The shuddering, however, intensified and threatened the Wily Boy’s stability. ‘I’m going to jump us into hyperspace; we are already near to it,’ Edge shouted. ‘The pirate missiles have hit us several times. We could break up under the strain. Moreover, I have no guarantees that we will survive hyperspace entry. We have run out of options. Hold on and hope, hope, hope.’
Unexpectedly, the pirate fighter craft began to veer off, falling back to their mother ship. One exploded. The two others appeared compromised. Then other craft arrived and seemed to be firing at each other. The battle became complicated, with no clear boundaries or objectives. The Wily Boy crew were confused. Why were the pirate fighters fighting each other?
Clarity finally came, followed by a rush of hope.
‘It’s incredible,’ Ninthe cried. ‘A new mother ship has appeared and fighters are pouring out of it. They are completely different from the pirates, more organized. Could it be … look, I don’t want to raise false hopes, but I believe they are Rann.’
‘What,’ Faithe said. ‘Here? In this galaxy? What are they doing here?’
Ninthe stared at the screen and spoke softly. ‘I’m not sure. But it looks like a rescue mission.’
They stood silently watching the space battle. The Rann ships were obviously superior and displayed advanced combat skills and strategy. The space pirates were collapsing, their mother ship breached and at the mercy of boarding Rann marines.
Three Rann shuttles approached Wily Boy.
‘What’s happening?’ Faithe asked.
‘It looks like we are about to find out,’ Ninthe spoke dryly. ‘We have a boarding party. And there is nothing I can do to stop it. They are superior technologically.’
A few minutes later, a formidable group of Rann Marines stepped onto the bridge and positioned themselves on each side of the control panel. After a brief pause, two more people followed them. Edge and his grew gasped with surprise. Standing before them was the strong feline figure of Emeka. She seemed taller, more clearly defined, and radiated purpose and courage. The crew were impressed, but what really rendered them spellbound was the figure beside her.
It was Clayton.
Chapter 18
The Marleeseen space stations were works of art in orbit, mobiles in space, organic constellations floating freely in a time-space continuum. The kaleidoscopic blending of orange, green, red, blue, yellow, and purple –flowers in a vacuum; intricate, audacious.
It was understandable that the pirates had been cautious in their invasion tactics. These space stations indicated peerless technology. One would be compelled to ask what defensive systems lurked beneath the celestial forms that flourished and wove intricate webs above the serene third planet?
The Militia Zohar had waited, slowly building military capability on the fourth planet, creating a despotic, dictatorial system to which an increasing number of unlawful individuals and groups were drawn.
And waiting had been their undoing.
The Rann secret services had long suspected a criminal movement operating on the fringe of its empire along the rim of the Milky Way. Commander Emeka and others went undercover to discover the inner workings of these criminal factions. Posing as a rebel Rann who wanted back to the old days of conquest and plunder (something that had never existed), Emeka gained access to the criminal cartel Militia Zohar. She found that this cartel had merged with other cartels and insurgent groups, and, fuelled by a variation of the Shiloramedel secondary intergalactic drive stolen from the Rann by rebel elements of the Rann military, was migrating to the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Using intelligence provided by Emeka, a Rann armada followed the Militia Zohar across the space between the Milky Way and the Large Magellanic Cloud. Emeka continued to send extensive details of all cartel and insurgent activities. A vast criminal empire was in the making, of which the Confederacy of Liberated Worlds and the Marleeseen system, well established in the Large Magellanic Cloud, were unaware.
Guided by Commander Emeka's detailed instructions and blueprints of bases and weapons systems, the Rann attack on the rebel base on the fourth planet was decisive, wrenching all installations asunder, destroying space stations and satellite communications, and undermining all rebel infrastructures.
The Rann, once a great military race before entry into the Confederacy of Liberated Worlds, had resumed military training and expansion. Nearly a thousand years ago, an attack by a depraved and aggressive race on the Confederacy of Liberated Worlds, which at that time dominated the Milky Way, had alerted the Rann to the need to maintain defences, however innocuous the circumstances in surrounding space. Their ongoing purpose was surveillance and the annihilation of start-up criminal gangs before they became a serious threat. In this they were successful.
