Joel, feeling slightly rejected, dropped his hand and returned the bow. Molly watched and indicated to Jack. “And this is Jack Nolan,” she explained.
Jack, immediately applying what she had just observed, bowed deeply to the emperor, and then to the justicar; both of whom enthusiastically returned her bow.
Looks like Jack is the golden girl.
It does. She’s what one might term a ‘smart cookie.’
“Come, let’s sit and discuss how we might be of assistance to each other,” the justicar suggested, indicating to the array of tables and ornate benches where officials would sit in an audience with the emperor.
The team sat around, taking up a few rows across the narrow aisle, so that all might see each of the players. The emperor even made his way over and perched on the ceremonial desk. Molly deduced from the justicar’s surprise that this was an entirely unusual occurrence.
After some preamble about why they were there, and what had happened since their mission, the group moved on to the key concern.
Molly was the first to raise it. “The thing is, we don’t want to incite a war. And yet, we believe that, unchecked, Shaa will become more of a concern; not just to the Federation, but to your other allies.”
The emperor listened intently, nodding in agreement.
Molly continued to share her solution. “I suggest we find Shaa and put a stop to him. We come to you, Your Highness, because we don’t want our actions to be perceived as an act of war.”
The emperor continued to nod. “You can be assured of our full support. Only there is something we must make clear.” He made eye contact with the justicar who took over the explanation.
“Shaa is still seen as a war hero in some parts of the empire. As the leadership, we can’t be seen going after him. To extradite him is one thing; his supporters can always believe that it was his choice. In fact, I have word that this is what his propaganda is saying. However, it would divide our people if we were to actively pursue him.”
He looked back at the emperor and then lowered his eyes. Emperor Kulu delivered the bottom line, looking at each team member in turn. “It’s up to you. You, Molly Bates, and your hidden team of warriors, must solve this problem from the shadows. We support you, but this cannot be traced back to us. To know that we sanctioned it will divide our citizens, and this we cannot bear – despite the dishonor this man has brought on us.”
Molly nodded her understanding and looked down at the floor, processing the implications. “Yes, Your Highness. I understand. We will be discrete.”
The meeting continued for a few minutes more as the justicar delivered additional intel that might help them in finding the location of Shaa.
“I can have the maps sent to you on your device, but it may take a few days for our systems’ engineers to code it to your language,” he offered.
Okay, Oz, how do we get around this one?
Tell him to send the encrypted file in the base code, and we’ll figure it out.
Then they’ll know we’ve cracked their code.
Oz didn’t respond.
Molly had an idea. “Perhaps you might show me the map, rather than send it? I have a good memory, and we can read the coordinates off and then reproduce a representation when we get back to our ship.”
Beno’or seemed surprised at her apparent ability, but satisfied that this would solve their problem. He pulled up the hologram of the information he was going to send.
You getting this, Oz?
Yep. Every pixel of it.
My eyes don’t encode in pixels.
No, but my processors do, and that’s what’s capturing what you’re seeing.
Molly rolled her eyes.
Hey! Eyes on the map, genius.
Molly snapped her eyes back to the map where she had left off, and continued the scan.
Minutes later, the task was accomplished, and Joel and the emperor had somehow managed to bond; though Molly completely missed what had happened.
They started saying their goodbyes.
The emperor patted Joel on the back. “Thank you, Molly Bates, Joel Dunham, and Jack Nolan. Our empire is honored to have friends such as you.”
The three of them bowed, and received respectful bows back from both Emperor Kulu and the justicar.
Justicar Beno’or then led the group back through the hall, and out of the office with the red carpet. The entourage, who had been hovering at a respectful distance during the meeting, seemed a little more relaxed with their visitors, given how their leader had treated them.
As they were escorted back out of the double doors and out into the enormous hall that was the Capitol Building, there was much more ease about the situation.
* * *
As the team approached the skylift, they bid farewell to their guards, who were almost pleasant in their sendoff. Once within the private confines of the lift, Jack finally spoke.
“So, are we concerned that he might be hanging us out to dry, if we keep quiet the fact that he endorsed this?”
Joel glanced over at her, leaning against the bar that encircled the compartment.
Jack stood just as alert as she had been, clearly keeping her awareness on the sounds around the lift, and the speed at which they were traveling. Molly noticed that there was never a moment when the woman was not a professional, taking her role seriously.
Molly turned to look directly at her. “You make a great point,” she commented, thinking through the implications.
Jack could read Molly’s face just as easily as Molly could now read other people’s emotions. “But…?” Jack prompted.
Molly shook her head. “I don’t think so. His intentions at the time were honorable.”
Joel and Jack looked at each other, surprised that Molly actually had an opinion about someone’s unspoken intentions.
Joel shrugged. “Okay. So then we assume he’s sincere, and press on finding Shaa.” He looked at Molly. “Does Oz think that the intel he shared will be useful?”
The lift seemed to be coming to a stop at the top of the shaft. She nodded. “Yeah. It will certainly help narrow things down,” she told him.
