The Plasma Master

by Brian Rushton

  Chapter 28

  Gerran Marnax was annoyed that Mirana would take off with Ned leaving only a simple coded message that he should prepare his invasion force immediately, but he was not all that surprised. In a way it made sense, too. Leaving quickly avoided another mysterious meeting, and it got things moving that much faster. Marnax wondered how she had convinced Ned to go with her so quickly, but he supposed it did not matter. The matter of the Plasma force was finally off his shoulders, but now he had to plan an attack on what was undoubtedly the most heavily fortified structure in history.

  There were a lot of technical things to take care of. He needed to uphold the illusion of a secret project at Nembis Four until exactly the right time and make sure he leaked exactly the right information to draw the enemy fleet there. Then, once the Anacronians had been lured away from Venom, he had to assemble as many ships as he could close enough to Venom to coordinate the approach, yet far enough away to avoid premature detection. When they went in, each ship in the invasion fleet would have to enter the hole in Venom’s warp shell at a precisely-calculated moment in order to avoid a mass collision. Then would come the most difficult part of the plan. The StarBlazer fleet would have to hold off whatever Anacronian defenses were in place in Venom’s interior until Mirana could give them a clear shot at Dark Viper’s fortress.

  The first part of the plan had worked perfectly so far; intelligence reports showed that Imperial forces were becoming suspicious of the so-called Nembis Project. It would take time for the ships to reach Nembis Four from Venom, so if Mirana had left already, Marnax needed to start drawing them out immediately.

  His door beeped, and Marnax called Major Harvey into his office. The two men shook hands, and Harvey sat down.

  “Here are the ships we can afford to send to Nembis Four without severely weakening the front lines,” Harvey said, handing Marnax a datapad. “I’ve managed to put more ships on that list than I had originally expected, but I don’t think I can push the number any further without taking ships from our attack force.”

  “We need as many ships as we can get for the attack on Venom,” Marnax said. “Still, do you think these ships alone will be enough to draw away Venom’s defenses? If I were Dark Viper, I’m not sure this would convince me to take a risk like that.”

  Harvey leaned back in his chair. “Well, General, maybe we need to take more of a risk here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, if we only bring ships to Nembis Four that we can spare, then Dark Viper will only send the ships of his that he can spare. On the other hand, if we completely pull out of a few key star systems, then that would look a lot more like we need to get to Nembis Four immediately, and it would look a lot more like it would be in the Empire’s best interest to stop us.”

  “Key systems, like where?”

  “Your choice, really. Tactically it really won’t matter much.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because if we’re really going to try to pull this off, none of the other battles will make any difference. If we take Venom, we’re pretty much guaranteed to win the war. If not, we lose, regardless of whether or not we maintain a few star systems. It seems to me that we’d better forget about all other goals for the moment and put everything we have into this.”

  “So we just abandon a bunch of our strongholds and run like mad to Nembis Four? It might be more convincing, but I doubt the inhabitants of the places we abandon would be very pleased.”

  “It wouldn’t necessarily have to be inhabited star systems. I think there are enough mining and production facilities the Empire has its eye on that we could abandon. We could even set a few traps just in case the Anacronians decided to move in.”

  “That sounds reasonable. Come up with some major supply bases you want to use and arrange for the civilians to be moved away at the last minute. How long will you need to pick the bases you want to evacuate?”

  “Done. I plan to evacuate all of them.”

  Jenara Trennon was greatly relieved as they left the graviton storm and Palandora appeared on the viewscreen. So far, Kayleen Rax had been right; none of the pursuing ships had gained on them since the destruction of Malignus, and Black Fang’s powerful warp drive had allowed them to complete their journey home in about a day. In fact, the pursuing ships had broken off the chase after a few hours, apparently realizing that there was no way they could keep up with Black Fang.

  Jenara turned and looked over at the woman who had dragged her into this harrowing chase and gotten Jenara’s starship destroyed in the process. “So, Rax,” she said, tactfully masking the contempt in her voice. “You said you had a deal to make with us.”

  Rax looked back at her and smiled, but the gesture was more fiendish than friendly. “Yes, I do. As you have noticed, Dark Viper is very unhappy with me, and he’s anxious to explain to me the extent of his anger. I’m sure I could keep running from him forever, but it would make for a very unpleasant life. I would never be safe anywhere in the Empire, and StarBlazer is probably just as mad at me. So that leaves one of the many neutral planets.”

  X cut in. “If you haven’t noticed, Rax, we don’t care much for you either. You killed the founder of our planet just so you could make Ned Simmons think that Markan Dren was dead as well!”

  “Yes,” Jenara said. “I think you’d better look for a different neutral world to seek refuge on. In fact, the sooner you leave, the sooner we can stop worrying about Imperial warships coming here looking for you.”

  “No. I need a planet that’s well defended. You might not have much in the way of weapons yet, but the Uraxis Nebula is a natural barrier to everything. All you need to do is shoot into the corridor, or even just temporarily deactivate it, and nothing gets in. There are plenty of natural resources on Palandora, so there’s nothing to worry about from a siege.”

  “You said we didn’t have many weapons yet,” X commented. “Are you proposing that we grant you asylum in exchange for weapons?”

  “Better than that,” Rax replied. “I’m proposing that you grant my crew and me asylum in exchange for Black Fang.”