The Rann valued valour above all, seeing combat as a path to enlightenment. Their ethical code was rigorous and their rules of engagement unimpeachable. The protection and non-exploitation of innocents and non-combatants were sacrosanct. The killing of innocents, the use of human shields, and the exploitation of non-combatants for political propaganda purposes was strictly forbidden, punishable by death. This, however, did not diminish their ferocity and effectiveness as fighters.
The pirates on the fourth world of the Marleeseen system stood little chance. Fearing Rann reprisals and executions, they decided to fight to the death. Faction by faction, the aspiring criminal community broke apart. Rann technology nullified all attempts on the part of the insurgent militia to use blanks and other slaves as shields. Within a day, most of the pirates were dead, a few captured for questioning. None had escaped.
Flower-of-Sands stood in an area adjacent to the bridge of the gargantuan Rann warship, Ventura. For the equivalent of five Liberty days, she had been waiting for permission, via Commander Emeka, to approach the Marleeseen planet in search of Astral-La and the missing intergalactic drives. All around her were Rann Marines and other less definable military types. How she had ventured so close to a warship bridge was a mystery. She had been in a bar with off-duty Marine officers, or engineers, or tech guys – that much she remembered. Luckily, all eyes were on flashing screens and holos showing multiple illustrations of the pitiless slaughter of the pirates.
Despite the Rann rescue of her and her crew, she felt lurking disquiet. Commander Emeka had not yet granted her permission to visit the Marleeseen planet. That was understandable; the Rann had been engaged in a full-scale military operation. But the pirates had been defeated and she was still waiting. Was Clayton holding things up? And what was the significance of Clayton's involvement? Was he a spy, a secret intelligence exec hired by the Rann? Or was he the one doing the hiring? Who else of the Confederation knew about this? She felt confused, adrift. And to add to her confusion was the question of her feelings for Ninthe.
Was she in love with Ninthe, or had her adventures in hyper-space, with the pirates, and later with the blanks and on the planetoid, unhinged her? And how did Ninthe feel? Was their so-called fling the result of Android programming, designed to keep her mind off their apparent impending doom? After their "night" of intimacy, Ninthe had been practical, detached, treating her just like the others, almost ignoring her. Did Ninthe really care for her? In a manner that was difficult to clarify, she felt jealous. Of what, she was not sure; maybe simply of everyone upon whom Ninthe rested her eyes. Was this true love or madness or the madness of love? Somehow, she wondered if what had happened between them belonged strictly to the unfathomable world of advanced algorithms.
She could feel a young Rann warrior's eyes on her as he stood with associates. She had to admit she had noticed him. When she looked over, he had already looked away. He was gorgeous – tall, shiny black, high-cast, his lean muscular body radiating vitality and animal magnetism. He had taken a fancy to her, that was clear, but was being discrete, probably due to some complex Rann warrior-civilian etiquette.
She had never wholly understood why men (and some women) liked her sexually. She was tall, r
ather gangly, and small breasted, although she had long, luxuriant brown hair and a soft sensual mouth. In addition, despite her apparent awkwardness, she was unbeatable in unarmed combat, something her friends back on Liberty Primary long ago had found infuriating. Her opponents fell over themselves as if slipping on the skin of that Earth fruit called banana. Her style was so outlandish that anyone attacking her defeated themselves. She was a master of the unpredictable, asymmetric, and elusive, and although she had trained hard back on Liberty over eight hundred years ago, she had not set out to be different or outstanding – it had just happened. She had told herself that none of this endeared her to people. She was wrong.
At sixteen, she had entered the Academy of Mind Training and commenced studies with the famous Song Master Invisible Fist, excelling in combat and other areas of study despite her accident-prone nature. Here she discovered to her surprise that she was popular and attractive, and embarked on a succession of romantic relations with fellow students of both sexes.
