Remaining calm in the face of Blug’s furious outburst, Tzal replied, “The supreme-master is well aware of exactly why it is that you assembled so many of your warships here at Slithin, Region-Master, and he offers you his sincerest personal congratulations on your cunning insight and the consummate forethought of your prompt request for imperial reinforcements.”
What? Blug was momentarily taken aback by this abrupt shift in Tzal’s course of thought. Xior, congratulating me? What sort of duplicitous chicanery is this?
“While I greatly appreciate the supreme-master’s high regard, of course — what exactly do you mean by your last comment, Ultimate-FleetMaster?”
“What you obviously already know, Region-Master,” said Tzal incredulously. “It’s why you requested Imperial reinforcements in the first place, and why Supreme-Master Xior sent me here with our entire stockpile of new weaponry, with such urgency.”
Blug felt the fur on the back of his neck rising at the chilling implications of Tzal’s statement. “Please expound further, Ultimate-FleetMaster.”
“Imperial Intelligence is in complete agreement with your assessment of alien intentions, Region-Master.”
“Which is…”
“That the humans are coming here, of course.”
* * * *
Chapter-16
If you are planning on doing business with someone again, don’t be too tough in the negotiations. If you’re going to skin a cat, don’t keep it as a house cat. -- Marvin S. Levin
En Route to the Trakaan Planet Troxia
April, 3868
Raan resisted repeated efforts by his advisors trying to convince him to simply ignore the Trakaan offer to mediate “peace talks” between himself, as the primary Raknii representative, and the Supreme Allied Commander of the Combined Fleets of Humanity, who was also Commander-in-Chief of the entire military of the Confederate Stellar Accord, one of the major human entities in their war against the Raknii Empire. Raan, and the Raknii in general, had great difficulty in understanding the concept of the multiple nation-states, that comprised a divided humanity.
How can they not be in a constant state of dominance combat between themselves, until the supremacy of one is clearly established?
Raan knew that his people had bitten off more than they could swallow, when they attacked these humans. From Varq’s dark prophecy, he’d known it since before they’d even launched that first assault against the human planet Minnos, almost five cycles earlier. But knowing the consequences of something intellectually, and actually seeing the details of those consequences manifested in reality, were two entirely different animals.
Raan also knew from the moment that he first received Fraznal’s message that the humans had located the Trakaan world of Troxia, and brought an entire battlefleet there, that it wouldn’t be long before they also discovered his headquarters located here on Klista. In fact, despite the human’s assurances to Fraznal they would not track the Trakaan ship he dispatched to bring the diplomatic message, he was sure the moment Fraznal’s message ship made its transition into Klista space, an undetectable human ship had surely followed. The humans undoubtedly possessed some magical device that allowed them to scout Raknii systems without detection. Their surprise attack on the Raknii fleet massed at Golgathal could not have been so utterly successful, were it not so.
Even should he decide to abandon his people on Klista in their hundreds of millions and flee to another Raknii world within Region-6, there was no guarantee that a stealthy human vessel wouldn’t be tracking those movements as well. Raan immediately halted all outgoing ships destined anywhere other than Troxia, in the hopes that the humans hadn’t already followed any earlier departures to anywhere else in Region-6, but he certainly couldn’t wager the lives of so many of his people on it being successful. Either way, Fraznal had sealed Raan’s fate, and possibly the fate of billions upon billions of Raknii citizens, when he dispatched that message.
Perhaps some deep-seated desire for revenge, for earlier Raknii indignities committed against his people?
Plausible deniability might stay Raknii claws and fangs in retaliation for underhanded Trakaan treachery, but with an entire human fleet protecting Troxia, what could he do about it, even if that were really the case? Raan wondered if Fraznal had fully considered all of this, or if the little gray alien could possibly be that naïve? Despite what his shortsighted advisors thought, Raan had absolutely no other choice, but to go and speak with these ultimate predators personally.
Fraznal’s message promised that the humans, under what they called “diplomatic immunity,” had guaranteed his personal safety, supposedly including the freedom to leave again and return to Raknii space whenever he wished… another strange human concept, of which he had little understanding.
