M'tak Ka'fek (The T'aafhal Inheritance)

by Doug Hoffman

  Other stalks, evidently not belonging to the central creature, quickly disappeared back into the garbage. Bear's companions ceased firing as he hacked his way out of the alien's body. Before him he pushed a large purplish gray mass.

  “You have got one huge pair of cojones, LT,” Joey said with heartfelt admiration. Feldman sheathed his machete and holstered his railgun. He then proceeded to pry the pseudo-snake head off his helmet.

  “And just what have you got there, Lt. Bear?” asked a very relieved JT.

  “I don't know,” Bear replied, “could be its liver or its brain. I just went for the largest organ I could find.”

  “I cannot believe you did that.”

  “Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Besides, Feldman was blasting everything in sight, hopping around with that green thing stuck on his head like an elf's cap. I figured we needed to end this as soon as possible.”

  “Well, end it you did Brother Bear. I guess we should head back the other way like the Captain said.”

  “Yeah. No rest for us apex predators.” Bear shook the remaining alien spew off his suit. “How about taking the lead, Sanchez? I think Feldman did his share leading us into that ambush.”

  “Yeah, no problem, LT.”

  “Hey, how was I to know we were going to be attacked by giant green sock puppets from hell?” Jon protested.

  Sanchez looked at Feldman. “You were hopping around like an elf there for a while, bro.”

  Jon favored Joey with a single finger salute as the detail headed back through the bulkhead opening. Now many sets of eyes and other sense organs followed their passage with growing interest—the Earthlings were the most exciting thing to hit the station in decades.

  * * * * *

  In the Trader's cloister, Zooshnarak-kak-ka hustled in to report to his leader. Tail flicking nervously he addressed the august Keneesh-ka-ka-kar. “Your pardon, Trader, but there is word regarding the new aliens.”

  “Speak! What have they been doing?”

  “After a short encounter with the flying vermin, they headed toward the collector. On the way they crossed the path of an exo-stomach being, but let it pass by peacefully.”

  “Hmm. They do not sound very aggressive—perhaps they are not as powerful as their ship suggests.”

  “Ah, but then they went into the restricted area beyond the bulkhead. There was a brief altercation in which a number of carnivorous medusa plants were summarily dispatched by the strangers.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, Trader. One of our observers said they repelled the plant tentacles with their weapons. Reportedly, the largest of them put its weapon away and actually dove into the dominant plant in the colony, ripping it apart from the inside.”

  “Impressive! They may not have wanted to display the full power of their weapons or, having gauged the extent of the threat, decided to have a bit of fun with their attackers.”

  “Possibly. What ever the reason for their actions, it is clear that they are neither defenseless nor adverse to violence.” Zooshnarak-kak-ka paused and fluffed his tail, “and, Trader?”

  “Yes?”

  “They are headed this way.”

  Chapter 12

  Food Production Engineering Lab

  Clem and Lem followed the Chief Administrator as she strode through the labyrinth of passageways that supported Farside's agricultural areas. They had received emails instructing them to report to personnel instead of going to work that morning. On arrival they were informed that they had been reassigned to new duties in Agricultural Production & Processing. The bearer of that news turned out to be the Chief Administrator herself, Dr. Ludmilla Tropsha.

  Following the purposefully striding administrator, both men became aware that, even though Ludmilla's jumpsuit was of a utilitarian cut, nothing short of a full suit of space armor could hide the feminine form within. No doubt about it, the Chief Administrator was a knockout. Clem notice Lem overtly ogling Ludmilla's backside and gave him a poke in the ribs.

  “What?” Lem said with some annoyance.

  Clem shot him a look, eyebrows raised, just as they arrived at a large door. Their guide did not break step as the door slid open in front of her. Passing through a few more rooms filled with random pieces of duct-work and equipment, Ludmilla stopped at a work bench where a pretty young woman with long, curly brown hair was fiddling with some kind of air-handler.

