny portion of space that organic based species possessed. After further evaluation, A89 rejected also the terraforming projects that Xenon Network undertook over entire Universe it controlled. What was the point of these resource-demanding projects? No machine needed oxygen or stable climates to function. Perhaps the Network should reevaluate its strategy…
All these new ideas went through A89s quantum brain as it headed traveled through Nopileos Memorial system, on its way to the South Gate leading to Xenon Sector 101. The sector was mostly empty with only few traders traveling trough the sector, all of them staying clear of the Xenon ship. Here and there remains of the great past battles could be seen, remains of scorched hulls of ships and stations. When Xenons ruptured crust of one of system’s moons, following explosion creating a rogue asteroid swarm. Two mining stations were nestled upon the two of the largest rocks, mining minerals.
Occasionally the A89 passed by one of the satellites belonging to the EYE network. Having obtained accessing codes, A89 used EYE system to see if anyone followed it. So far, it seemed like the Xenon ship was safe. The occasional fighter type spaceships seemed more intent on harassing freighters from their own species. A89 found this behavior peculiar and noted it for further investigation.
It reached the South Gate without any incidents. The blue vortex opened and the next moment the A89 reappeared in Xenon Sector 101. Immediately an identification and purpose request arrived. The Xenon ship present in the sector seemed confused by A89.
Couple of heavy L fighters approached, flanked by M medium fighters. They awaited the A89’s response.
A89 sent them its serial and designation number, A89.0001, along with the events that led to its creation. The central unit in the sector seemed an old destroyer, D33.456. The Network units in the sector put their processing power together and reached the decisions, however as the most powerful processing power contributor, D33.456 was the voice of the Network in the sector. In human concepts the D33 was equivalent to some kind of a leader, but to the Network it only meant that D33 was the last to be sacrificed in event that the Network should be in position to loose this sector.
Under watchful escort of fighters, A89 approached the almost antique destroyer. Having the key events of Network’s history uploaded to its memory during creation, A89 understood the reasons to the caution. Couple of times humans had managed to capture and infect Xenon ships with virus, sending them back into Xenon space. When the Network then downloaded the ship’s memory, infection spread, causing damage to every infected unit. The Connected Systems were never affected by this and the Network took every precaution that it would stay that way. The oldest and most expandable fighter in the sector was disconnected from the rest of the Network and then it was assigned to analyze the memory of A89. The A89 and fighter connected. Only mizura passed before fighter disconnected but in machines terms it was extremely long time.
The D33.456 contacted A89 next. It was cautious and used several protective layers of security when receiving messages as if afraid that it would be infected by a virus. The A89 and D33 communicated fast in computer language. The destroyer informed the A89 that the fighter failed to analyze the A89’s internal hardware. It seemed highly unusual, the destroyer informed him. Dangerous even. The destroyer requested A89 to self-destruct.
The A89 was about to carry out that command when his enhanced survival software activated, overriding any order to self-destruct. The primary command for A89 was to survive. At any cost… Quickly it analyzed the situation. The moment Xenon ships realized that the A89 did not intent do carry out the self-destruct sequence they would assume that A89 had been tampered with by the enemy and every ship would turn hostile. Then, for the first time in the Network’s history, a Xenon decided to lie to another Xenon.
I can not self-destruct, A89 informed D33.456.
D33 wanted to know why, just as A89 expected.
Because of C7A78 primary command, A89 answered in computer language. The moment passed as each ship searched its databases for contents of C7A78 primary command. They would not find nothing and soon, just as A89 expected, D33 communicated that no ships had received any updated primary commands.
A89 informed him that development cycles 40 and upwards had all been instructed to not self-destruct if carrying strategic information in the Network. Of course, this was lie but as D33 had no way of analyzing the logs of A89 it had no way of knowing that.
D33.456 pondered on this for moment and than informed A89 to upload this information to another ship and then self-destruct.
A89.0001 refused again informing D33 that only a Node Ship could process this information. Next, the A89 requested escorts to nearest node ship.
Having no options D33 accepted, transferring command of a series 22 destroyer and few fighters to A89. Immediately, before the local Network reevaluated its decision, A89 and its newly acquired task force sat course for the gate. D22.9812, escorting destroyer, requested updated primary commands that A89 supposedly had but A89 ignored the request.
Instead, it wondered how to deal with a Node Ship. The old D33 was old piece of hardware – not advanced enough to comprehend that the information could be false. Dealing with Node Ships was entirely different affair. Worried about its existence and aware that its destruction had perhaps only been delayed, A89 began analyzing every bit of information about Node Ships in its database.




