"The Teladi know where the grav-pulser is, not the ship..." He shrugged, leaving the thought incomplete.
"Brilliant!" Veithman exclaimed.
"We could plot a course…" Ion started.
"…that would look plausible…" Veithman picked up.
"…according to the situation." Ion finished.
Brennan looked from one to the other. "Perhaps when one of you can spare the time, you could tell me what you're on about!"
"Captain Brennan, we are going to attach the grav-pulser to a message drone and send it on a lap of honour through all the jump-gates of the Commonwealth." Ion explained.
"The Teladi already know the destruction of the X was a ruse. We won't be able to lead them up the garden path forever but it will confuse them for a few tazuras." Veithman added.
"Long enough to get you and your ship safely to Argon Prime." Ion said.
"Exactly, so let's roll up our sleeves and get to work!" Veithman ordered a drone delivered to his workbench. The supply belt began to move with an electric hum.
Kyle smiled. "That was one smart idea, Ion!"
"You would have thought of it yourself sooner than later Captain." Ion said humbly, his eyes shining.
"Later rather than sooner probably!" Kyle laughed.
It took Veithman less than a stazura to integrate the grav-pulser into the message drone. After consulting with Noah Gaffelt and his advisors the drone was programmed with a circuitous route to Paranid Prime, taking it through Kingdom End, Company Pride and Thuruk's Beard. It was a three-wozura trip but the Teladi were not stupid and would probably figure it out long before then. Kyle, however, hoped it'd take them a little longer. The thought of Loanises, the captain of the Phoenix chasing the drone for weeks was, to put it mildly, funny. The drone was loaded aboard the Aladna and readied for launch.
Kyle had promised Ion and the Keepers that he would answer all their questions that afternoon and kept his word, but the question and answer session dragged on much longer than he had expected. More and more Goner requested admission to the Conference Chamber until he was facing the same awestruck crowd marvelling at his every word. It wasn't until late in the evening he returned exhausted to his quarters.
He sat brooding in front of a screen, pouring over technical schematics and nano-scans of his ship until someone knocked at his door. "It's me, Ninu."
He opened the door. "Come on in."
Ninu looked at him and then took the proffered place on the sofa. "I'm here to say goodbye Kyle. Tomorrow I'm going to take the first shuttle to Argon Prime."
He nodded slowly. "The Aladna is leaving the day after tomorrow. Something to drink?"
"No, nothing thanks. You're going to be tied up in a lot of meetings with the government and military aren't you?"
Kyle sat down on the chair to her left. "Probably for the rest of my life," he half joked.
Her smile seemed insecure, almost forced. "The Aladna is going to pick me up in five tazuras, a run to Montalaar. I don't know what I'd do without Lona. She's an amazing woman you know."
"When will we meet again?" Kyle asked.
She gazed at him with her large blue eyes. "After the War, maybe," she whispered.
Kyle felt a knot in his chest and he didn't know whether it was Ninu's depressed, hopeless tone or the realisation he might never see her again. He put his elbows on the table and hid his face in his hand momentarily.
"Don't like the sound of that", he said quietly.
Ninu didn't reply but after a few seconds she put her arm around his shoulders and leant her head against his. Kyle hesitatingly brushed a strand of long blonde hair from her face and tenderly caressed her cheek.
"You know it," she whispered.
He knew nothing at all.
She put her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. Her lips were warm and soft; the lingering kiss they shared, passionate, intense, urgent. After a long moment they broke, breathless.
"Captain Brennan, I don't know what the future will bring and maybe I can't have you forever but tonight you won't escape me!"
"I'd be crazy to even try." He pulled her close again.
Now he knew.
CHAPTER 37
Destruction abets evolution, fear is the mainspring of progress.
Show us throat or teeth and we will be at hand, as precursor of a development that is inevitable.
Agaph t'Hhlg,
director of the Split Secret Service
The Phoenix accelerated on a flickering tongue of flame, brightening to a dazzling flare as the Teladi destroyer hit full power. It took all of Uchan t'Scct's skill, but the chief pilot managed to match the fleeing vessel's speed and squeeze out the few extra metres per second that now swallowed the vacuum between the Phoenix and the Bone Scout.
