by Ryan Krauter
Loren only shook his head grimly. "I asked what we could offer Lemuria, treaty or otherwise, but as you've pointed out we're strapped the way it is. We couldn't offer enough combat ships to make a real difference, I'm afraid." He slowly spun his mug of brew on the bar's surface, watching the condensation drip onto the heavily lacquered wood.
"Then all we can hope for is some consideration for our non-involvement," Renner concluded in a tone that said he wasn't very convinced by his own argument.
Loren shook his head again. "You've seen what the Primans are all about. There was a leadership change a few months back; I don't know how closely you've been able to monitor them, but they've become more aggressive, much less tolerant under their new Commander. Their old party line was always that we needed to accept our place as their subjects and fall into place, otherwise they'd make us do it anyway. There are a couple planets that did go that route, actually." Renner's raised eyebrows showed that he hadn't been privy to that information, so Loren elaborated. "They openly surrendered and the Primans began administering their planets. It was pretty low-key at first; they set up political and religious indoctrination programs to teach everyone how the Primans altered everyone's evolutionary paths and made them what they are, which to a degree is true, I admit. But it went farther than that. They didn't just put up a sign that said 'Under New Management'. Pretty soon they were relocating everyone, pushing them onto reservations. They began using the people as cheap labor, building things the Primans needed, staffing their facilities; basically using them as conscripted labor. And when that was taken care of, they started shipping the locals offworld."
"To where?" Renner asked, his voice just a whisper.
"The Primans don't care; just as long as it's not the planet they came from," Loren finished. "You know what they did to the Enkarran Empire, right?"
"The broad strokes. Just what you described; they stuffed them all onto ships and sent them packing. It seemed too wild to be true. How do you just displace an entire planet's population?"
"Well, the Primans had a lot of practice," Loren said darkly. "That's what everyone in the galaxy did to them a thousand years ago when they were defeated. The Primans were forced to build immense ships, and when they were done every last Priman was shoved aboard and sent into exile out beyond the edge of the galaxy. Now, it's payback time; it's what they're doing to every world they take. According to our estimates, they've already completely evacuated a quarter of the Enkarran Empire's planets. They forced the Enkarrans to build massive ships, sometimes cobbling together a dozen or more smaller vessels into one larger one. Then they just sent them away. We've had reports of a couple Enkarran ships trying to colonize some unclaimed planets coreward in the galaxy, but those were the lucky ones. Most of the evac ships could barely stay intact, much less use a hyperdrive. At the rate things are going, every last Enkarran world will be completely taken over by Primans within two years. And by the same token, there will be hundreds of millions of Enkarrans floating around in the dark, looking for a new place to live, or at least a place to set down before their ships fall apart."
They sat in silence as Loren took a slow, thoughtful sip of his brew. Renner's own drink was long since forgotten. He'd known that his people didn't have many options, but Loren was making it sound like they didn't have any options. The door to the bar swung open as someone pushed it too hard, and it hit the doorstop with a rattle and bang that made Renner jump in his seat. He just stared at the dark, shiny wood of the bar's surface as the bartender ran a damp cloth over its length before walking down to the end to see to his new customer.
"So," Renner began, unable to make eye contact with Loren and instead catching his image in the mirror behind the bar, "you're saying when they come, they're not going to negotiate; they're going to take down our defenses, boot us all into one area and from there toss us off the planet and into deep space to fend for ourselves."
"Based on what I've seen so far," Loren replied quietly, "that seems like the most likely outcome."
"What if we have something to offer them?" Renner asked hopefully. "You know about our exports; advanced reconfigurable circuits and processors. We've even started testing a prototype that should be able to neutralize their sensor jamming abilities. Maybe if they think we can keep making that for them..." His voice trailed off. He knew he was grasping at straws, but he had to try something.
"I just don't know," Loren replied. "They're good at technology, probably better than us in many fields. If they knew you had that sort of tech, I couldn't say if they'd want you to help them develop it or they'd just take what you had and send you packing."
"So what, then?" Renner asked. "What can I tell my superiors in the way of solutions?" The man seemed exasperated, but Loren didn't see how any other emotion would be expected.
"Right now, we've got our ships on an extended layover here. We should train together as a fighting force. As for long term solutions, the best I was told was that we could probably offer some lift capacity to get people and important materiel off-planet. I'm sorry there isn't more we can do, but we've been busy just keeping up with them."
Renner just nodded, lost in thought as he shifted on his barstool. Finally, he stood up and placed his credit chip on the bar's surface in front of him, putting his thumbprint on the little area that lit up next to the card. The bill paid for, he turned to Loren.
"Well," he began, "our superiors should be done with their luncheon and photo op. We'll have time for a debriefing before the diplomatic dinner tonight, so it's time for us to head to the Governor's mansion and report. Tomorrow we'll meet again when you arrive so we can talk more."
Loren got up and indicated Renner could lead the way. They left the bar in silence, and spent the drive to the Governor's residence the same way. Loren realized it was going to be a long night for his Lemurian counterpart.
