“Are we still getting intelligence from our friends?” asked Jennifer, putting a hand on her husband’s arm and giving it a squeeze.
“Of course, your Majesty,” said Sergiov with a short bow to the other woman. “The only problem is, we are not getting timely information from their seat of power. Or, I should say, not as much. The stealth ship is still out there monitoring their coms. The Cacas have been expending a lot of energy looking for it, but so far haven’t come close to finding it.”
“Thank God for small miracles,” said Sondra McCullom. She, Sergiov and Admiral Chan were the only flag rank officers present beside Rear Admiral Mary Innocent, Sean’s personal intelligence liaison. Len and Taelis didn’t need to know this information, at least not yet, so they had been excluded.
Sean looked over at his CNO, trying to glare, ending up giving a sheepish look that mirrored his embarrassment. The intelligence people had warned him about what might happen, but he had decided in his infinite wisdom to ignore them.
“Cut to the chase, Kat. Just what the hell are the Cacas doing?”
“Well, our stealth ship intercepted this broadcast from the Caca homeworld news service,” said the head spook. “The power they put into the cast was suspicious to start with, as if the Cacas knew we would be listening and wanted to make sure we got it.”
The video screen lit up, showing the visage of a Caca male. While Sean knew what several of them looked like, he still had trouble telling the aliens apart. Part of the genetic heritage of most species was the ability to tell those who were like them apart, while not having a clue on how to differentiate the facial features of aliens.
“Who is that?” asked the Empress, eyes narrowing. “He seems really young.”
“That, your Majesty, is their Emperor,” said Sergiov, nodding to the screen. “Jresstratta V. We don’t have much footage on him, which made us think that this cast was important.”
The young male started speaking, a low gravelly voice that still sounded to Sean’s ear to be a higher pitch than most Cacas he had heard. The translation came across in a smooth human male voice.
“Our trusted servants, the Maurids, have betrayed us. They have spat upon our trust and the hospitality we have shown them, raising them above all of our other servants. We have found that they have been passing vital information to our enemies. We have not been losing battles because of any skill of the hated humans, but because we have been sold out.”
“Hah,” snorted Sondra, shaking her head. “It helped, but the Fleet has handed them their asses through the courage of our people and the genius of our engineers.”
Sean held up a hand to silence the woman. While he didn’t disagree with her, stating that fact at this time, when the Caca Emperor was about to tell them his intentions, was not needed.
“These traitors must pay. While I don’t assume that the entire species is guilty, there are many that are. Unfortunately, these traitors have not stepped forward to accept the punishment for their sins. So, by imperial decree, a portion of the Maurid population will be called upon to pay for the trespasses of their brethren. Once the price has been paid, it is hoped that the rest of the Maurid population will police themselves, so that this exercise will not be necessary in the future.”
“What the hell is he going to do?” asked Jennifer, gripping Sean’s forearm tightly.
Sean shook his head, never taking his eyes off the screen. Imbedding the image of his enemy in his mind. One day, in the near future, I will pull your palace down around your ears, you young fool.
“This world, Kallfer, will pay the price. I have decreed that the population is to be exterminated, a million a day, until all one billion of the Maurid inhabitants are dead. So I have decreed, and so it will be.”
“The transmission repeated over twenty times,” said Ekaterina, looking over at the Emperor with a frown. “It looks like they really wanted us to intercept it.”
“So, what do you think it going on?” asked Sean, looking at all the faces in the room.
“They want us to do something,” said McCullom, nodding toward the still image of the Caca Emperor. “Why else go to such pains to make sure we got this transmission.”
“Where is this planet?”
“Right here,” said Sergiov, pulling up a holo star map. The system appeared on the holo, the symbol for a G class yellow star under the dot. The system zoomed in, showing a representation of the planets around it. Five rocky worlds, one green with life. A trio of gas giants with multiple moons further out. One asteroid belt between the fourth and the last rocky world. The view zoomed back out, showing the location of the system, about eighty light years from the front lines.
“How many Maurid planets are there?” asked Jennifer. Sean wasn’t sure where she was going with that question, but he trusted her instincts.
“As far as we can tell, there are just over a dozen planets that the Cacas have designated as Maurid worlds. Only one of them is the actual Maurid home world, a planet that is sacred to the species due to it being the location of their evolution.”
“Then why that world?” asked the Empress, brows knit in thought. “Why the planet that is closest to us, unless they expect us to do something about it?”
“I think you are right, my dear,” said Sean, smiling at his wife. “It’s within reach of our fleet, if we ignore the other worlds on the way. Like they want to set up a battle. Or a trap.”
“Kill two birds?” asked Sondra, her eyes widening. “Take care of disciplining their rebelling subjects, and take out a battle force at the same time?”
“Why not,” said Sergiov, nodding toward the CNO. “It makes sense. They’re hoping that we will rush in there to prevent collateral damage, then take out our fleet.”
Sean sat silent for a moment, thinking. The smart thing to do would be to leave the planet to the mercies of the Cacas. He would have to send enough of a force in to win a major battle, just in case they had something big waiting for him. And that would make too alluring a target for the enemy to pass up with their sub-supernova weapon.
