A gob of red fluid smacked across his face. The Consort stepped back, stunned, as the woman leapt to her feet. She held her hands out like claws, ready to tear the armor from his hide. The guards scrambled to grab her by the arms. She howled in fury and kicked out at him.
A voice came from an open doorway leading to the Empress’ chamber. “She is far too dangerous, Consort. You will not bring her into the presence of the light of our world.”
The Consort turned to look at the Camerlingo. The priest was a pompous functionary who had been with the Empress for years. Ki’Bara had hated the man for his officiousness. The man stared at him from the doorway. He held the ceremonial staff of office like a weapon. He wielded the power it implied as ably as Ki’Bara had wielded a warship. As the Consort, Ki’Bara found the man to be intrusive. He never left the Empress while she was awake unless she sent him away. The man had been present at the conception of the new Emperor, and that made the Consort hate him all the more.
“I had thought to give her blood to the Emperor as a gift,” the Consort said, turning his back on the Camerlingo. “Maybe you are right, though. She was only to be a figurehead for the humans.”
The Camerlingo stepped to the side of his lord. He was taller than the Consort by a head and held himself so stiff the Consort thought he might break. The woman had been forced to her knees by the guards. She was still spitting, but her blood had dried up and stopped flowing. Her rage was now directed at the guards holding her firm. She struggled against their four-fingered hands, her struggles becoming lighter. She was wearing herself out against the centurions.
“Yes,” the Consort said. “I think we should remove her from the palace until after the birth, Camerlingo. See to it, will you? I want to see my Empress.”
“She has requested you, Consort,” Camerlingo replied. “She is feeling restive and wishes you to accompany her for a walk.”
“She is in no condition to walk, Camerlingo,” Ki’Bara said. “You know that.”
“I know, my lord Consort,” Camerlingo replied. “She is the Empress Ch’Tauk, though, and I live to serve, as do you. Do you have a preference for the location of the prisoner?”
“No,” the Consort replied. “I leave it to your discretion. Do with her what you will. She has almost exhausted her usefulness to me.”
The Consort turned away from the Camerlingo and walked back to the door. He paused only a moment before entering the room beyond to bow his head. The Camerlingo watched him go with a placid scent. When the Consort had left his sight, the Camerlingo turned back to the woman.
“My discretion,” Camerlingo said to her. “Ignorant peasant.”
Alice Bennett struggled against the tight grip of the Ch’Tauk guards. She was naked and cold but felt no embarrassment. The rage of her captivity kept her numb to the indignities heaped upon her by the enemy. Her muscles were exhausted and her skin was broken, but she fought the aliens with every ounce of her strength.
She had been dragged to the garish building through the streets of a strange city, subjected to painful examinations and a chemical bath that left her feeling raw and exposed. When the Ch’Tauk had dropped her at the feet of the alien she assumed was in charge, she wanted nothing more than to tear his four eyes out of his misshapen insectoid head. She waited until he came close before striking. Hands like claws tore her from her revenge. They held her tight while the first one left her, wiping her blood from his chest with a stiff white sash. The other one, in a more ceremonial draping of fabric, stood before her, chittering in their gibberish language.
“Go to hell!” Alice screamed at the creature. “Get closer and I’ll take you there myself!”
The creature stared at her with his shiny black eyes. He had finally stopped clicking and now stood a few paces away, examining her body with the lower set of eyes. She felt exposed. There was no feeling of the alien leering at her, just the clinical examination of a surgeon about to excise a cancer from a sick body. She tried to pull her arms in, to cover the battered body that was her only remaining possession. The claws held her even tighter.
The aliens stank. Everywhere they took her there was an odor that she could only describe as lilacs and body odor. There were subtle differences between each Ch’Tauk, but the basic odor stayed the same. It made her nauseous to be near them. The odor was what made her mouth water and gave her the strength to spit at them. She wanted it to end, but knew it might be the last thing she would ever smell, so she savored every disgusting moment of it.
They had taken her from the cell and transferred her to a ship. After watching the video of Lee being executed, apparently by her own people, she had replayed the images in her head. There was something too clinical about the death. Doctor Reeves may have been a recovering drunk, but he would never have killed the man she loved. It had been Lee, though, on the screen. He had gained a few pounds of muscle, but it had been her Lee. She tried to think it through on her way to wherever she was now. She had tried to make sense of it.
It was in the final message that she had gained hope. He had whispered her name in plain view of the camera. She knew he loved her, but the message to her had been clear. He would not have said her name if it had not been a message to her. He knew the image would be broadcast. He knew the image would be intercepted by the enemy. If they knew they were being watched, Lee would have devised the whole plan just to get that whisper of her name to her. It promised hope for her, and delivered every time she remembered his face.
The Ch’Tauk master waved his claws and the guards began to drag her away. Alice screamed in fury again. She would not be dragged to her death in this way. If it cost her every ounce of her life, she would let Lee hear her cries and he would come running. As she was carried out of the building and into the pale field of reddish grass, she tried to imagine him looking up from that cold slab and hearing her. He would throw off the covers and leap to his ship to rescue her. The thought made her voice grow louder before the guard to her right struck her.