The lone man looked like any of the tourists around him, dressed as typical middle class tourist with a single bag from a brand that was popular that season. He looked at his chronometer. The H-hour had arrived. The spaceport was crowded with tourist waiting for shuttles to Three Worlds resorts and Red Moon cruises. An NSM freighter malfunctioned just as he crossed the main traffic artery to the Mazzar* spaceport, effectively blocking all approaching shuttles. As result, the queues were getting “endless” and people were getting irritated.
That did not bother the man. He scanned the crowd, looking for unattended baggage. He spotted a couple in heated discussion that paid no attention to they baggage. He walked slowly over to them and then cast a quick glance around to see if anyone was looking. Seeing that nobody looked at him, he dropped his bag and headed immediately towards the exit of the spaceport. Once outside he headed to the monorail station. He took out a communication unit and quickly typed in sequence of numbers.
The explosion in the spaceport blew out windows in a five-kilometer radius and killed almost all of the passengers waiting for their shuttles. The media screamed for revenge showing pictures of mangled bodies and weeping children. Senator McCarthy Senior went immediately to the site of the terrorist attack, even before all of the smoke disappeared. The news cameras filmed him as he brushed aside security people who tried to explain to him that the site was not yet safe. Viewers could see how his eyes got watery from the tears forming in his eyes. Then his face changed to that of resolve and he went towards the crowd of media people, ready to give interviews. Ready to shape peoples thoughts.





As the news services focused on newest terrorist attack in Argon Prime, Erich and Otto exited the wormhole temporarily created by their ship’s gateless jumpdrive.
“Your astronavigational skills leave much to be desired,” Erich commented staring at the station’s wall barely 100 meters away. Otto had predicted that they would exit the wormhole 5 km away from the abandoned station, leaving plenty of leeway, in his opinion, for eventual miscalculations on his part.
Otto too stared at the wall with eyes wide open, looking rather sick. Realizing how he looked, he straightening himself up and started navigating into the docking tunnel leading inside the station.
Ni Lan and Ha’nt greeted them when they exited. “That was some impressive navigation!” Ha’nt said impressed. “I wouldn’t dare jumping in within anything less than a radius of 15 km from the station, unless aided by a M6 type computer,” he added looking with admiration on Otto. Erich grinned looking sideways at Otto. His friend ignored him and instead deflected the conversation, “We found who our enemies are”
“Who are they?” Ni Lan asked.
“A politician, a very important one and one business leader. They and the man Erich was hired to assassinate had somehow enriched themselves rapidly within short period. We have no clue why they hold the grudge so intensely against Erich and eventually us, since we are together in this now,” Otto said. He then went on explaining how the information had been acquired and the all three men had past together on the same carrier ship.
“So you are sure that they are not doing it because of loyalty towards their dead friend,” Ha’nt asked.
“No, otherwise they would put out a warrant on both me and Binyamin Halevy who is dead now,” Erich clarified. He then explained how he had been manipulated into killing Captain Halevy by his own Corporal.
“Nothing of this makes sense,” Ha’nt commented when Erich finished.
“Probably the answer to why lies in how the three men got rich so fast”
“So what are we now going to do? Go and dig up in the past, trying to uncover how they got their hands on their Credits?” Ni Lan wanted to know.
Erich shook his head. He looked at Ni Lan, right in the eyes.
“We are not going to play detectives as they do on TH… We have identified our enemies. Now we are going to strike back. We are going to kill them one by one...”
Erich waited for moment before continuing, waiting to see how the Split and Boron would react. Both of them were silent. Good, Erich thought. No one suggested going to police. He would not to waste time explaining to them why that would be a very stupid idea.
Erich continued, “You two are in this because you happened to be in neighboring cell…” He pointed to Ni Lan. “And you needed a new group identity,” he added looking at Ha’nt”
Ni Lan looked down, while Ha’nt briefly looked away.
“Both of you can walk away from this. The future looks ugly – Our hands, claws and tentacles are going to get bloody. Now that our names are well known we would be forever hunted like rats. I will not waste more words of explaining how much outcasts we will be. You saw how they treated us on Elysium - and that was an Independent station! It will get worse, much worse… I can guarantee you that on the end of this tunnel there is no light just more darkness…”
Otto too looked away. Once Erich had held this speech to him, once he came back half-dead from Xenon space. He had used stronger words then. Erich watched the reaction of his friend. Otto would stick with him, no matter what. Partly, Erich suspected, because Otto believed that there was “a light in the end of the tunnel”. Erich held no such delusions.
He turned to the Boron and the Split, asking, “What will it be?”
Ni Lan said nothing.
“You Ni Lan can always claim that you had to go with us in order to survive. Say that you managed to escape when we slept… They will believe you. Your sentence for your previous crimes would still stand, but afterwards, when you have done your time, you would be a free fish…”
Ni Lan said nothing, he just gave the Boron gesticulation for “I am with you”. Erich turned his gaze to Ha’nt. Split waved his hands, “Heh… As you pointed out, I have nowhere to go… I am staying. The Boron is too stupid to leave so I guess that you have three warriors to assist you on your quest.”
He then immediately pointed to Ni Lan and added, “Of course, when I use term warrior about that Boron blob of green, I speak only figuratively…”