Oh dear, she told herself, as she briefly caught her admirer's eye, he was obviously into her – basically, it was all set up. Well, it must not happen. I am here for a reason, she told herself, to find Astral-La and recover the lost intergalactic drives; I am not here to distract and be distracted. And anyway, I am in love with Ninthe, even although Ninthe seems to have forgotten that.
Later, walking a wide corridor that she hoped would lead to the ship's mess, she became aware of the Rann warrior walking behind her. She decided that she would have nothing to do with him, and save herself the complications that would arise from associating with such an individual, who was, after all, an alien. I need to make that clear to him, she thought as he pulled in beside her. She could feel his eyes on her.
‘Can I help you with anything,' she said slightly sarcastically.
He continued walking beside her, almost brooding, as if words were things that required archaeological investigation.
‘I was looking at you,' he said eventually. ‘I'm sorry if I annoyed you. You are the first Alliance woman I have seen.'
‘Well, here I am.' Having decided not to encourage him in any way, she found herself smiling. ‘Could you direct me to the mess hall? I find this ship incredibly confusing.'
He looked at her curiously, his eyes deep black. ‘Of course.' His rich baritone sent a shiver through her.
They walked without speaking for a while.
‘This ship is so big,’ she said suddenly – feeling uncomfortable with his gloomy silence. ‘It's like a city, even bigger. More like an island or a small country; I feel overwhelmed.'
After a short hesitation, he spoke. ‘I can show you around. I have three days' shore leave coming up.'
‘Shore Leave? Where? We are orbiting a planet with a hostile atmosphere. Walking the shores of a methane sea is not exactly my idea of romance.'
‘Are we talking of romance?' His brooding voice seemed to resonate inside her. She blushed.
‘I was meaning in the broadest sense of the word.'
He nodded, which could have meant anything; he was a different species, after all.
‘Shore Leave, under these circumstances, is three days on the holodeck, or in the sports arena,' he said. ‘But I can take time out and show you around the ship.'
She thought of the impending loneliness of Ninthe giving her the cold shoulder.
‘I'll think about it.' She could not believe that she had said this.
The smell of food indicated that they were approaching the mess hall.
‘If I am to show you around, it must be approved, higher up the chain of command,’ he said carefully. ‘I hope that will not give you discomfort.'
She frowned. ‘I don't understand.'
‘They may want to interview you.'
‘They? Why?'
‘It's a security issue – protocol.'
She surveyed his towering figure. ‘Can we eat together? Is that allowed – without an interview, that is?'
He looked at her quizzing. Then he smiled, and she thought how cute he was.
‘I have heard of Confederacy people's sense of humour.' His Standard Galactic was halting, his accent charming. ‘You call it "irony," I believe.'
Oh, how sweet, she thought, smiling warmly. ‘Well yes, something like that.' She heard herself laughing as if she were a fourteen-year-old about to go on her first date. She could not believe herself. Ahead, she could see Edge and Faithe, looking back at her with astonishment, also not believing.
The mess hall was crowded with towering Rann of both sexes and of multiple colours. Many of the women were blue, in white gold-yellow uniforms, immensely tall with elaborate black inscriptions on their faces and hands, and armed with guns, knives, and other objects whose purpose was obscure to her.
The young officer led her to a table occupied by Rann marines. Most of the men were semi-naked with skin like shiny black mirrors. The women, mostly blues, scrutinized her intensely, yellow eyes glinting and flashing. Intimidating hardly described it.
The young warrior said a few words in Rann and his colleagues politely, but reluctantly, lost interest. He turned to her, his eyes penetrating, sincere about something beyond her grasp. ‘My name is Emil, but I prefer Jet,' he said softly. ‘You are Flower-of-Sands?'
‘Oh, so you found out about me?'
‘Yes, I found you interesting, as soon as I saw you,' he said matter-of-factly. ‘And you are the first…'
‘Confederacy woman, yes, I got that one.'
She felt that she may be in a state of shock, or that she had accidentally fallen into a holo game. At the other side of the mess, she could see that Ninthe had joined Edge and Faithe and was staring at her, her expression unfathomable, enigmatic.