Her mouth opened up in blood again. She tried to spit at her captor, but they struck her again. Clawed hands lifted her legs and she tilted her head back to see where they were going.
A sleek ship waited on a cleared space behind the building. It was smaller than the fighter craft she was familiar with, but built along the same lines. She had heard once that the Ch’Tauk were incapable of innovating and the ship proved it. It was banded copper metal over an insect-like frame. A canopy opened in the front and she was shoved inside. The Ch’Tauk master screeched some words and one of the centurions climbed into the ship in front of her. She struggled as the clawed hands pulled straps over her legs and arms. With whatever strength she possessed, she pulled against the straps, trying to fight against the death she was sure was coming.
There was an exchange of clattering noises and the canopy slid shut. Alice could still see the pale sky outside and realized the ship had a glass canopy. It meant the ship would not be traveling far. The ship’s canopy closed and she could see the massive residence falling away from them below.
Enclosed in the small ship, the smell of the alien was overpowering. Alice gagged as the creature reached back and grabbed her throat. A mask, thick and heavy was pulled down over her matted hair. She tried to hold her breath, tried to keep from inhaling the vapors that she knew would kill her. When the pressure became too great, she took a long breath, hoping that if the gas was going to kill her, it would do it quickly. Instead of noxious fumes, she inhaled sweet, fresh air. For a long moment, she decided she did not care if she was dying. She only cared that the air was clear and pure. It took her a few moments of staring out the cockpit to realize she was becoming sleepy. As the atmosphere bled away from outside the ship, Alice Bennett drifted off into dreams of green grass, blue sky, and the dark eyes of the man she loved.
Just as she fell asleep, she realized the straps on her right arm had come loose.
16
Alliance Carrier Baal
The bridge
of the carrier Baal had once been the model of efficiency. Under the command of Admiral Omar Hathaway, it had been at the forefront of engagements across the galaxy. In one decisive battle, though, the bridge had been torn apart. The once sturdy catwalk that allowed the ship’s commander to stand above his crew had been torn away, leaving an open pit filled with damaged stations. In the years since the war had begun, Baal had been rebuilt into the mightiest warship of the fleet. The bridge, however, had not been rebuilt to its original configuration. The catwalk was gone and a ramp had been built into the wall.
Admiral Ronald Chang stepped to the edge of the ramp and looked out at the image on his projection screen. The raid on the Al-Amein boneyard had given them hundreds of new ships to salvage. The elves had been crawling over the deactivated hulks for nearly a year, repairing and replacing damaged systems. Chang had never seen a repair team work with such marvelous precision before. The blinking lights of the restored Alliance fleet were unlike anything he had ever seen.
It was an antique fleet filled with ships that had gone out of service before Chang had even been born. Baal was the newest breed of super-carrier, but he now had under his command four more carriers of a previous vintage and six more ships that predated the carrier class altogether. Battleships, frigates and escort destroyers were scattered around the empty space, some manned by volunteer crews and some remotely guided under flocking commands.
In his time as a military officer, he had never seen the massing of a fleet this size. Until the invasion of Earth and the destruction of the Confederate fleet, he had never imagined a reason for a fleet this size massing in one location. When Baal had been attacked six years ago, the Ch’Tauk had overwhelmed them with sheer numbers. Images of the taking of Earth had showed thousands of ships surrounding the world. As the years had passed, the Ch’Tauk had let down their guard around Earth. He hoped the new ghost fleet of his would be enough to retake the planet.
“Commodore Browning is calling, sir,” Ensign Lellda announced, looking up from the communications station. “She is asking about Vadne.”
“Relay the message the Vadne sent to us, Ensign,” Chang replied to the porcine comms officer. “They have the situation in hand and are preparing for the decoy mission at Kaya.”
“Acknowledged sir, relaying orders now,” Lellda replied. “Sir, the fleet is reporting all systems in readiness.”
“I know, Ensign,” Chang said, stepping down the ramp and into the operations well. “I’m ready to go, too. We need to wait for the signal. If the Terran scouts aren’t in position and ready, there is no way we can make the ground invasion. We need to be sure the operation goes at the enemy from ground and air.”
“Sir,” Lellda asked, turning her pink snout towards the admiral. “The scout forces were sent in without any type of weaponry or equipment except for hand blasters. How much good can they do?”
“The teams have been instructed to locate resistance cells and acquire any tactical weapons they can to mount a defense for the operation. We need to keep the Ch’Tauk distracted while we take out the orbital defenses.”
“I see, sir,” Lellda answered, turning back to her console. “It still doesn’t seem like they have much of a chance.”
The admiral looked at the stout woman as she worked her console. He took a deep breath and held it, thinking about the words of the young Tomellian. She had transferred from Resolute when they had pulled into the station seven months ago, when it became obvious that Farthing was giving up command and returning to his position as communications officer. Chang’s plans to expose Rao to the galaxy by orchestrating the death of both of the captains of the battleship had thrown assignments into disarray, but the young woman had fitted in nicely with the integrated crew on Baal.
