by S. H. Jucha
In less than a day, the material was transferred, and personnel relocated between the Freedom and Pimbor.
Most of the pilots flew their travelers to the city-ship. Those who remained on Pimbor were berthed on the freighters, and Lucia’s Trident, the OS Judgment. The four belonging to the warship would be leaving when the Judgment sailed.
There was one change in pilot assignment. Jess requested Lucia speak to Oleg and transfer Sharon Reems from her SE Trident to Lucia’s ship. Oleg consented, and an Earther replaced an Omnian on the Judgment.
Before the Freedom sailed, Lucia submitted a request to Pia and Renée. The message was routed through SADEs, who received a privacy notification. Pia and Renée quietly and unobtrusively fulfilled Lucia’s need.
Nalia performed the operation, and later, Sharon Reems launched her traveler from the city-ship. She was the proud possessor of an implant. After she landed aboard the Judgment, Orbit assumed the duties of introducing Sharon to the implant’s apps.
After the fact, Renée shared with Alex what she’d approved.
For a moment, Alex regarded Renée. Then he nodded but said nothing. It seemed to him to be the way of the future for Omnians. Decisions of tech distribution via race majority approval had no more merit. Events were eclipsing the democratic process.
As the Omnians discovered more races and expanded their influence, their tech would be distributed as needed. The veterans, Sharon Reems, and the Pims were evidence of the new direction.
Considering who’d received Omnia’s bounty, Alex found he couldn’t argue with the decisions. He did intend to maintain strict control over one important area of Omnia Ships tech. The approval to construct Tridents and travelers would be carefully guarded.
The granting of licenses for warships and fighters would only be awarded to the races that proved to be good galactic citizens. The fees would provide Omnia Ships with a steady and profitable income for future work.
Cordelia linked to the controllers of the Freedom, Darius’s command, and the freighters. In a coordinated maneuver, the fleet dropped below the ecliptic, cleared the Pimbor system’s gravitational influence, and transited to the star coordinates that Celsius had provided.
30: The Qualls
Lucia’s Trident could only accommodate so many additional passengers for the trip to the fourth lost dome, and the decisions of who sailed and who stayed behind fell to Jess.
Menous and Salsinona offered to remain with their troops, and the Crocians were engrossed in their engineering efforts.
Jess knew he’d take Tacnock, Kasie, and Sam, who’d chosen to remain with the veterans when the fleet sailed. That left him with one other conversation, and he approached Homsaff.
“The Judgment can accommodate one squad but no more for this trip,” Jess said to the queen. “I’ll leave it to you to choose.”
“I would like to hear the specifics on what you intend to accomplish, Captain,” Homsaff replied.
“Destroy the ring, if it exists, and survey the planet,” Jess said.
“Will you attempt to take the dome?” Homsaff inquired.
“Unequivocally no,” Jess replied. “I’d rather we lost shadows than personnel.”
“On that we agree, Captain,” Homsaff said.
Jess watched Homsaff’s yellow eyes search his gaze, and he wondered what she was trying to ascertain.
“What about the planet?” Homsaff pursued.
“We survey only to understand the degree of the Colony’s penetration, Homsaff,” Jess replied. “No contact, except in self-defense.”
Jess was adamant about what he’d said to Homsaff, and he held her stare until she relented.
“Understood, Captain,” Homsaff said.
To Jess, the queen seemed satisfied with his answers. Without another word, she turned and walked away.
Homsaff determined that it was Simlan’s turn to be first in the next encounters. He and his reorganized squad would sail aboard the Judgment.
Personnel decisions made, Jess and the others boarded Sharon’s traveler for the trip to Lucia’s Trident. They were met by crew, who helped them with the transfer of weapons and baggage.
The veterans were accompanied by two of the new assault shadows. Mickey and his teams were anxious for feedback on their deployment effectiveness. The chief engineer had named them Julius and Brutus, which only he knew why. If the SADEs knew, they weren’t sharing.
The pair of shadows had late tech augmentations. They carried grav cells on their backs. It was expected that they’d be used to survey the planet, and the cells would prevent the need to recharge the power crystals.
The grav cells wouldn’t be employed on the dome assault models. They’d be too vulnerable to enemy fire in their present positions. More important, on a moon, they wouldn’t provide a sufficient charge rate to compensate for the crystals’ swift depletion by the lasers during a sustained encounter.
A Méridien crew member led Jess to his cabin.
“We’ll bring your gear soon, Captain,” the crew member said, as the cabin door slid aside.
“Teach me to do that,” Jess requested, pointing to the open doorway.
“I didn’t do that, Captain,” the Méridien replied. “The door has been programmed to respond to your bio ID, which is embedded in your implant.”
“If I wanted to open a door, how would I do it?” Jess asked.
The crew member walked Jess through the process of accessing the ship’s operations app. He taught Jess to use a submenu that controlled access to the doors and hatches.
“You’ll be able to see any panel, which are within the walls and hull, that you’ve been granted access to open, Captain,” the Méridien explained.
Jess gazed down the corridor. Everywhere he looked, his implant displayed signals for the doors. He smiled and stepped into the cabin.
“Pretty luxurious for a passenger,” Jess remarked approvingly.
