by Jim Rudnick
The ambassador waved both of his feathered hands back and forth. “No ... no, Caliph. We are more than happy with the mining rights and its trade deal—but it’s that we have only recently found out what the red metal ... well ... what it is, Caliph. And that’s why I’m here.”
And quiet once more, the Caliph noted, as the ambassador awaited a response. Sharia did not reply as he reached for the glass of juice beside him on the end table at this end of the couch he reclined upon.
“Caliph, the red metal—this Xithricite, as you call it—has a special property. It appears that, after our testing, that it is impervious to all kinds of weaponry that works thermally. That is, heat from a laser or an energy pulse weapon or a plasma cannon—all new to us Enkians, of course, but common here on the RIM—cannot penetrate the metal. It seems to just wisp away any kind of thermal attack. We did note that, depending on the thickness of the red metal panels, a simple rifle shot will pierce it easily, so the metal is not a perfect shield. But we wanted you to know that as soon as our own Resources Muse came up with these answers after we began testing the red metal ourselves.”
They have the reason why the Xithricite has value, that’s not so good, the Caliph thought.
“And do I take it that now that this is a known item for the red metal, that you wish to renegotiate the deal we made with you? Is that it, Ambassador?” he asked.
The ambassador just nodded. He couldn’t even say out loud that he was here to work out a better deal for Enki.
The Caliph took another big sip out of his tall glass of juice. As usual, the sweet and sour quaff tasted good. “Then let me right up front say no. We have a deal, Ambassador—one that Enki both negotiated and signed as they became a realm of the Caliphate. There will be no renegotiation at all, Ambassador. The only thing I can offer is that you have the right, as a subject planet of the realm, to go to the RIM Confederacy Council, apply for independent status to leave the Caliphate as a subject planet. While, if memory serves, that takes a year or two, you would end up exactly as you were before we ever came to Enki. Alone. On your planet with no FTL, no Caliphate ships or oversight, and more importantly, no protection from anyone else here on the RIM either. That is the only thing you can do—or you can let our deal stand.”
While he’d been talking, the Caliph noted that the ambassador had been straightening up in his posture, almost now at attention, and his beak had been squared away. On top of his head, those large crested red and blue feathers had been pulled down and back and they were nowhere near the height they had been.
The ambassador nodded to the Caliph and said, “As the Caliph wishes, we will not ask for any further renegotiation at this time.” He then bowed slightly from the waist, turned, and strode out of the room.
“Went well,” the Caliph said. When faced with what it would cost them to drop out of the Caliphate, the ambassador had folded his tent and sped off in the night.
“Juice is good,” he said, “must have some more.” He lay back down to rest. Being the Caliph was a worrisome experience—no two ways about that. He sighed as he crossed one long, long leg over the other, and with a forearm over his eyes, he said, “Couch appreciation time” to himself and settled in for a nap.
About ten feet away, on the spot where Ambassador Qig had been standing, and unnoticed by him, there were holes in the tent floor from the Enkian’s talons which had been gripped so tightly they’d gone right through.
#####
She hadn’t found much help—any really—in the huge Praix tome that had been in the Issian race’s hands for twenty centuries. She didn’t think there would be anything that might actually point her at an answer to help her in her quest for knowledge. She had spent more than a solid day, again, flipping pages and seeing notes on other races, other worlds, and other galaxies, and that was just a blur to her ... there was nothing there.
She had spent a few hours just staring out the windows from her quarters here in the high tower. There was little to see, but she did note that on the abandoned farm just outside the walled city, something was happening on the road. A truck sat there, and there were a couple of men out in the close field, just beyond the rail fence. The men were trimming the roughly overgrown weeds and growth. They’d already cleared a few yards, and the growth of branches and weedy shrubs no longer hid the rails in that spot.
Above, she saw a raptor floating, and she thought it was looking for lunch. It hung in the updrafts as it slowly tilted one way and then the other. But it didn’t find a reason to dive for prey in the few minutes she watched; it floated above all the land below, as if it was above all for a reason.