Of course they’d let me go, so they could follow and discover the locations of even more Raknii targets.
The human’s words were just that… words. What could Fraznal possibly do if the humans reneged on their previous agreement with him? Raan considered himself dead from the moment that Trakaan ship transited into the Klista system. If that’s the way the humans wanted him and Klista and any other world they’d be able to track outbound traffic to, they would all be… very, very dead. In their teeming billions, they’d be dead, unless Raan could somehow talk these implacable humans out of destroying the worlds of his region.
What might they ask for, to make such a concession?
What could he offer them besides exposing his throat in total submission? According to the human prisoner that Drix held on Vnayrk, this same elderly human commander accepted Planet-Master Mraz’s submission of the planet Golgathal and offered amazingly lenient terms. If this human was to be believed, except for trading with humans for equipment and supplies that previously had been imported from the empire, life for the Raknii remaining on Golgathal varied little from before, and for the most part, the humans left them alone.
Perhaps I can “negotiate” with this human, as I once did with Fraznal. We shall see.
Raan also resisted the advice of his military commanders, who insisted that his spaceplane be escorted to the Troxia system by several thousand of their old-style warships, because that might inadvertently spark off a conflict in which his ships could provide the humans with nothing more daunting than target practice. Besides, there was no sense in getting all those Rak warriors stranded in Trakaan space, too.
So Raan decided. He would go to Troxia unescorted, and place himself totally at the mercy of whatever the humans wished to do to him. It really didn’t matter, as he expected the best he could accomplish with the rest of his life was to suffer the shame of being the first region-master in history to expose belly and throat, in submission to aliens.
* * * *
The Trakaan Planet Troxia
April, 3868
Unbeknownst to Fleet-Admiral Kalis, Admiral Thorn sent orders back to Kitty Litter to have Kalis’ personal GulfMaster II executive spaceliner forwarded to Troxia, so he wouldn’t have any excuses for crawling into the back of a training Raptor again, any time soon.
Damned old fool, traipsing around the galaxy in the back seat of a hotshot fighter, like he was some kind of rough, tough old cowboy!
Some said that the only difference between men and boys was the price of their toys, and she had to admit, a Raptor made a hell of a great toy for a boy of any age. Thorn felt she had to protect Kalis from his own foolishness as much as she could, as she had developed quite a fondness for that rough, tough old cowboy over the years. Not that she would ever call it “love” — they were both much too old for that kind of romantic nonsense, but Kalis was the one and only man who had ever made her feel like a woman, rather than just a piece of dried-up old boot leather.
The two senior admirals spent much of Kalis’ first night aboard the Connie, “consulting” in the big bed in the admiral’s stateroom, which had recently been hers until Kalis came aboard. For appearance's sake, she bumped her flag-ca
ptain out of his stateroom, and then further bumping continued on down the line like dominoes toppling one against another, until finally at the bottom of the ladder, some poor junior ensign found himself sleeping in a hose-locker, somewhere deep in the bowels of the ship.
Kalis spent the better part of two weeks consulting with Fraznal, the Trakaan planetary administrator, and he too felt a strange something, when confronted by flying saucers and small, thin, gray-skinned aliens with bug-like black eyes. Discussions finally revealed that the Trakaan had possessed interstellar space travel for many thousands of years and Fraznal’s ancestors had indeed visited Old Earth many times over the past several thousand years. There was no scientific evidence supporting the idea of “racial memory,” but damned if the Trakaan’s appearance didn’t give most humans the creeps, just looking at them.
Kalis and Fraznal became acquainted with each other’s priorities and concerns regarding the Raknii, and Fraznal gave him many insights into the cat’s psychology, from an entirely different point of view than that which mankind had developed to date. Fraznal also introduced Kalis and Thorn to a popular local Trakaan drink, a purplish juice from the Jla fruit, which had a peculiar sweet, yet sour flavor, which Thorn enjoyed as is, but Kalis preferred with a splash of vodka in it. Fraznal was an inquisitive creature and naturally wished to taste this curious Jla/vodka concoction that Kalis seemed to prefer, but he squealed in disgust at the noxious flavor… at least, noxious by Trakaan standards.