Loren walked through the corridors of Avenger on his way to Cory's quarters. After the dinner on the way to their transport back to the ship, he'd received word that the Lemurian military was eager to get in some wargames and joint training exercises, so Captain Elco had told him to get Avenger's air wing in the game ASAP. Elco had also admitted that the Lemurians had quietly asked more about the evac transports Loren had mentioned. The planet, as an independent, had a relatively small population of less than five million. Many corporations, transportation companies and wealthy individuals had their own deep-space capable ships. Elco had told Loren that Confed could spare twenty short range heavy-lift utility transports of the Stalwart class. They were older and had been replaced by a newer model, but like most militaries the galaxy over, Confed was loathe to just break them up, and instead had mothballed them as part of their reserves. Now, after a quick refurbishing, the entire class was back in service hauling military and civilian loads all over the Confederation.
The major benefit to the Stalwart class was that they could land right on the surface of a planet; no shuttles were needed to load them up, so the process of embarkation was fairly quick. Loren knew sending them was a desperation move, but it was the only help Confed could offer for now.
Avenger was a ship of war who'd earned her scars in battle, and it showed as Loren traveled through her. There were corridors where the paint color was just slightly different, the fittings a little newer and shinier, where major damage had occurred. He passed by one of the main laser battery mounts; the turret itself was shiny and new, but the surrounding bulkheads were patched and looked like repairs had been made underway. That entire battery had been destroyed in their last action, and they'd lost much of the small gun crew who manned it, maintained it, and fired it manually if need be.
He finally got to the hangar levels at the bottom of the ship and made his way to the CAG's quarters. When he'd been CAG and before moving to the XO's quarters, Loren had lived in this space, and it brought back a flood of memories, most of them pleasant. Though Cory had office space in the hangar areas, she rarely did much business there, preferr
ing to operate away from the hustle of the hangar. It helped her detach from those duties a bit so she could concentrate on the task at hand, and if she had to meet with one of her pilots or other subordinates she'd found that the less formal atmosphere at her desk in the CAG's quarters tended to help take the edge off a little bit.
He tapped the button on the doorframe to send a call request.
"Captain Sosus," came the brisk reply a second later.
"It's the Priman Commander," Loren began in a false deep voice, "I'd like to surrender."
"That's great news," Cory replied cheerfully. "Come on in so I can smack you around first." The door chirped and unlocked, sliding into the bulkhead so Loren could enter.
He found Cory at a small desk on the outer bulkhead, the same one he'd spent so much time at. She looked up and smiled at him, then got up to greet him.
"Love what you've done with the place, Cory," Loren began with a smile as she rearranged the two chairs in front of her desk and indicated Loren could take a seat. She sat across from him in the other chair and waited for him to continue.
"You dirtied up the place pretty well, Loren," she said with a grin and she swept her gaze over her quarters. Actually, her and Merritt's quarters. "I doubt you got your deposit back."
"I told them to put it on my tab," Loren replied. He heard some noise from the small bathroom and looked at Cory. "Merritt's around?"
She nodded.
"So how's the honeymoon going?"
"Well," she began with false exasperation, "we didn't get to see much, and then there was this slave-driver of a captain who said we had to get back aboard because the ship was leaving..."
"Like you'd allow yourself to be left out of a fight," Loren countered.
"How well you know me," Cory replied. "Merritt's headed back to the hangar to get the Vipers all checked out for action. You know, now I can order him to do things to me, uh, I mean for me, as both his CAG and his wife. It's a win-win."
Loren made a horrified face. "I just got a partial visual of Merritt, and it will haunt me forever, you know that."
"I heard that," called Merritt from through the bedroom, and a few seconds later he emerged dressed in his flight suit.
"I'm still sending you the bill for my therapy," Loren said as he got up to shake Merritt's outstretched hand. He indicated the seat he'd just vacated, and Merritt took it. "In any case, I have something that will keep you two busy for a while." He retrieved a small data chip from one of the breast pockets of his uniform and passed it to Cory. "Overall, the government down there is still quiet about its official position on this whole Priman invasion mess, but before we left the surface the Lemurian military requested some joint training exercises with us. They have a half dozen destroyers in-system, probably a generation or so behind our own Pulsar class, but it's all they've ever needed for pirates and local criminals. There's a few squadrons of fighters as well, but they're all surface based, both on-planet and on their moon. That chip has all the data and some maneuvering strategies. I'd like you to get something put together for the fighters; the Captain and I will be getting a plan together for their fleet."
"So we don't know if they're going to fight, surrender, or evac?" Merritt asked.
"I'm really not sure," Loren admitted. "At this point, maybe a little of everything. Captain Elco put in a call to stage the transports Confed has offered to a few hours' distance outside the system. If people start asking to leave, we can help them pretty quickly. The hang-up is how much people can take with them. Anybody with a Galactic Bank account can get their money anywhere, so personal wealth isn’t a big problem, but of course people really can't take much in the way of material possessions. With the planet's population, we're looking at fifty round trips for each full load of twenty transports. About a two day round trip from here to the planet we've been using to stage displaced persons, and we're talking three months to evac the planet before accounting for private ships, space liners, corporate cargo haulers, that sort of thing, which will help draw those numbers down."