The communications screen lit up and Cho snarled satisfaction. With his right hand he made the gesture for "question for sense." – why should the chance-free Teladi creatures even attempt to flee, but Cho didn't expect Loanises to understand.
"What do you want from us, Split? Our records we sold you at a fair price. That is all we can do!" he hissed nervously. The pale tinge to his scale plates told Cho the Teladi captain was more than scared. Wonderful! The Bone Scout was following the same path as the Phoenix for two tazuras now – and Cho had ordered to playfully start hunting them just a few stazuras ago. Something was going on, Loanises was keeping something back from him, he was sure of that!
"The creature cooperated much too fast. It will transfer the whole data contents of its on-board computer or be destroyed immediately!"
"Tshhh! There's no reason to do that, Split!"
Cho straightened his lips to a line and reached for the weapons controls. "The sheer existence of the creature is provocation enough," he growled. Unhurried, he activated the targeting system, centred the destroyer in the sights and fired. A beam of vision-searing brightness burned through space and hit the Teladi vessel. The Phoenix's shields flickered momentarily before coming back up to full power. The image of Captain Loanises trembled and blurred before stabilising. The Teladi Captain no longer looked at the screen; visibly trembling, he hissed orders to his bridge crew.
"I'll give the creature one mizura to stop the drives and lower the shields," Cho said with pleasure. "After that time we will bring them down using our own methods."
"You can't do that!"
"Ninety-three sezuras. I can and I will."
Cho could see, even in his reptile eyes, that Loanises knew he was not bluffing. He was desperately trying to find a way out of this situation.
"An official protest is already on its way to the company management!"
"I hope the creature's last will was attached. Eighty-four sezuras."
"Tshhhhhhhaah! The Paranid will…"
"…will do what?"
The Teladi stared speechlessly for a long moment.
"Will…"
"Sixty-three sezuras. I am Cho t'Nnt, special envoy of the Patriarch of Chin. I won't tolerate any further denials or delays. I will fire at forty-eight sezuras if shields and drive have not been deactivated by then."
"But you've just said…"
"Fifty-eight sezuras."
"I am capitulating!" the Teladi shouted with mortal fear in his voice. He snarled something, then the shields and the drive powered down almost simultaneously.
"Forty-nine. The creature was very wise. Now it will prepare for the arrival of our boarding party."
Cho cut the connection. Cowards! Instead of fighting to the end, they surrendered at the first sign of attack. And they dared to call themselves 'armed forces!' Satisfied, Cho watched Uchan skilfully manoeuvre the Bone Scout into position alongside the much larger Phoenix and precisely align with the main airlock. The boarding tunnel snaked out and magnetically snapped onto the Teladi hull. It did itch Cho to board the Phoenix himself, but he knew that his crew were dying for some action, any action, even the insignificant challenge presented by the cowardly lizards.
He selected
Hingh t'Mnnl to lead a boarding party of two junior officers. He was seasoned and above all, trustworthy. He pointedly did not instruct them to act with decency and restraint. Cho intended to destroy the Phoenix once he had its secrets and if a few lizards got hurt in the process that would just be too bad. Almost, his lips came close to emulating a human sneer – but then he remembered that with the loss of the jump-ship he had failed all his mission objectives and that the Patriarch would definitively execute him for that. And not even wrongly, as he had to admit.
"He will always keep up visual and voice communication, t'Mnnl," Cho ordered. With a wave of his hand Cho set the tactical projection screen to Hingh's helmet camera and leant back in the command throne. The plain, hard metal was pleasantly uncomfortable. Hingh t'Mnnl confirmed curtly.
The view field showed the boarding tunnel. They hadn't bothered to pressurize it, so the boarding party wore light armour vacuum suits for protection. With short snapped commands Hingh ordered the hull auto-welder into position. The picture faded behind the several million-degree glare of the beam knifing into the hardened hull like it was butter.