She nodded at that suddenly apropos thought—above all for a reason. Like the Praix. Above all included not only the RIM Confederacy but the whole of the Milky Way Galaxy. And the reason was what she needed to find ... and how to get that reason undone.
She’d also talked to her aides. In fact, she’d called them all in for a meeting and had asked them to consider a hypothetical. And after explaining her conundrum, she asked them for counsel.
One of the aides she saw little of asked if the hypothetical she had posed to them—that one very superior race was asking for a lesser race to join them, but that would mean they would be slaves to the superior race—was it really a true thing?
She had by her nature, hidden her own mind and the real truth. But she wavered. And then she remembered that the Praix had skills in the mind reading area that were as good as the Issians—it was going to be over soon if too many people knew. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her aides or any Issians other than her inner circle, but she knew that the fewer who knew, the better.
So she had lied, and she had done it well. Not real at all, she’d said.
The aide had nodded and provided her opinion. The aide had suggested the superior race should be reasoned with and the lesser race should not be a part of any slave society. All dressed in the traditional Issian black robes with the large medallion necklace, the dozen men and women attending the meeting had nodded and confirmed they shared the same opinion.
That had been yesterday too, and she had thanked them all. And today, she was as stumped as ever. She had no idea why the thought came to her.
It certainly was not anything she’d been thinking of—nor for that matter had anything made her think of this—it was more of a sudden insight that came to her out of the blue as they said on some human planets.
The duke. He was, without any arguments from any Issian, one of the focus points around which the future of the RIM Confederacy was levered by the man. Her previous Master Adept had spoken to her many times of Tanner and how time after time, the events that spun around him were the ones that shaped their futures all over the RIM. She thought that through, and her head began to nod as she ran through the list.
He had been so much an important part—the crux, really—of the prison riot on Halberd, and he had saved all the attending heads of state on the RIM prison planet.
Via that involvement, he had been one of the reasons Olbia had fought for its independence from the Caliphate.
He had been part of one of the small groups who had found the Praix anti-grav devices—which had led to the release of the Barony Drive that had changed travel in the RIM. FTL had become almost instant at his hand as these ancient relics still had life in them.
He had been the one on the Hospital Ship who had done his own personal vac jump out into space to kill the thief who had tried to steal the Ikarian virus vaccine. The fact that happened allowed the Baroness to roll out the vaccine to the whole of the RIM Confederacy realms.
He had been on the task force that had taken on the alien invaders, the reapers, as they’d been called, on Memories and had come up with the plan that had worked to destroy them—his Chicken Kiev defense, he had called it.
She thought about how he had worked wonders on Eons, just fifty miles from here, when he’d helped to get the RIM Naval Academy built and open on time. Now, more that 2,
500 new graduates were coming out annually. All of the side effects of that, the publicity of the twins and the Tavira labs, had faded into oblivion. Of that, she was personally happy.
His own wedding had been a horrendous event with her predecessor, the late Master Adept, and the Duke d’Avigdor both killed by Tanner’s own sister. He was also looking after her future too.
And lastly, he had been more than a part of the future of the Duchy d’Avigdor when he’d accepted the inheritance of the ducal crown and had taken over their six-planet realm.
Surely, the appearance of the Praix over Ghayth was an item that in his hands would mean a better ending for the RIM as a whole, she thought, finally arriving at a possible solution. Surely, that might mean the Praix could be, at the least, driven off and, at the best, destroyed.
As the thought of somehow bringing this all to the duke played out in her head, she was sad now that she could not call on Bram to help—to guide the duke into this task.
Or ... might I be able to do just that ... she thought. As she began to work on that thought, the hawk still soared above the farm below as she went back to the window. While her eyes were older, she could certainly see what the men who’d been working on the property had done. Attached to the railing was a large sign, and even from here, she could see it read FOR SALE.