There’s just no accounting for taste, is there?
* * * *
The Raknii Imperial Planet of Raku
April, 3868
Drix no longer wore the bright light-orange silks that he’d chosen as his colors for Region-7, but again donned the Imperial white silks of Region-1. The supreme-master himself was, by default, the master of Imperial Region-1, so it looked very odd to others within the Imperial Palace to see anyone wearing white silks and the rank-stones of a region-master at the same time. It was an extremely rare occurrence, only seen just prior to the ascension of a new supreme-master.
Drix had initially been horrified by the appearance of his formerly robust sire, now looking so thin and worn. He had seen the videos, of course, but even that hadn’t prepared him for the stark realities of his sire’s illness. Xior looked like death itself, searching for a hole to lie down in.
But Xior rallied notably at seeing his heir again, and took particular delight in holding and roughhousing with his heir’s heir — the tiny white male cub, Eryx. Even the supreme-master had heard tales of the legendary N’raal, so Xior was astounded that this unnaturally beautiful female, so regal in bearing and yet demure and unassuming in presence, could possibly be the same female that he’d heard such horrendous stories about.
Drix has done well, very well indeed, in choosing and taming this one as mate.
Hal spent yet another uncomfortable trip on the long flight to Raku, aboard Drix’ personal spaceliner. It just wasn’t designed to accommodate someone of his incredible height, and Hal had been forced to literally crawl into the plane and sit on the floor for the entire journey. But Hal went, uncomplaining, as was his usual demeanor.
Drix found it odd that such a highly educated High-Human could be so incredibly superior to the majority of his race, yet remain so incredibly humble in his attitudes toward others. Indeed, it was Hal’s ability to maintain such extraordinary dignity, without acting in the least bit haughty, that Drix tried to incorporate into his new code of ethics and morals. He wanted to show his people that they could still retain their honor and noble stature, while recognizing and respecting the inherent value of those same traits in creatures other than themselves.
Xior, Drix, Hal and Varq spent many hours going over Drix’ new manifesto, which was to serve as a moral compass for the Raknii people in the future. Line-by-line and word-by-word, the document was tweaked, adjusted and clarified, until at last, it was as perfect as they could possibly get it. It was thick, but copies were made and sent to the printers to be mass-produced by the billions, so that every Raknii citizen might have personal access to what Hal had begun referring to as the new Raknii Bible.
* * * *
The Troxia System, Trakaan Space
April, 3868
Region-Master Raan’s personal spaceliner transitioned out of x-space, inbound to the Trakaan planet Troxia, and immediately began broadcasting the identification code provided in Fraznal’s message he’d received a sub-cycle earlier. Raan’s pilot communicated with Troxia traffic control by translator and learned that the human fleet was not in orbit around the planet, but had removed itself to Troxia’s moon, instead. A few human fighters swooped lazily by on routine combat space patrol, but made no threatening gestures as the Raknii spaceliner entered its final approach to the Troxia spaceport.
Raan had this strange feeling of being watched. He was sure that the human fleet had every sensor available trained at his incoming spaceliner, but that wasn’t it. There was no discernable source, but Raan had an eerie feeling that something was observing them from a much closer distance and the fur on the back of Raan’s neck stood up in response to it.
* * * *
“Hey skipper, have you ever in your life, seen anything like that?”
Commander Anthony Marx, captain of the Confederate Intelligence ship CSS Spirit peered intently at his monitor, as he looked at every discernible detail of the peculiar Raknii spaceliner they were pacing, just off their port side. Without actually shining a light on the thing, there really weren't a lot of details distinguishable at all, but he could make out the basic shape of the fuselage and what had to be engine nacelles. At first glance, it looked like a one-half scale model of an antique human spaceliner, vaguely similar to some pictures he’d seen of old-timey spaceliners used in the Alliance about 50 years ago.