Immediately the Teladi Captain reappeared on the communications display. "You're damaging a ship of the Teladi Trading Corporation! We are protesting with all due respects! You will have to face unfavourable trading terms in the future! We…" Cho snipped the Teladi away with his forefinger. Blatherskite!
He turned back to the airlock. A fading sibilant hiss of air signalled breakthrough and the auto-welder quickly ripped two precise semi-circles from the hull, which the crewmen dragged away. The auto-welder pushed through the breach to the inner lock door. Cho loved these moments when boarding a ship and could picture the security bulkheads slamming down to prevent air loss. And as the auto-welder would work its way through each of those bulkheads, the crew would grab for their space-suits. By now they would know that they were deliberately being destructive and welding their way to the control room. They were facing Split not Boron who would debate their way through each obstruction! Some Teladi wouldn't reach suits or sealed rooms in time. Occupational hazard – No one forced them to crawl from their mud-hole planet!
As the boarding party forced their way from one corridor to another they left a trail of smashed bulkheads coated in ice crystals from the condensed freezing atmosphere that sparkled wanly in the bilious green light. The last door fell and the two junior officers stepped through the gap. There came a flash and an extended electrical buzz. Some moments later Hingh t'Mnnl stepped through and surveyed the scene for Cho to observe through his helmet camera. One of his officers stood, blaster in hand, a soot black line scorched across his cuirass from his waist to his neck, partially melting the helmet visor.
A Teladi, the large hole in his space-suited chest, still glowing hot around the edges, lay spread-eagled over a shattered console. A second stared in shocked disbelief at the remains of the sidearm melted to the flesh of his gloved claw before collapsing.
Abruptly, there was an enraged snarl as t'Mnnl switched the audio relay to the Teladi suit radio frequency and patched it through to the Bone Scout.
"Fsssschhhhh! Ccchhhou will rrrregrrrret thhat Shhhsssssplitt agrrrressssorsss! Tshhhh!"
A Teladi, whose space suit bore captain's insignia, approached the camera. His pupils were clear to Cho through the helmet visor. They were pinprick red and alongside the deep dark forehead scale they signalled Loanises had pushed beyond the natural cowardice of his race into the greatest of rages. If it wasn't for his species physical inferiority Cho could almost have considered him a small threat. Hingh t'Mnnl waved his weapon and Captain Loanises stopped after two further, hesitating steps.
"May the profit abandon you forever; may your egg-brothers and egg-parents scorn you for your deeds! May the community of all respectable..."
"Stop it, he is boring me." T'Mnnl said and knocked both limbs from under the Teladi captain with one sure sweep of his leg and Loanises crashed to the deck. He half rose, hissing something that was neither in the Teladi nor the trade tongue. None of the bridge crew moved to help him. The few survivors stood paralysed with fear, their scale plates and their eyes wide with horror.
Hingh t'Mnnl and one of his team took up tactical positions to keep an overview, while the one whose armour had been seared by a Teladi beam removed an instrument and cables from a large metallic field bag. He smiled at the Teladi manning the post. The saurian stepped quickly back and the Split removed the front plate of the main data console without haste. Then he hooked up the device; its diodes flickered blue and status strings flickered dizzyingly past on the small display. After about ten sezuras, in the Bone Scout control centre another view-field opened, while specialised sub-systems of the main computer drained every single byte from the Phoenix. The memory core was filling rapidly, since the data was neither compressed nor encrypted. Outside of spy operations, the Teladi deemed data protection for unnecessary. Compared to the increase in security, it was simply too expensive. Naturally, they were mostly right – and their point would hold true, if nothing of use could be found in the main computers data.
Cho briefly wondered if there were other information systems independent of the central computer that might contain important data. Not likely, according to intelligence reports on Teladi technology. As soon as the data download was complete he ordered his people to withdraw.
Hingh t'Mnnl fired into the command consoles and as the Teladi cowered from the spark-spraying inferno the Split withdrew. Cho switched off the tactical display.
"He will keep ready to cast off, Uchan. Heading jump-gate W."