Interesting, she thought. For some reason, the farmer—or maybe, more truthfully, his bank—had put up a sign to sell the farm. She wondered about that and knew she’d have to read the latest climate change reports, but more than that, she had to focus on how to get to the duke and gain his help ... to save the RIM Confederacy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Getting the call out to the Roma captain had been the first step in working out answers to the sudden rebirth of the Ghayth wreck,” the Baroness said to herself. She’d had an aide EYES ONLY on her behalf to the Jamison, and she had called the woman to the baronial palace to meet up.
She swirled the wine glass—you were supposed to she’d been told nicely by her new sommelier, as that made the wine aerate more which increased the bouquet. At least that’s what she’d been told at the last tasting led by the Quaran who ought to know wines.
She sniffed. It smelled like wine. She took a little sip, sucked in air from tightened lips, and then swallowed. “Yup, it was wine,” she said to herself as she then took a big gulp of same.
At the side of this small salon, an EliteGuard came in and said, “Baroness, the Roma captain is without.”
She nodded, put down the wine glass, sat up straighter, and said, “Bring her in.”
The EliteGuard replied, “Yes, Ma’am.” He saluted and a moment later, Captain Daika Rossum walked in and strode over to sit opposite her.
Captain Rossum was typically dressed in the fashion of her race—the leather boots and vest over forest brown and green leggings and a top that was tight over her breasts. Her long curly tresses hung over her shoulders, and the Baroness noted that the icon of those two cogs and the hammer were still front and center over her chest.
She leaned back and pointed at her own glass of wine, thinking it never hurt to be friendly. “Would you care for a glass of wine perhaps, Captain?”
Daika nodded agreement, and the palace AI noted same. In moments, a steward brought in a fresh glass of the same red wine the Baroness was already drinking. She accepted the glass, took two big swallows, and put the glass down.
The Baroness bypassed the remaining social niceties. “Captain, we have an issue over on Ghayth. It’s not public knowledge, so this may be somewhat surprising to you, but there is an alien wreck there, and we’ve been working with a xeno team to find out more. More about their technology, their ship, and, yes, if there are alien artifacts there that we can use. Perhaps you know the story of the Barony Drive and how it came from initial finds on Ghayth,” she said.
Daika nodded and asked a question. “Baroness, may I ask—how long ago was the wreck found?”
“Almost two years now,” the Baroness replied as she sipped the red wine, trying to use her taste buds to savor the vintage, as she went on.
“And it’s over Ghayth that the alien ship—the intruder, I believe, is what the vid press is calling them—hangs as well. Still nothing new there, it’s behind its force fields at rest. But there was a major change with regards to the wrecked ship just two days ago.
“It was somehow, and from somewhere, turned on. That is, it came to life—all the ship now is powered and up and running but still a wreck that we can enter and walk within. And that’s the issue,” she said, downing the last of her glass of wine. She put it down and waved at the AI so there would be no more interruptions.
The Baroness continued. “In two years, we’ve learned very little. In two years, we’ve made little headway in learning the secrets of the wreck. Our xeno team, the best in the Barony, has made some interesting small discoveries—but not enough and not soon enough. Which is why I’ve called you in.”
She leaned forward and pointed at the captain. “I want you—and whomever you deem needed—to go to Ghayth and look over this wreck. With your inherent scavenging skills and knowledge—far and away outside what we know here on the RIM—you might find something quicker and easier. We require that this be a top-secret mission by you, but you will have full powers once on the wreck to do as you want. All I want is results,” she said.
“Results, Ma’am? Like real knowledge or science that we can take from the wreck?” the captain posed.
“Exactly,” she said and smiled. “The wreck may well be a part of the same aliens as the intruders that now lie off Ghayth. Or not. Or perhaps the intruders are there to also use the wreck in ways we don’t as yet understand. But we want you to shortcut them and the xeno team too. I want answers, Captain—and as your Baroness, I command it,” she finished off.