Jack had clicked on the quantum comm on her wrist and was typing on her holo. The lift doors opened. “Ok,” she told the other two. “The Empress will be passing overhead in three minutes. Looks like we timed this well.”
The three teammates stepped out of the lift and onto the platform, scanning the sky for their ride.
Aboard The Scamp Princess, On approach to Teshov
Giles leaned forward in his seat, straining to see the detail on the planet that they were approaching.
Sean was busy flicking switches and making adjustments on the ship. “Scamp, take us in on warp. And stay on high alert; this can be a hostile area.”
“Yes, sir,” Scamp confirmed.
The trip was coming to a close, and, having navigated into orbit, and then through the atmosphere, The Scamp Princess touched down gently on the surface about a mile from what looked like a settlement.
Sean looked over at Giles with a slight smirk. “Nervous?” he asked, half having a dig.
Giles nodded and removed his glasses, cleaning them with a cloth from his suit, and shoving them into an inside pocket. “A little,” he confessed. During the trip, he had replaced his tweed jacket with a modern atmosuit. He looked younger. Much younger, in fact; and now, without the glasses…
Sean frowned. “You don’t need those, do you?” he asked, pointing at the glasses that had just been tucked away.
Giles shook his head, a little embarrassed. “’Course not. In a society that has nanocytes and nanobots, why would anyone need to wear corrective lenses?”
Sean’s frowned deepened. “Well, then, why…” His voice trailed off and he shook his head as he realized that he didn’t have time for this kind of question.
Giles waved his hand dismissively. “Quite,” he said, agreeing with Sean
’s unspoken sentiment.
They unbuckled and scrambled from their seats, heading through the ship to exit via the back door.
Sean was the first down the ramp, and was holding a lightweight blaster at the ready. Giles cautiously followed him down, half of his attention on where he was stepping, and half his attention on the scene opening up in front of him. All he could see was sand; until he reached the bottom of the ramp, at which point, he could also see the sky – dull red higher up, and deep blue on the horizon.
He breathed in the atmosphere, and was instantly transported back to the time when he lived here. The scent of the sand and the burning of fossil fuels in the settlements reminded him not just of the primitive lifestyle, but of the base attitude of the ruling class toward the toxins they would freely place into the air that the settlers would breathe.
He realized instantly he hadn’t missed his time here one bit.
Sean tugged at his suit jacket, opening up the asymmetric flap to expose some of his undershirt to the air, trying to cool himself down. The dryness in the atmosphere became quickly evident in his lungs as he tried to breathe normally.
“I forget how dry it gets out here,” he commented to Giles.
Giles adjusted his suit, too, and they started trudging through the sand, back around to the other side of the ship, ready to head toward the settlement. “You’ve been here before?” he asked, trying to play down his curiosity about this mysterious cyborg marine.
Sean grunted. “Yeah. Many times,” he confirmed. He turned to access the projected holo panel that was several feet away from the actual ship. He poked around in the controls, and the ramp closed itself up.
Giles watched for a moment before deciding to get a head start on the walk. Sean soon caught up, and the two men made their way across the arid sandy hell.
Onboard The Empress
Crash rejoined the group. “Okay, we’re stationary!” he announced. Brock glanced up at him, his eyes alight with sarcasm.
Crash looked shifty, his confidence dropping under Brock’s weighted gaze. “Well,” Crash qualified, “as stationary as one can be in space, with no reference points… and no resistance.”
Brock made a silly face and turned his attention back to the assembled group.
Molly was perched on the arm of an anti grav chair, and many of the other chairs in the immediate vicinity had been turned around and moved into positions to allow the whole team, and Arlene, to be a part of the briefing. Crash plunked himself down in the far corner near the window, where he was able to see everyone else’s reaction without having to really get too involved. He blamed tiredness from flying for his antisocial mood, but the truth was he was mostly just antisocial these days.
Molly pulled up the map that Oz had scanned from the visit with the emperor, and indicated at the target points. “These are the bases that the Zhyn have deduced may be possible locations that Shaa was using,” she explained. “He may have been planning this for several decades; those points represent places where he sanctioned activity - shipments and the like - which weren’t known locations for the empire.”
The group watched intently.
Molly nodded to Pieter, who was sitting in the front row and typing furiously on his holo. He looked up. “Ah, right,” he said, responding to her cue.
He shifted in his chair to address as much of the group as possible from where he sat. “So, it seems,” he began, turning his attention back to his holo, briefly, to hit a key and project an overlay onto Molly’s map, “that there are a few locations that this signal could be coming from. Not because there are multiple points of origin, but because Shaa has used some kind of fragmenter to break up any signals that are emerging from the base. It’s kinda like where gravity bends light, and makes distant stars look like they’re in entirely different positions from where they are, because the only thing one can do is track back in a straight line.”
Joel was frowning, but it looked like most of the rest of the crew were following. Or at least pretending to follow.
Pieter continued. “So, taking this into account, I’ve fiddled with some common parameters to try and lock down an actual position.” He stood up and waved a hand around in a circle encompassing a couple of the points that the Zhyns’ map gave them. “This puts his position somewhere in this area.”