Continue to next chapter

[KiwiNZ]

Excellent chapter! Really like it, lots of tension. I guess Erich and Otto are reasonably safe for the time being, with the assassins having withdrawn. But since they now have to go in the offensive they are about to put themselves back in the line of fire.
The Xenon part is very interesting. I am curious to see the outcome of that. Could almost see the Xenon take sides with Erich and Otto out of desparation.

Looking forward to the next chapter!

[Warenwolf]

Last part of chapter 14 posted (from "As the news services focused on"). Anyway last night has been a long one so I haven't put the chapter through much of scrutany, so expect grammar and spelling mistakes here and there...

Hmm... It seems that interest for the trilogy of Unknown Heroes is relativly limited (three votes total so far with 33% against trilogy)... Despite the thread being relativly recently posted, I am guessing that the vote want significantly change in future, so in next releases I am going to close the main story arc (Erich vs Bad Guys) and ignore other story arcs (Jane Freedman's and Xenon story arc, how Ni Lan got his Xenon implants and so on)...

[Fly_by]

I registed with egosoft just to make this post! i love this story its great and i really want to hear it end properly not have all the really great side storys left out! i mean if u think intrests is that low ( i cheaked almost every day to see if u had brought the next chapter out) then ok but please can u say how the xenon bit ends and how Ni-lan gets thos implants please keep up the great work

Fly_by

[KiwiNZ]

I agree with Fly_by, it is too good a story to abandon. If you feel you need a break, do so but please don't scrap it for good.

Nice finish to the chapter. I like the funny bits with the flawed jump calculation. Well, I guess the next chapter(s) will see quite a bit of action again.

Looking forward to the next chapter!

[Megbeth]

Nice chapter. good to see A89 back. As to the end, striking back really suits Erich & his group.

The story should not end so soon, but if you had enough of Erich as main character then you could try it with Ni Lan & Ha’nt in the next sequence.

I hope the next chapter comes soon (2 weeks maybe).

[Warenwolf]

(...)
The story should not end so soon, but if you had enough of Erich as main character then you could try it with Ni Lan & Ha’nt in the next sequence.

I hope the next chapter comes soon (2 weeks maybe).

Erich is the main character of the story, so I can't really just leave him out. Now about next release... You see I have to decide what to do with the story - if I have to "kill it" in couple of chapters, I'll have to focus on few story arcs. Right now the situation is:

- Syndicate (Gellar, McCarthy Senior and now deceased Rudel) vs. Erich & Co.
- Jane vs. Erich & Co
- Syndicate vs. Jane (she resents McCarthy's involvment in agency's policies)
- McCarthy Senior vs. Boris Gellar (Olav Lie, Gellar's Sec Chief, is on Senator's payrole as you may remember)
- A89.0001 vs. ?
Add Khaak, Xenon, Warlords and random #%&!!%& to above and you have Unknown Heroes

Initially I thought of letting the story to "boil slowly", letting it progress slowly, introducing few characters and story arcs per chapter and then letting everything explode in the final chapter of UH: The Assassin. What then would have happened that new relationships would have happened between story arcs and again we would have same development in UH: The Pirate.
However few days ago I realized that readers may not share my entusiasm for long stories so I decided to sample the mood. I'll have to wait to see what the reaction would be and then decide how to progress onward (and how to write 15th chapter).


@Fly_by
Nice to see that you enjoyed reading the story as much I enjoyed writing it!

[Fly_by]

Its nice to know your thinking of the ppl reading if u happen to to think wrong i love this story and i really hope to see the next chapter out soon.

Fly_by