“There’s something else that just came in,” said Sergiov.
Sean felt a sinking sensation. The other shoe was about to drop, and what he wanted more than anything was to tell her to shut up. Unfortunately, he couldn’t, so he nodded her way.
“Striped Wolf is on that planet. He came in through the portal on the stealth ship was had stationed there for com purposes. Picked up by a ship of his people’s and dropped off on the planet.”
“What the hell is he doing out there?” growled the Emperor, shocked by this news.
“He’s a free being, your Majesty,” said Sergiov, raising an eyebrow. “He works for us on a voluntary basis, with primary loyalty to his own people.”
“And his reason for visiting his people?” asked Jennifer, again getting to the heart of the matter.
“The Maurid people really don’t trust us, dear,” said Sean. “They aren’t a trusting lot, and it comes hard to them. Sure, we’re their best hope for the freedom they desire, but most of them probably think we’re just going to use them without a care for their welfare.”
“That’s essentially it, your Majesty,” said a nodding Sergiov.
“But we aren’t, are we?”
“No, Jennifer. We aren’t. Not as long as I’m in charge.”
“I do believe that Striped Wolf was visiting his cell on that planet in order to make face to face contact, your Majesty,” said Sergiov. “He told his handler something about his needing to talk with his people, so that they didn’t think he was parroting words under duress.”
“So it needed to be done, if we expected the cooperation of his people in the Caca Empire,” said Sean, nodding. “But he picked a hell of a time for a home visit.”
“I suggest that we get him off planet and back here,” said Sondra, a worried expression on her face. “It’s not like we’re responsible for what they do to one of their planets. We can use this for propaganda pur
poses with our own people and allies. We still win.”
Sean simply sat in his seat, shaking his head, and Sondra sighed since she knew what that meant.
“I can’t do that, Sondra. The Caca Emperor has issued a challenge, and if we don’t pick up the gauntlet, the Maurids will never trust us again. Plus, I can’t just stand by and watch those bastards slaughter a billion allies.”
“You realize it’s a trap?” asked Ekaterina, staring at the Emperor.
“I do, Kat. And I want you,” he said, pointing a finger at McCullom, “to come up with a plan to get into that system and stop the Cacas from killing it.”
“And how the hell are we going to do that, your Majesty? You know they’re not going to make it easy to find their projector ships. We’ve shown that we can kill them if we spot them.”
“That’s why you’re my CNO, Admiral. I have complete faith in you and your staff to come up with something. Go ahead and bring Len and Duke Taelis in on this. They now have need to know. I want you to come up with something that gets us in there, saves the Maurids, kills the Cacas, and lets everyone go home happy.”
The CNO gave the Emperor a disbelieving look.
“Go ahead and get your staff together. I want to have some more words with Ekaterina.”
McCullom stood and walked out of the room, and the Emperor could tell that it was all she could do to not storm away. Her professionalism served her well, and she retreated with dignity.
“She didn’t seem very happy,” said Jennifer, a slight smile on her face.
“She’ll get over it,” said Sean with a return smile. “She’ll be so pissed off, she’ll come up with something amazing to spite me.” I hope.
“Do you always play us like that, your Majesty?” asked Ekaterina, closing her eyes and sighing.
“Of course. How else do you think I can keep you lazy peasants on task.” He shook his head, and his face assumed a serious mien. “Now, what can we do to get Striped Wolf and his people some arms? I’m sure those fierce carnivores don’t want to simply walk to their deaths without taking some of their masters with them.”
* * *
“For some fool reason the Emperor thought you might be the best man to coordinate this,” said Walther Preacher Model, looking out of the holo.
“What’s the mission, General?” asked Brigadier General Cornelius Walborski. Getting a mission should have been exciting to the terminally bored Ranger officer. The problem was, he was no longer on the front lines, and staff work just didn’t get him going. What he wanted was a chance to kill Cacas, plain and simple, and he couldn’t do that from a desk.
“We need volunteers to go into a very dangerous situation and support natives. Specifically, slaves of the Cacas.”
“But, I was already doing that, Preacher. So something else must be going on. Spill it, sir.”
Walther looked at him for a moment, a sour look on his face. “I, don’t have the need to know in this case, my Lord.”
Cornelius frowned at the use of the noble honorific by his friend and superior. He hadn’t even wanted the title, but the Emperor had insisted. Preacher held the rank of knight, well below his title of count for social purposes.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think you have total clearance for this either, son. All I know is you need to get volunteers who will be read into the mission after they sign on.”
Cornelius sucked in a breath. That was against the regulations of the Imperial Army. How in the hell could someone give their consent to participate in a mission when they didn’t know what the mission was. It sounded duplicitous, like they were trying to sucker people into a suicide mission. That there would be plenty of volunteers was a given. Rangers were like that. Tell them that a mission was important, and that they might not come back, and they would form a line around the block to sign up.
“One other thing I can tell you is that it involves Maurids. Is that a problem?”
“No, sir. I’ve found that I like the sly bastards. Will the Maurids be supporting my people?”