Jack leaned forward over crossed legs. “Can’t we narrow it down any further?” she asked.
Pieter nodded once. “Oz?”
Oz’s voice came over the speakers in the cabin. “Yes and no. We can’t know for certain without some other input, more data. But from what we know, we can assume with 77 percent accuracy that it is likely this one.” At that moment, one of the already pinpointed locations was highlighted in yellow.
Jack tilted her head. “And if we’re wrong?”
Molly’s eyes defocused, clearly in listening mode. Oz’s voice came over the speaker again. “Then we try the second most likely location,” he told them.
Jack sat back in her chair, catching Paige’s eye. Paige could tell she wasn’t satisfied, but ignored it and turned her attention back to the briefing.
Molly un-perched herself, putting her weight on her feet and straightening up. “So, given this is our target, we can probably assume that there are defenses. We’ll need a plan to be able to get in and out without getting blown up by his penchant for anti-spacecraft guns.”
Pieter sat back down, and swung his chair around to look at Molly. “Any idea on the likely range he has on those things?”
Molly pulled her lips to one side and looked over at Joel.
Joel stood against the wall where the screens were being projected. He took a deep breath and unfolded his arms. “Well,” he started slowly, “it’s a guess; but from what we’ve seen on the intel that Maya and Paige gathered from their databases, the Zhyn generally prefer the tech that picks off spacecraft as they come into orbit. There are reasons for this, I suppose. They have developed skylifts, and I guess that orbital area is their most sensitive, and where the most traffic is – most of the time. That means that’s where their awareness is. It perhaps won’t have even occurred to them seriously that a ship may land. Or may attack from further away.”
Jack piped up again. “Can we tell anything from the kit Shaa has been requisitioning?”
Molly nodded to Maya, who had her holo up and was already poking through the data they had collected. Maya shook her head, her mouth downturned. “Nope. It’s not the kind of thing he would have put through official channels,” she relayed. She paused and scratched her head. “I dunno where we’d get that kind of data. I mean, if it were Estaria or Ogg, I’d have some inkling of where to start poking around; but this… it’s just so alien.”
Molly shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Okay, then,” she decided. “It looks like the best course of action is to assume they’re heavily armed with a focus on anything that pops into orbit. Given that, we need a plan of attack that will allow us to take him out, and not put us in mortal danger.” She paused, looking at the group. “Suggestions?”
The team sat in contemplative silence for a moment, and then Joel raised his hand.
* * *
Two hours later, after much back and forth, the meeting was wrapped up with a plan of action in place. They had a few hours to rest while they returned to the base to pick up some supplies, and then they would turn around and go out to the most likely location of Shaa’s base.
A strange tension hung in the air as the team tried to get some rest while in transit to one of the most harebrained operations they had ever undertaken.
Chom-X9, War Room
Shaa paced the length of his War Room, almost ignoring the presence of his guests. His eyes fixed on a point on the wall straight ahead as he continued to deliver his rhetoric to his captive audience.
“Our goal, gentlemen, is to incite unrest, and garner as many allies as possible. This will not be hard, given the immen
se threat that the Federation poses to all life in the galaxy.”
He continued to pace the long, windowless, metal-walled room. Twenty four guests sat around the functional, no-frills conference table. Some were the same race, but from different worlds. Others shared little more than an interest in keeping out of the Federation’s way. All had been hand-selected by Shaa long before his exile, and represented a who’s who of the local galaxy.
As Shaa walked, the guests turned their heads, tracking his motion. Those who had their back to him displayed signs of unease when he passed closely behind them.
“It has been a concern for many generations now, that as we thrive as individuals, we become more and more of a threat to the Federation,” Shaa told them. “The Federation’s only desire is to control, to further their own agenda. They dress it up as diplomacy, and wanting to make life better to all who come into the fold; but they dangle this utopia in front of all their potential enemies as a way of creating a docile following.”
He paused, reaching the end of the room, and turned on his heels to face the assembly. “But the Zhyn people have stood firm. What you see on this base is a demonstration that we will no longer be placated by empty words and promises. The Zhyn are proud. We’re strong,” he said, now slamming his fist into the palm of his other hand. “And together with our brothers in arms, we will all remain strong and proud, separate from the oppressors.” His voice reached a crescendo, and he paused, looking now at those he could make eye contact with. He held a few individuals’ gazes for a moment before continuing his point.
“But we can’t do it alone,” he concluded more quietly now. “We must unite.”
There was an awkward shuffle from one of the guests. A Yollin from the upper caste seemed to have made it onto Shaa’s short list of people likely to follow him. The Yollin started to speak, inaudibly at first.
Shaa spun around to see who might interrupt him. The Yollin tried again, finding his voice. “Your Highness,” he started, disregarding that Shaa had been stripped of his rank and status when he was exiled. “Our fear is that we are no match for the Federation’s forces. We have only ever had the choice of falling in line, or suffering the consequences. At least if we don’t take up arms, we can make the pretense that we are toeing the line.”
The Ascension Myth Box Set Page 116