Form follows function.
If he had to guess, it appeared that after the cats first discovered that it could be done, their engineers had taken what little they had been able to scrape together about human spaceliners on Minnos and had used it to bypass the first 30-35 years of normal development time that humanity had waded through from the beginning. All in all, it was a pretty impressive feat, considering that they had nothing remotely similar just five years earlier.
“Not much to see here,” said Marx. “Helm, drop us back and under the target at 500 by 500 and let's make sure he plays nice, all the way to the ground. Maybe the Fleet zoomies can get us some full-color glossies in daylight, once that thing gets down on the tarmac.”
* * * *
The Raknii Imperial Planet Raku
April, 3868
Xior was exhausting himself in lengthy discussions with Drix and Varq, but it was the human Hal that he seemed most intrigued with... almost possessed by. Drix found himself marveling to watch the Raknii supreme-master holding deep discussions with an alien, making and conceding points as though Hal was a real “person,” by Raknii standards. Of course, the public at large would have been appalled at the idea of one of those terrible humans even being allowed in the same room with their supreme-master, much less his lowering himself to actually converse with such a beast.
As his sire and Hal talked, Drix smiled at the sight of his cub, Eryx, climbing gleefully all over dour old OverMaster Varq. Drix knew that he had most certainly done the same when he’d been that age, but Varq had been stoneless then and not the living embodiment of Raknii nightmares that he was now. Unaware that he should have been horrified by the terrible power wielded by those in this room, little Eryx exploited his innocence, completely oblivious as to how extraordinary it was for a cub to have an OverMaster, a region-master, the supreme-master and a physical embodiment of their human enemies, as playmates.
Dol grant that all Raknii cubs might be so unafraid in the presence of humans, some turn.
* * * *
The Trakaan Planet Troxia
April, 3868
Fleet Admiral Kalis got more of a surprise than even Adm
iral Thorn planned, when his personal GulfMaster II executive spaceliner arrived in response to her orders, for it hadn’t arrived empty. Unexpectedly, Vice Admiral Richard Bonhoeffer, their resident spook from Confederate Intelligence, and commander of their small fleet of Ghost class intelligence vessels, had hitched a ride aboard it out to Troxia. Bonhoeffer hadn’t made it to vice admiral because he was slow on the uptake, for he had the forethought to bring Planet-Master Mraz, the Raknii planetary master of the world the Rak still called Golgathal, along with him.
Fraznal held one preliminary meeting with Region-Master Raan and Planet-Master Mraz, without Kalis being present. Kalis and Fraznal had agreed beforehand that it would be a good idea to provide Planet-Master Mraz time to thoroughly brief Raan on all his experiences in dealing with humans, since surrendering Golgathal to them almost three cycles earlier, before including Kalis in three-way discussions on anything specific, concerning the current Raknii/human war. Mraz had even brought along some of his favorite human soda pop for the region-master to taste.
* * * *
The Raknii Imperial Planet of Raku
May 7, 3868
Xior decreed that it was time for him to die. The pain had become too excruciating for the valiant warrior to bear even another turn. It was time for Drix to assume the duties of supreme-master over the Raknii people.
A video was made of Xior’s final farewell to his people. In it, he expressed regret for his role in allowing secular modernism to thrive like a weed, choking and poisoning the minds of the Raknii people — turning them from the old ways and angering their neglected god, Dol. He expressed regret for thoughtlessly attacking every non-Raknii entity they had encountered, not from hunger or need, but just for pure sport.
He expressed regret that they, as a race, had failed to recognize the value and advantages that had recently been discovered in peaceful coexistence, cooperation and trade with other intelligent races, like the Trakaan. He expressed regret that they, as a race, failed to respect those races' inherent rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, independent of subservience to Raknii control. He read his people the prophecy of impending doom pronounced by their god once again, and emphasized the supernatural timing between its origin and the discovery of the human aliens.
Wrath of an Angry God: A Military Space Opera (The Sentience Trilogy Book 3) Page 18