"They'll never make it," Merritt said softly. "Where's this planet you were talking about?"
"Some rock we catalogued a decade ago but nobody felt the need to settle," Loren admitted. "There's a few mining companies there, and it's a little on the cold side, but there's a big orbital station and plenty of space, so we've set up a processing point and are building housing as fast as we can. People from all over the Confederation and even a Talaran world are heading there if they can't get to their homes anymore. Most of them leave pretty quickly, and the place isn't set up for long term housing; there's no real independent government there, just Confed military and those private corporations. But it's better than being forced into a Priman labor camp and they're free to go when they have a place to head for."
"So what can we do?" asked Cory, back to business.
"We can figure out how to buy the Lemurians some time if they want the help when Primans come calling," Loren stated firmly.
Chapter Four
Tana Starr waited impatiently in the cafe where she often took her meals. She was good enough at her tradecraft to at least not look impatient, however. The server stopped by to refresh her stim-caf while she finished off the last few spoonfuls of her soup. It was a beautiful day out; the sun was shining but once in a while briefly obscured by puffy mid-level summer clouds, the temperature was just right for wearing a light coat, and there was just enough of a breeze to keep the air moving. The conditions were favorable to her not because she enjoyed the comforts; having grown up on a huge mothership in deep space, she was accustomed to the recycled air of a starship and the harsh artificial light provided by the fixtures within. No, she was pleased with the conditions because they allowed her to sit in the outdoor portion of the cafe where she could better keep an eye on the street. The spindly metal tables were also spaced farther apart than indoors, and that combined with the noise of hovercars, street and foot traffic made attempts at surveillance much more daunting.
"Tana," she heard a friendly voice say from behind her, "is that you?"
She turned to regard the young man standing just a few steps away from her. Face lighting up in surprise, she got up and took a step over to give the man a hug. "Of course it is, Salvor." She pointed at the chair opposite hers. "Have a seat."
Salvor, a Drisk male who appeared to be in his late twenties, took the offered chair. He was tall, with dark slicked-back hair and fashionable business clothes. The server had noticed the new arrival and appeared with a glass of water and menu as soon as the young man was seated, then was discrete enough to leave them to their conversation.
"It's so nice to see you again," Tana said brightly, acting as if Salvor was a long-lost friend. That was not quite the case.
Salvor took his comm device from his pocket as set it on the table next to his place setting, then nodded at Tana. "We are secure," he said softly.
"Monitoring this location would prove difficult even before your scrambler was active," she stated. "We must speak quietly, but we can speak relatively in the clear. We are just two among countless people that meet here for a meal and drinks."
Salvor nodded, for while he was used to working under cover, he was not trained to act so openly as Tana Starr. He was a covert operative, trained to do the less pleasant aspects of the missions his comrades like Tana set in motion. His comm device contained a field scrambler that would dampen their voices outside of a few feet so the people at the table next to them wouldn't be able to hear, a common device employed by many of the people who worked in the city centered on running the Confederation government. If Tana said they could speak mostly in the clear, he'd take her word on it.
"My team has finished assembling," he began. "We've arrived in singles and pairs over the last two days and have settled in the safehouse you purchased."
"I don't want to know what you’re doing yet," she interrupted. "I trust you know your business, so there's no need for you to tell me."
> Salvor just nodded and continued. "We have a dozen of us, and we brought weapons of Drisk manufacture. We'll begin scouting routes and alternate locations today. We brought enough funds to operate for a few weeks; any longer and we'll need an infusion. Are there any updates to the timetable?"
"Not as of now," she replied, her face a mask as she concealed her thoughts from the other Priman. He and his team had been sent to Delos to conduct a retrieval operation; to kidnap or otherwise capture somebody and remove them from the planet. All they knew was that they'd get their exact tasking when Tana Starr gave it to them, but she'd offered enough for them to get started. They were scouting the detention facility at the edge of the capital city. They knew there was somebody there they'd be required to grab, then hold in the city until an extraction was arranged. Being the seat of the Confederation, it wasn't as though they'd just be able to grab somebody and spirit them off-planet; once they'd recovered their target, more than likely they'd have to sit for a few days or even weeks until a proper extraction or better hiding location could be arranged. Either way was fine with Salvor; he was serving his people in the best way he knew how.
What Tana couldn't tell him just yet was that he was going to be breaking Representative Velk out of the detention facility, and that it probably wouldn't be easy. Despite their Drisk prosthetics and convincing ID packages, there was no way they'd be able to bluff their way into the building. Tana was working on a way to re-arrrange the staffing levels to make it as easy as possible to get to the Representative, but that was still going to take a few days. She also didn't tell Salvor the next step in the process; that Velk wouldn't be going back to Priman space. She hadn't yet received any new orders from the Commander, but she knew Tash wasn't going to risk having Velk back among potential supporters in Priman territory. In order to keep hold on his position of Commander and keep the Council convinced his campaign of eradication was the best course of action, he couldn't risk Velk's presence. It troubled Tana just a bit that she could very well be sending Representative Velk to a death sentence, but in the end if that's what best served the needs of her people then she would understand. She hoped Velk would, as well.