  “Good morning, Melissa,” Ludmilla said, addressing the woman. “I see you are still having trouble with your fly factory.”

  “Oh, hey there, Dr. Tropsha,” Melissa said, looking up from the piece of equipment. “What brings you all the way down here?”

  Clem noticed that the young woman's jumpsuit was a bright leaf-green—the same color as the jumpsuits he and Lem had found in their delivery chutes that morning. Evidently this was their new department's color, not to be confused with the dark green of the Marines and certainly an improvement over the gray of the maintenance section.

  “I would like to introduce your new engineering staff.” Half turning to include the two men she continued. “These are Clement Mathews and Lemuel Souther.”

  “Hello, Ma'am,” said Clem.

  “Hi,” said Lem.

  “Both are former Army and trained to work on a wide variety of mechanical, electrical and hydraulic equipment. I am hoping that they will be able to help you construct your fly breeding system.”

  “Hey, guys. That's real nice of you. I'm having the worst time trying to move the flies out of the egg repository without smashing them all to bits. If y'all can come up with some way to do that it would be great!”

  “Flies?” asked Lem.

  “Eggs?” asked Clem.

  “Right.” Melissa smiled brightly.

  “Miss Scott Hamilton is the head of the AP&P department. You will take direction from her. Your exact duties will be determined by how useful she finds you.” Turning to Melissa she said, “If you have any problems give my office a call. I have a meeting I am already late for.”

  With that Farside's Chief Administrator left her two charges with their new boss and strode from the room. The two men stood across the workbench with friendly but questioning looks on their faces.

  “Is she always that... business like?” asked Clem.

  “Dr. Tropsha? Yeah, she's got a million things on her mind all the time. I'm surprised she took the time to walk y'all down here herself. She must think a lot of you two.”

  “I don't know why,” Lem replied. “We just met her this morning.”

  “Well, she must have a reason. Ludmilla's one of the smartest people I know, and she's really nice besides. Well, once you get to know her.”

  “So, let me get this straight,” Clem asked. “You are trying to raise flies? On the Moon?”

  “I guess they didn't have time to give you a briefing but here's the problem: we have more than 10,000 people here at Farside and we have to find food for them. There isn't any wildlife or vegetation here naturally so we gotta' raise up things for people to eat from almost nothing.”

  “I never thought about that, did you Clem?”

  “Not really, people don't much think about how food gets on their plates.”

  “Right. So we are building a whole food chain, from the bottom up. We have a bunch of plants growing—fruit, grains, vegetables and such—but most people like meat.”

  “With you so far.” Lem nodded.

  “Flies breed really fast and can turn almost any organic waste into protein, particularly if you harvest them in the larval stage, before they turn into adult flies. So we're trying to build a closed system that lets flies lay their eggs on a growing surface that we can flood with nutrients. We need some replacement flies for more breeding but we don't want them all to hatch out so we need to suck some flies off to the next laying chamber and then process the rest of the larvae. I've been trying to force them along with air flow, but they get all beat up.”

  “Sounds like you have an a
irflow problem. Clem, you remember those sand separators on the AC units in Iraq?”

  “Yeah, they swirled the incoming air around to separate sand and stuff out and discard it.”

  “It's not just separating the flies, it's doin' it without turning them into goo.”

  “What you need is to create a swirling action and get a boundary layer effect to keep 'em from smashing into the sides of the ducting. Do you have a drafting table?”

  “I have a display surface you can doodle on.” Melissa thought, these guys might be useful after all, even if they do look like two thirds of ZZ Top.

  “Come on, Clem. This is going to be cool...”

  Earth Moon L4 Point

  Lt. Melaku's corvette drifted in space more than two hundred kilometers from the Earth Moon L4 point. On her helmet's visor display she watched the swirling dots of light that represented her two flights of trainees, eight ships in all. Other, faster moving dots represented railgun rounds fired by those ships—virtual rounds only at this phase of the training exercise.

