OMEGA Conscript by Stephen Arseneault Page B

to continue that empire—they are focused on the here and now, entertainment. Selfishness and corruption sets in, and the empire, without strong leadership, ultimately fails. We experienced that with the AMP a decade ago and we are already seeing the further spread of that collapse in the New Alliance."
    Garrett smirked. "Yeah, that's it, blame it on the Humans."
    I shook my head. "No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that when societies have weak leadership, combined with a populace that has a philosophy of entitlement, it leads to a government of corruption, and then finally to a complete collapse. Human history is probably no different from that of any other sentient species in that regard. I can't pull that determination from my own history. It was lost with the Duke taking us away to the War of Wars."
    Garrett half smiled. "You know, if the Greens were your rivals, and if the Greens are in the galaxy on the other end of the portal, that would mean your original home world should be there as well."
    I nodded. "I know. That is one of the reasons I want desperately to get the Green to my people. You Humans were under the Duke's thumb for a thousand years before his defeat. I would have to guess that it was a similar situation for my people. We would like to find our Earth, to know our beginnings."
    Garrett frowned. "Yeah, well, we're not even sure of our history. The founders hid Earth away from us like they hid everything else, leaving us to wonder if it was all just made up. The stuff written in our history books leaves a lot of holes to be filled. The whereabouts of our planet is just one of them."
    Go cut into the conversation. "Uh, guys, I think I'm ready to give it a try."
    I waved my hand. "Remove the suit. Box it and we'll go find a suitable location to test it."
    Go laughed. "Suitable location. I get it!"
    Garrett shook his head. "I don't think that was intended as a joke."
Go replied, "Hey, whatever suits you."
    Garrett rolled his eyes. "Great, now there's two of 'em."
    We took three helocycles across town to a former corporate building. The sixteen floors and multitudes of offices gave us the training environment we needed. Orders had been given to keep a two kilometer perimeter around the building. We couldn't risk revealing our new technology before we had a chance to make use of it. A brigade of Talisan soldiers stood at the watch.
    Go once again suited up, and the power was turned on. "OK, I'm ready."
    I turned to Garrett. "This is where you have to suspend your disbelief. Alright, Go, activate it."
    With a twitch of his eye the battle-suit and its contents went translucent.
    Go slowly walked around the room. "It's kind of hard to get traction with my feet. They just kind of slide through the floor rather than pushing against it. I guess that comes with only being about 50 percent interactive with your environment."
    I said, "Take it down to twenty-five and then up to seventy-five. I want to make sure we can get you back before you go fully active."
    In an instant Go vanished.
    Garrett scanned the room with the sensors on his arm pad. "Was that supposed to happen?"
    I replied, "He should have become more visible than what he was."
    Go came back fully. "Oops. Sorry about that. When I get excited my right eye sometimes has a nervous tic. Instead of twenty-five I entered two-fifty and it jumped before I could stop it. I'm back, so at least it was a good test of my ability to control the activation level."
    I sat in a chair in the room we occupied. "I guess it's time to test the glove. See if you can move around in that thing. And don't stay active for more than a minute at a time here initially. We need to know what that suit is capable of."
    Go smiled through his face shield. In an instant he was again gone.
    Garrett sat, crossing his arms. "I can't say I favor being on this side of the experiment."
    I opened a comm to Go. "Can you hear me?"
    Go's voice came back several seconds later. "Can you see me at