The captain just stared back for a moment. Her eyes were locked on the Baroness’s eyes, and then she looked down at her wine glass still held in a hand on her lap. She nodded and drained the glass in one gulp. “Baroness, it will be my privilege to go to Ghayth on this mission for you and to find out what we can,” she said.
The Baroness nodded, and with a flick of her head, the EliteGuard once more entered the room and held the door open for the captain to leave. “But do be careful,” she added, “alien technology is an unknown.”
A bit trite but at least I’m showing some degree of concern. Some ... She waved at the AI, which constantly monitored her all over the barony palace, and a new glass of red wine was brought in for her.
“Now,” she said once more, “swirl the glass to help the bouquet ... this being a Baroness is not so hard ...”
#####
The talks now had been going on for over an hour. CWO Hartford, a Barony Navy noncommissioned officer who Tanner had asked for from the Barony, had been assigned to him here on the Duchy d’Avigdor naval base on Neen. He’d been here all of four days, and they had no answer. Judging from the look on his face, an answer might never present itself.
Tanner nodded. He was way past his understanding of the physics Hartford was trying to impart to him. “Wait ... okay ... I think I have an inkling of what you’re trying to say. Is it that because the belts are powered from we don’t know where that is the major issue?”
Hartford nodded but did let out a sigh at the same time.
Here, in the secure labs down in the basement of the navy administration building, locked behind the huge rack of vaulted doors, the testing had been going on for those four days.
Four days ago, he’d nicely brought the chief up to speed on the belts and his acquiring same from the Leudies. He did admit he had little real background as to why he’d been chosen to find an answer to the belt problems, but that was for another day.
He had passed along what little he knew and then had given the chief a green light. “Do whatever you need to do—to see if we can make the belts both a defensive and offensive weapon.”
Upon being charged wit
h that duty, Hartford had grinned. “I’m on that, Your Grace.” With a deep bow, he had taken the three belts and had begun his testing.
First, Tanner had heard, he had checked on the truthfulness of the belt’s abilities. Hartford had donned one himself. He’d learned how to turn it on and then off. Then, he’d had a Provost guard assigned to the labs use his needler first on the lowest setting to see if it was capable of breaching the belt’s shield. The needler had not breached the shield, nor had the belt allowed the needler to hurt him at all—all the way up to a lethal dose of needler rays.
They’d also tried a blaster, which had not gotten through. A Colt and a Merkel had been tried too, but the bullets had simply hit the glow of the belt at its extremities and had dropped on the floor. They’d tried every single kind of offensive small arms and nothing had made any dent in the belt’s abilities.
Hartford had then known he was working from what he knew to be true. He’d started from that premise and had first thought about natural forces. He had wondered how long one could stay in a belt. He’d questioned if oxygen somehow got through the belt’s shields or if there was a limit on how long one could breathe in same.
He’d tested the belt using a water tank over in the wave action center—what that was doing as a part of the navy labs was beyond any question.
And, it had seemed that the belts could be turned on and the wearer could stay in same for at least a full day—much longer than what had been thought. The Provost guard who had tested the belt by being immersed in the water had proved the belt was not allowing any air to be sucked into the belt’s interior of the shield. Air was being provided by something else.
That had Hartford stumped for a whole day. But it had answered what had been a worrisome problem. If air was allowed inside the belt shield, one could simply send a cloud of gas that could poison the belt wearer.
Just yesterday, Hartford had looked at natural forces. He’d taken a shuttle out with a group of other lab scientists and some Provost guards too. They’d gone about two thousand miles north by northwest to a long ridge of rough and tumble mountains. There, they’d set up shop and tested the belt shield by having a rockslide come down on top of a belt wearer. It had been hard to arrange it so that it could be tested, but after a couple of false starts, a Provost guard was covered in scree. He’d simply walked out of that covering of the rock rubble—the rocks moving out of his way as he walked.