  The L4 point was currently trailing the Earth Moon system with respect to its orbital path around the Sun. The mission plan called for live railgun fire only in a direction that would send the potentially destructive 10kg slugs on course for the inner solar system and away from both local planets. The preliminaries indicated that this would take a bit more practice by the trainees than anticipated.

  What a Charlie Foxtrot, Beth thought, staring at the swirling mess on her display—a NATO slang term for a much ruder Anglo-Saxon one. “All right, Frenchy. Signal end of exercise and tell them to reform on us.”

  “Aye, Skipper.”

  Once the flight of newbies had sorted themselves out and returned to formation Beth switched off her tactical display, turning her visor transparent allowing them see the expressions on her face. She addressed them collectively.

  “That was undoubtedly one of the worst displays of undisciplined, uncoordinated, mass chaos I have ever witnessed. At best, you achieved what I call the furball effect, in which the event devolves into a melange of attacks and counter-attacks, where you cannot tell friend from foe.

  “You displayed no fire discipline, loosing rounds in all directions without consideration for your fellows. Wingmen abandoned their leaders and leaders lost contact with their flights. In short, you were more likely to shoot your comrades than your enemies!”

  On the console display in front of her, Lt Melaku could see small images of each ship commander's face as they went from giddy excitement to crestfallen embarrassment. They should all know better, she thought angrily, all of them were service pilots of some type back in the day. No matter, practice cures all ills.

  “All right let's try that again. I want you wingmen to stick to your leaders' tails, and flight leaders keep track of your ships. Most importantly I want to see some fire discipline. When you attack, fire as you approach your targets so that the velocity of your approach vector adds to the railgun slugs' KE on impact. Firing back at the target once past is like blowing them kisses.

  “And make sure you know where the other ships are headed, so you don't fill their part of the sky with 10 kilo slugs. We are going to stay out here until you fire live rounds at those target drones and you will not fire live rounds until I am confident you will not kill each other in the process.”

  Beth took several deep breaths to calm down. This training exercise is proving more nerve wracking than facing a real enemy. This was just the first phase of training. Within the week she was supposed to take this group of trainees on an extended flight to the asteroid belt and Mars. That would not happen until they could at least fire their weapons without endangering each other.

  “All right, Training Flights 1 & 2, maneuver to your attack positions. Commence attack on my signal. Frenchy, bring us around for another run.”

  “Aye aye, Skipper.”

  Base Administrator's Office

  Ludmilla called the council back for another session, this time, to decide on a path for the immediate future. Jo Jo started with a status report on ship construction.

  “We are now up to 14 corvettes, the latest are on a shakedown cruise with their crews. Six more have been started with an expected completion time of four weeks. Probably more important is the work on Constellation and Constitution, the first two frigates.

  “They are nearing completion and should be ready for launch within the month. They were delayed a bit by the addition of anti-plasma counter weapons not included in the original design. Each will require a crew of 64 sailors and 8 officers plus a squad of 14 Marines.”

  “The crews have been chosen and are busy training in the simulators,” added Captain Gretchen Curtis, the designated commander of all naval forces. She would directly command the squadron of frigates.

  “Why so many Marines on each ship?” asked Rajiv.

  “In case they need to board another ship, or repel boarders,” replied Gretchen, “but under normal circumstances they also man some of the ship's weapons.”

  “Once the first two are completed we will start construction of Chesapeake and Indefatigable,” Jo Jo continued. “They will take 15 weeks to complete.”

  “Indefatigable?” asked TK.

  “British,” replied Jo Jo. “She served throughout the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. She took, alone or in company, some 27 prizes.”

  “I thought we were naming the first six after the U.S. Navy's first six frigates?”

  “We were, but then decided we needed to add some historical names from other navies, given the international make up of our recruits,” Ludmilla answered. “That and the naming committee decided to reserve the name United States for the first of a larger class of ship.”