  Jenara’s mouth dropped open. “You’re joking.”

  “Not at all. With a warship like that, you could easily defend the entrance corridor, and you could visit other planets as well without making a week’s journey out of it. You can have everything on it, too, except for our personal belongings, and also we’ll take three starfighters; we have to have transportation, you know. And you must give us land so we can support ourselves here. That shouldn’t be asking too much, given the amount of undeveloped space on this planet.”

  This was all terribly amusing for Kayleen Rax. She was well aware that the entire population of Palandora felt nothing but loathing for her, just like X had said. But they really could not refuse her on this. Rax was no longer a threat to them, even with her crew. She didn’t have the Blast Crystal any longer, and three starfighters would not be any kind of a threat to Black Fang and the rest of its fighter fleet. The really ironic thing, though, was that Rax would actually be an invaluable asset to Palandora. Since the planet had been isolated for so long, no one there would know anything about the galactic economy. Rax could show them where to go to purchase materials for planetary defense weapons and the like, and she could show them how to use Black Fang’s powers to make enough money to finance those purchases. And King Trennon would pay her dearly for the service, as well.

  “How do we know you’re not going to set the ship to self destruct as soon as we’re on it and you’re not?” X asked.

  “You don’t, I guess. But really, would that be in my best interest? What would Jenara’s father do if I tried that? My goal is to make myself safe, not dead. In any case, I’m not in any hurry. You can go down to the planet and think for as long as you like, and I’ll just sit up here. The only difference between now and after we make the deal is that right now I’m the one with the warship.”

  Jenara knew better than that.
“I don’t think so, Rax. You’re coming down to the planet until we make a final decision. Besides, it’s my father you have to convince, not me.”

  The sun was low on the horizon when Kayleen Rax and the Palandoran crew touched down on the planet. Jenara immediately took Rax in to meet with her father, but X was not very interested in the meeting. He walked out of the palace and whistled. Valkron had undoubtedly seen the shuttles land, and hopefully he had come far enough out of the mountains to hear him. Dragons had very good ears, and before long X could see the green dragon approaching. He mounted up when Valkron had landed, and then the pair lifted into the sky. Palandora looked beautiful from up there, and X was glad to be home. But for how long? He wanted to stay up there forever, but he knew that Jenara, her father, and Rax would finish their discussion before too long, and he wanted to be there when they did. He turned Valkron around and returned to the palace gardens.

  It was late in the evening when Jenara came walking out of the palace and found him standing under a large tree, thinking.

  “How’d it go?” he asked her.

  “You could probably guess. My father didn’t want anything to do with her, but in the end he had to make the deal. There really is a lot we could do with a starship like that.”

  “Yeah.” X was staring off into the darkening sky.

  Jenara looked concerned. “X, are you all right?”

  “Yeah,” he said again. “I was almost hoping you and your father would turn her down. Not really, it’s just that now we have to decide what to do with the ship.”

  “What do you mean? We should keep it here and guard the entrance to the nebula, just in case the Anacronian ships come looking for Rax.”

  “Maybe.”

  “What else did you have in mind, X?”

  “Black Fang is a very powerful ship. It could do a lot for the StarBlazer Alliance.”

  “What are you saying? That we sell it to them?”

  “No. But maybe I should take it and use it to help them.”

  “X, I thought we agreed that our part was done in this war.”

  “Yes, but that was before we had something that could make a difference.”

  Jenara looked up at the sky for a moment as well. “X, after I told my father about the things you did while we were gone, he decided to give you command of the ship. He was going to give it to me, but I didn’t want it. It was all right with the Chelaris, but Black Fang is a warship, and that’s not a field I’m interested in going into.”

  X looked over at her. “You know, Jenara, war isn’t something I’m interested in either. I mean, I hope to increase Palandora’s defense systems, and if we’re ever attacked I’ll do everything I can. But I don’t think this warrior stuff is for me. I don’t like running around defending people who aren’t there with me. I know it’s necessary for some people, but I don’t like being the one to do it.”

  Jenara smiled at him. “I’m glad you feel that way, X.”

  X’s face remained sad. “But Jenara, for the moment I have more battle experience than anyone on the planet, and I can help to defend it by fighting Dark Viper. If StarBlazer wins without us, then we’ll be fine, except that we will not have sacrificed anything for our safety. We won’t have any more respect in the galaxy than we do now, and we’ll probably continue to be overlooked. On the other hand, if Palandora helps StarBlazer to win, then Gerran Marnax will be a lot more inclined to form an alliance with us, and that means we’d have a lot more protection than one warship. StarBlazer might even pay us for our efforts.”

  “But what if you go and StarBlazer loses? What if you get killed?”

  X was running out of things to say. He didn’t like the idea of leaving, but he really felt it was the right thing to do. “I’m not trying to be a hero here. I’ll do everything I can to stay safe. I promise.”

  Jenara nodded silently and then put her hand on X’s shoulder. “I can’t say I agree with you on this, but I think I understand, and I’m not going to stop you. I trust you to get back in once piece, it’s just that …” She was going to try to explain herself in words, but she just hugged him instead. “I’m going to miss you,” she said finally.

  “Me too,” X replied. “I’ll hurry back.”

  After they parted X gathered together enough Palandorans to form a skeleton crew for Black Fang, and in less than three hours he was on his way.