The boarding party returned just a few sezuras later. Cho pulled the weapons controls closer and watched the Teladi Phoenix drift as the Bone Scout pulled away. Either the main computer was too damaged or the crew too panicked but the big destroyer activated neither drive nor shields.
The Targeting Computer confirmed firing readiness and Cho's finger twitched on the trigger. Remembering the Patriarch's orders he didn't fire. The Phoenix dwindled as the Bone Scout pulled away.
Thuruk's beard!
In a flash, he pulled the weapons console closer and impulsively snapped a salvo of guided missiles at the target. He pushed the console away with what looked a gesture of disgust.
"Jadmanthrat!" Uchan t'Scct exclaimed through clenched teeth, as a glowing fireball blossomed. "Direct hit!" He threw an enthusiastic sidelong glance at his commander.
May he pay homage to me later, Cho thought and stalked to his private rooms to analyse the Teladi data.
CHAPTER 38
I almost dare not to write it down, but I am afraid, the machines, dumb as they still are, can evolve more rapidly then we can. Much more rapidly.
Nathan Ridley Gunne
From a message to Joan "Hydra" Mitchell
The flight to Argon Prime was refreshingly uneventful, Kyle caught his first glimpse of the planet from the bridge of the Aladna Hill. He was immediately struck by the strong resemblance to his own home world. The continents were noticeably larger and the oceans correspondingly less prominent but it shone in the same beautiful blue. How amazing, he thought, that humanity had found such a perfect and beautiful new world so far away from home!
The reception he received from the Argon government was altogether more restrained than that of the Goners, but not having to make another speech, not being gazed on like The Second Coming, that was okay with Kyle. He did however have to tell his story over and over again to individual Senators and shake dozens, - if not hundreds of hands. He endured the inescapable politicking stoically and counted himself fortunate to only have to attend the next morning's first meeting of the Special RD, chaired by Senator Nan Gunnar.
"Ladies and gentlemen, Captain Brennan," Gunnar began, climbing to his feet at the end of the long conference table. "You all know the story of our guest from Earth by now, and if you have any further questions for him I ask you to put them on hold for the time being."
He paused and scoured the
faces for dissent before continuing.
"Now may I welcome the minister for Defence, Henna Steen-Hilmarson. Ma'am."
The Senator took his seat and a woman with hair pinned up in a pink bun, wearing a determined expression on her round face stood up.
"Thank you Senator Gunnar. I'd like to begin by summarising the memorandum we circulated yesterday. First – in the last wozuras we have detected an upsurge in Xenon activity in the sectors under our surveillance. There have been many small attacks on both civilian and military targets. Intelligence concludes, for reasons I am not at liberty to explain at this time, that these are a smoke screen for something bigger. Any questions?" She paused. "No, good. Second – there are numerous indications the Xenon are developing and testing a jump-drive. Captain Brennan?"
"That's correct. Several years – several jazuras ago – such a prototype ship had an accident in the Sol system. It gave us the incentive, and the technological leg up, to develop our own jump-ship."
"Jump-drive technology is the next great leap forward and if we don't get it before the Xenon, they will use it against us!" interjected an Argon whose first name – Njord – had got stuck with Kyle, but not his surname, function or title.
"That is correct Senator Renda," the Defence Minister continued. "But before we leap ahead to the agenda I'd like to finish my summary. Thank you Captain Brennan. The third point of my memo dealt with the appearances of spacecrafts of the Ancients, coincident with the arrival of Captain Brennan. I think we can assume this isn't a coincidence even if we lack proof. Questions?"
"Many," Nan Gunnar mumbled. "Later."
"Good. Fourth – the Secret Service has been unable to confirm anything yet but there are reports that three jump–gates on the outer rim of the Commonwealth have gone off-line. There is no indication as to whether this is permanent."
This last point sent a frisson of unease rippling through the room. The last jump-gate failure had been many generations ago. These devices were integral to the whole Commonwealth and a jump-gate failure meant many ships and countless people trapped in their solar systems. It meant a breakdown of trade.
Farnham's Legend: The beginning of the X-Universe saga (X Games Book 1) Page 30