“More like your people will be supporting them. You will be organizing guerilla bands on a Maurid majority planet to resist the operations of the Cacas. And that is all I can tell you. I’m sending over the file now. If you have questions you will have to address them to someone higher up. I wasn’t cleared for this file.”
“They don’t trust you, Preacher?” asked Cornelius, disbelief creeping into his voice.
“Need to know. I’m sure if my input was necessary for the success of the mission, I would be getting everything. Obviously it isn’t, though yours is. I’m still not sure how much they’re going to tell you, and I don’t want to know.”
Of course you don’t, thought Walborski, pursing his lips to stop from smiling. Model was a curious as anyone else. But like most of the high ranking officers that the brigadier knew, they were invested enough in their careers to hold their curiosity in check.
“You can, of course, call on anyone you need for support in this mission, as long as they are not given need to know information they’re not cleared for.”
So, I get to ask for whatever I want, but I can’t tell the people I ask anything about why we need it. Great. So they won’t be able to brainstorm suggestions.
“I’ll leave you with it, then. Good luck. Knowing you, the mission will meet with a successful conclusion.”
The holo died, leaving a small icon hanging in the air, blinking. Cornelius reached an index finger and touched the icon, allowing it to scan his fingerprint and DNA.
“Walborski, Cornelius, code alpha alpha bravo four one four three.” He opened his eyes and let the light from the holo read his retina. Sometimes he wondered why they had to have such redundancy in verifying identity. Then he recalled the shape shifters, and wondered why they didn’t have some additional levels. Probably because they couldn’t think of any.
A light started blinking on his flat comp, laying activated on his desk. The files had been downloaded and were no longer on the system, now only on his personal comp and the central server at Fleet and Imperial Army HQs.
Cornelius looked over the file header and the first article, swearing under his breath as the salient facts hit him in the face like a wet towel.
The bastards, he thought, shaking his head. He knew he really shouldn’t have been surprised by anything the large aliens did. But mass executions of civilians? Still, it seemed like a waste of time and resources when they could have killed them in larger groups from space. There had to be some reason they were doing it that way, but he couldn’t think of any.
The next file showed a series of Imperial weapons that had been modified for the Maurid body. Different stocks, modified handgrips and triggers. Set up to allow the aliens to comfortably use them. A production schedule showed that a couple of dedicated fabers had been assigned to turn out five thousand infantry weapons a day. Add to that thirty thousand grenades and a couple of hundred small rocket launchers, and in a couple of weeks he could supply quite a force of guerillas. He looked over the inventory of weapons already on hand and whistled. He already had enough to equip three brigades of irregulars.
But what kind of training will they need? he thought. It wouldn’t do to just hand weapons over to people who had no tactical training. That was asking to turn them into meat puppets only good for absorbing fire. Not his preferred operation plan. Of course, being Maurids, he was sure there would be enough trained citizens on hand. Maybe not at first, but once word got around, there would be plenty of shadow warriors.
The mission brief in the next file called for two companies of Rangers, operating in platoon detachments, to operate with six Maurid brigades, scattered across the populated areas of the planet. It specified that the mission was extremely hazardous, and the odds were against any of the people returning. What it didn’t say was what was so dangerous about it specifically. Any operation against the Cacas was extremely dangerous, of course. Walborski had been the only survivor from his company on Azure,
but that had been an extreme case. He had a feeling that there was some risk here beside combat, something that made the Rangers’ return unlikely.
The insertion would be by wormhole. There was a stealth ship in the outer system that had already unshipped its wormhole and sent in insystem by shooting plasma from the hole as a rocket. It would be on the planet in two days, at which time the Maurid resistance would be contacted and they would find a home for it.
Maybe I need to contact Striped Wolf about this, he thought, thinking of the Maurid he had worked with in the past. The spy hadn’t told him what his exact function was in the alliance, but he had seemed to be high enough up to have the ear of the admiral in charge of intelligence, Ekaterina Sergiov. If anyone knew the details of the planet, Kallfer, it would be that Maurid.
When Cornelius queried for that being on the net he was surprised that the Maurid wasn’t available. The file on his flat comp opened on its own, showing another file, this one labeled Contacts, the list of Maurids he could call on during the operation. On the top of that list was Striped Wolf. Cornelius rubbed his forehead, wondering how the Maurid had gotten to that planet. However it had happened, the point was the being was in trouble if he was in that place. Though it didn’t have anything to do with the mission, the knowledge that someone he knew was on the firing line made it personal.
Now, what the hell makes this mission so dangerous? It wasn’t specified in the orders, so it was obviously not in his need to know. But his curiosity was about to kill him. He still had the password given him by Sean that allowed him into most systems. It was a risk, and might hamper his career, but he really didn’t care about that when he was about to send people into harm’s way. He connected to the Fleet intelligence net, inputted the password, and asked his question. And looked on in shocked disbelief as he read.
Chapter Twelve
Injustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance - these may be cured by reform or revolution. But men do not live only by fighting evils. They live by positive goals, individual and collective, a vast variety of them, seldom predictable, at times incompatible. Isaiah Berlin
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 14: Rebellion. Page 17