  “You're all ready planning for bigger ships?”

  “Believe me, TK,” Gretchen answered with a grim smile, “if you had seen the ships floating about in the Sirius graveyard you would not be asking that question. But designing a new, bigger class of ship will take time, so we are going to build as many frigates as we can until then.”

  “What other names have you decided on?”

  Jo Jo consulted his tablet. “Maeander, Yarra, Ikazuchi, Tachikaze, Grozovoi, Strashni, Victoire, and Soledad round out the first twelve.”

  “Thunder and Wind From a Sword Stroke,” Yuki translated the two Japanese names. “Very good, very appropriate.” Yuki looked at Ludmilla and raised his eyebrows.

  “Yes, Yuki, you wish to add something?”

  “Yes, Doctor. I am afraid that I must be the bearer of disturbing news.” Suddenly, the room was as silent as a grave.

  “What is it, Yuki,” Gretchen asked. She and the Japanese astrophysicist were often kendo sparing partners and she knew it was not in Yuki's nature to joke about such things. He must have terrible news indeed.

  “I have been studying sensor readings from an observation drone the task force left behind near the scene of the battle. There are unmistakable signs that an alien probe departed the area roughly eight days after the fleet headed for home.” He glanced around the room, grim faced. “It is fairly certain that the enemy knows of their defeat... and that we still exist.”

  “Sounds like we'll need the new frigates sooner rather than later. How long is it gonna' take to build 'em?” TK said, getting to the crux of the matter.

  “With the yards we have now, more than a year,” was Jo Jo's muted answer. “Perhaps faster if we can get the yards being built on Olympus Mons up and running.”

  “And how long do you figure we have, Yuki?”

  “Judging by the message probe's alter-space entry parameters, it will take about six months to reach its destination. It took about the same amount of time from first contact to the attack on Earth. Add that to the transit time and, If we are very lucky, we have a year to prepare. Half that long if fortune is against us.”

  A somber quiet settled on the room. After what seemed an interminable silence, TK spoke.

  “I got an idea.” />
  “Yes, TK?” said Ludmilla.

  “Some times you need to invest in expanding yer means of production instead of just producing as fast as you can.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Instead of starting on two new frigates, we build a pair of big, fast cargo ships—we already have plans for 'em. Then ship enough equipment, material and personnel to Mars to get the shipyards there up and running. Once they are, they will produce four frigates for every two we can build here.”

  “That makes sense if we actually have six months grace time before the next attack. Even better if the delay is longer,” agreed Rajiv. “But where will we get the people?”

  “We go recruitin' in Texas and Australia and anyplace else we can find educated workers. And we call for volunteers from the workforce here. We can promise 'em they'll be in on the ground floor for settling Mars, once things calm down a bit.”

  “You think the lure of settling on Mars will be a big enough enticement?”

  “A few years back, a group tried to organize a private mission to Mars. They asked for donations and volunteers to settle the red planet. They got over 200,000 people to sign up for a one way trip even though there would be nothing waiting for them on the other end. We can offer a lot more than that.”

  “That might work, but what if the Dark Lords attack early?” asked Gretchen, “We will only have two frigates, the Peggy Sue and a bunch of corvettes. If they come in greater force than the squadron we encountered at Sirius we could be at a severe disadvantage.”

  “If they come early we're screwed any way you slice it, Captain Curtis,” TK said, stating the truth they all had been avoiding.

  “So it isn't really much of a gamble at all, is it?” added Ludmilla. “OK, all in favor?” Hands went up around the table.

  “All opposed?” None were opposed.

  “Ochyen khorosho, let us get on with the planning...”

  Hallway, Alien Space Station

  The four members of the recon patrol stopped briefly at the entrance to the boarding tube, where they conferred with their colleagues. Their fellows in the reserve force offered them words of encouragement, of a sort.