A synthetic waiter, roughly female, in a green silk uniform, appeared with two plates piled high with a conglomerate of vegetables and meat. Flower-of-Sands had no recollection of ordering and stared at the plate in horror. Something was moving beneath the surface of the ignoble stew, bubbling, even squeaking. On the other hand, was that her stomach in anticipatory protests? She started to retch and her eyes streamed. Looking up, she caught Ninthe's piercing gaze. Accusing? Angry? Questioning?
I must extract myself from this, she thought. This whole thing is absurd. She tried contacting Ninthe through her implant. No response.
She realized that she was behaving in direct contradiction to her upbringing and cultural heritage. In other words, she was behaving badly, and she could not help herself. Under the gaze of her lover Ninthe, she was voluntarily associating with an alien male who had many physical and psychological characteristics not found in her own race. Moreover, she did not even know if they were compatible biologically – not that she intended it to come to that. But the thought excited her.
Rann had elementary shape-shifting capabilities. In the past, before the Confederacy's exodus to the Large Magellanic Cloud, Rann would adapt their physiology before prolonged exposure to people of the main Confederacy cultures. Now, gazing at Jet, Flower-of-Sands realized that no such precautions had occurred. The male who was about to become her escort was an alien - period.
Her stomach seemed to have settled down, and she took a tentative bite of food, using her hands, as Rann seldom use culinary aids. To her surprise, the food was delicious, and she realized that she was famished.
After eating, she looked up and noticed that Edge, Faithe, and Ninthe had disappeared. She tried to contact Ninthe again through her implant, but Ninthe did not respond. Why was Ninthe not responding? Please, Ninthe, contact me, say you love me, anything; save me from this total way-out-ness. Nothing.
She decided to go with the flow, at least for a while, and sipped from a sweet beverage that had appeared beside her plate. She began to feel exhilarated and asked Jet about his life in the Rann marines. He spoke openly and freely, but she understood very little.
A stern Rann duty sergeant materialized in holo just above her plate. ‘Oh, how curious,' she exclaimed, laughing.
‘This is not a laughing matter,' the sergeant rasped officially. ‘You are requested to attend an interview with Captain Siliceous at the cessation of this refreshment interval.'
The holo winked out and she found herself staring at the space where it had been. ‘Who is Captain Siliceous?' she asked Jet.
‘Oh, don't worry,' he said casually in deep baritone. ‘He is one of the officials in the anti-terrorist, anti-espionage, code-of-behaviour department.'
‘Really! Must I go?
‘I strongly suggest you do.'
‘Can they make me?'
‘I strongly advise you do not put that to the test.'
She nodded. After all, she was dealing with Rann, and they were famously touchy.
‘Just a quick security interview.’ Jet tried to reassure her. ‘Rann Command is vigilant about security, especially around secret operations such as this.'
Flower-of-Sands was apprehensive. ‘Security?'
‘Amongst other things, yes.'
‘Other things? What other things?'
Her potential alien lover shrugged. ‘You will find out. But hey, it's nothing.'
To Flower-of-Sands it felt very much like something; she was starting to regret the whole thing. After all, she told herself, she had only half agreed that he would show her around the ship.
‘How do they know?' she asked.
‘Know what, Confederacy woman?'
She gave him a mock laugh. ‘That you offered to show me around the ship, Rann man.'
‘Surveillance. Our conversation would have been red-flagged, since you are an alien.'
‘Oh, nice one. I like the way you put that. But I have only half agreed.'
‘That is all that is required.'
Later, she stood before a door that quietly asked her what she wanted. ‘My name is Flower-of-Sands. I am human. I have received a request to attend for an interview with Captain Siliceous.'
‘We are expecting you. Enter.'
The door vanished and she entered a small conference room. Two Rann males with gleaming ebony skins sat behind a large ornate table. One of them motioned her to a massive chair facing the table. She sat, feeling engulfed by the enormity of the Rann and the chair.
Flower-of-Sands_The Extraordinary Adventures of a Female Astronaut Page 18