“They have as much chance as the rest of us, Ensign,” Chang said, loud enough for the entire bridge crew to hear. “Those teams are working to establish a foothold on their own home. Where the Confederacy fought for political power and the expansion of Terran holdings, we are now fighting for our mother. If they fail, we fail. If we fail, human beings become the gypsy race of the galaxy, shunned by every other race as slaves or beggars. Your people and mine, as well as the Vadne and others, have been working together to avoid that fate for my people.
“We do this not because we are trying to grow our power or restore some outdated political structure. We do this because if we allow the invasion to stand unanswered, we leave the galaxy open to any aggressive species who thinks your planet looks like a target. We reclaim what is ours not for conquest, but for the safety of life on all planets. The Ch’Tauk took something from us … all of us. They took our naivety and our innocence, what little we could still claim. We rise up in the face of the enemy because it is the right of a child to defend the mother. Earth is our mother and I intend to get it back. The advance teams are my eyes and ears down there. They have that on their side.”
There was a long silence on the bridge as the admiral’s words reverberated around the room. Chang was not a man given to speeches and the crew had never heard him speak this many words at one time. A snap of hands coming together startled Chang.
It started with a single clap, but quickly swelled into a rising ovation of emotion. Humans and aliens alike were standing and looking to the admiral. He stood in the center of the adulation, embarrassed at the attention. It was something he’d wanted to say for a long time. It was the right thing to say, and the crew needed to hear it. Chang turned and stepped back up to the command deck.
“That’s enough,” he said to the crew. “We may just be sitting here, but we still have work to do. Ensign Lellda, get me Commodore Dalton on Zeus.”
The fleet had grown so large that a new command structure had to be set up to control the orders during battle. Browning, the captain of the heavy assault cruiser Mars had been promoted to the control of all ground invasion forces. Dalton, the son of the former commander of Baal, had been given control of orbital incursion forces from the command deck of the carrier Zeus. Chang would oversee strategic operations for both commanders from Baal. The admiral stepped to the command chair, standing behind it as the ship’s captain, Lira, formerly of the supply vessel Gaia, took the seat.
“Admiral,” Lellda announced. “I’m receiving a signal.”
“Put Captain Dalton on the big screen, please,” Captain Lira responded.
“It’s not Admiral Dalton, sirs,” the ensign replied. “It’s coming from much farther away, through the relay system.”
A thrill of tension raced through Chang. They had activated the recon teams nearly a week ago. If the teams had finally reached a station where they could signal back, the counter-invasion could begin. Lira looked calmly back at the admiral with bright yellow eyes. Ronald felt the weight of his entire fleet on his shoulders for the first time. If he gave the order to proceed, he would be committing thousands of lives to a bloody battle. He braced himself for the next few moments.
“Put the signal up and shunt Dalton and Browning to a side screen. I want them to hear this too.”
“Aye, sir.” A chorus of voices began relaying commands around the well. Excitement was growing about being able to move from their holding position in deep space.
“Sir, the signal is not coming from Earth.” Lellda relayed a tremor in her voice. “It’s coming from Ch’Tauk space.”
There was silence as the admiral exchanged a glance with the captain. They had been expecting the ready signal from Earth. If a signal was coming in from the other direction, it meant one of his agents had found something potentially disastrous. Chang stepped away from the command chair again, looking down at the communications officer.
“Patch it through up here, Ensign.”
The young woman tapped keys, making the crew wait for the image to change. A new projection sprang up in front of Lira. It was a grainy image of a planet and a ring of asteroids. There was a voice breaking through the static, but Chang could not make it out. Lira tapped keys on his
chair, trying to enhance the image, but the signal was badly distorted.
“Can we clear this up, Ensign?” the captain asked. “Try running it through the main antennae and cycling the signal through the big screen processors.”
The projection of the fleet wavered again. It was resolving into a familiar image of the dark planet Baal had orbited three years ago. A shiver of fear spiked up Chang’s back. He heard the gravelly voice of Wellick, Resolute’s former chief of security, describing events. He watched as the ship shuddered under enormous strain and finally emitted a bright pulse of energy. The planet shattered and tumbled away. The bridge crew let out a collective gasp of shock. Chang let out a breath as he watched the devastation. Wellick’s voice concluded with a short series of coordinates and then the signal went dead.
“Replay the message,” Chang ordered. He did not want to contemplate the importance of the message, but it was obvious that Rao had finished the device he had been working on. A scroll formed under the main screen of the dialogue which accompanied the message. Some of it was too garbled to make out clearly, but the communications people were working hard to interpret the crackling signal.
“He must have been too far from the nearest relay for the signal to be clear,” Lellda announced. “I’d bet he was more than twenty light years away from a main receiver and at least a hundred kilometers from a portable booster. He must have dropped it on the run.”
“Do we have a fix on those coordinates?” Lira asked, standing and joining the admiral on the edge of the ramp. “Where is he?”
“If he’s accurate, sirs,” Lieutenant Deacon replied from navigation. “They are well into the borders of Ch’Tauk space. Even in M-space, it would take us days to get there. It looks like they may be stationary, though. The message relays engine trouble.”
Resolute Victory (The War for Terra) Page 13