The crew member suddenly realized that this was the assault commander’s first stay aboard a Trident, and he sent a message to Celsius about the need to augment the alliance veterans’ implant training. “These rooms aren’t for passengers, Captain. These quarters belong to Commodore Bellardo,” he said.
Jess eyed the young Méridien, who smiled pleasantly at him.
When the silence stretched on, the crew member said, “If you’d rather not share the commodore’s quarters, Captain, I heartily suggest that you be the one to explain that to her.” Then he swiftly departed.
Jess regarded the nicely appointed salon, and he grinned. He loved that she’d assumed he’d want to share her quarters for the entire trip.
Soon after landing aboard the Trident, Jess, Tacnock, Kasie, Sam, and Homsaff had evening meal with Lucia in her quarters.
“I’ve star coordinates and a name for our destination and not much more,” Lucia said, as the meal wound down, “The alliance race is called the Qualls.”
Jess frowned and regarded Tacnock.
“The Qualls are a young race,” Tacnock explained. “They haven’t explored their system much beyond their planet and its several moons.”
“And they’ve already learned to operate their dome?” Sam queried.
“The race’s forte is in theoretical modeling,” Tacnock continued. “They excel in mathematics and physics. The Qualls are known for having solved the mysteries of console operation in one of the shortest periods.”
Lucia saw Jess frown. “Problem, Captain?” she asked.
“I’m thinking that a planet of intellectuals will be no match for the insectoids if they’ve made planetfall,” Jess replied.
“Do the Qualls have natural defenses?” Homsaff inquired. To underline her question, she bared her formidable rows of teeth and flexed her fingers, which ended in sharp dark nails.
“I’ve never seen an image or heard a description of
the race,” Tacnock replied. “I’ve no idea how they appear.”
“Let’s hope they have some form of defense,” Sam said.
* * * * *
The journey to Quall was a long one. Orbit indicated to Lucia that the system was close to the star coordinates that Deirdre had sent to Alex.
When the Trident exited outside the system’s periphery, Orbit programmed a short transit for the warship to position it above the planet.
“The third moon, Commodore,” Orbit said, indicating the holo-vid and enlarging the display.
“A dome with a ring,” Tacnock commented unhappily.
“Transports in orbit around the planet,” the telemetry officer reported.
“Black space,” Sam swore. “The Colony has been here for a while, just like on Pimbor.”
The Judgment passed near the third moon on the approach to the planet, and Sharon slid her traveler out of the bay.
Orbit had transferred Franz’s attack program to Sharon’s fighter.
Sharon was linked to her traveler’s controller, which had occurred when she donned her helmet. This is what she had wanted ever since she’d learned about Omnian tech.
During the voyage to Quall, Sharon was rarely seen by the crew, except for other pilots. After her brain acclimated to the presence of the implant, she lived in her traveler. Hours were spent with the Omnian pilots, learning to link with the controller and its apps.
By the time Sharon launched for Quall’s third moon, she felt empowered. The telemetry display of the moon filled her helmet, and with a cue from her implant, she zoomed into the imagery.
The dome was situated about eighty degrees around the moon from Sharon’s approach vector, and she laid in a course to circle the moon from the opposite direction.
The fighter came in low across the moon’s surface. When the dome appeared, Sharon targeted one of the ring’s power supplies and signaled the attack program. Imitating Franz’s pattern, the traveler reversed orientation, overflew the ring, and fired at it after the ship had passed.
The power supply exploded, and the ring segments detonated so quickly one after the other that the entire structure seemed to disappear in an instant.
Sharon sucked in air and laughed nervously. She hadn’t realized that she had been holding her breath. SADEs are scary good, she thought.
Cuing the telemetry recording, Sharon examined it at a slower speed. She saw the dome brighten and return to normal. I wonder what it looked like from inside the dome, was her additional thought.
A quick check of the ship’s sensors revealed that the hull had suffered no damage.
Jess eyed the SADE, who stood beside him on the warship’s bridge. “Orbit, do you have a count?” he asked.
“We’ve observed nearly three-quarters of the planet, Captain,” Orbit replied. “If I were to assume an even distribution of transports, I would estimate there to be nearly four hundred transports.”
“That’s eight hundred shuttles,” Sam remarked.
“Oh, for the love of Pyre,” Kasie moaned, “That’s about sixteen thousand Colony members.”
“And most of them would be pregnant grays,” Tacnock added.
“Quall has been under attack much longer than Pimbor,” Lucia concluded.
“Does this have anything to do with Quall’s nearness to the Colony’s home world?” Homsaff asked.
“Not in the physical sense,” Jess replied, “but it might be related to the number of gates necessary to journey through to reach the Colony home world from here.”
“Sixteen thousand insectoids, pregnant females, and annuals of time against a race of intellectuals,” Kasie lamented.
“A landing will be dangerous,” Homsaff noted.
“True, but we need to understand the status of the planet and the population,” Jess reminded everyone.
“The status of the planet is easy,” Sam quipped. “It’ll be crawling with insectoids.”
“Sers, please observe the holo-vid,” Orbit requested.
The displayed view focused on a section of land. It contained tall buildings, thoroughfares, and areas around the urban center that had previously been under cultivation but were now fallow.
“What are we supposed to see, Orbit?” Jess asked.
The display’s filter switched to infrared.
“Note the small compounds within the population center,” Orbit directed.
In the holo-vid view, some buildings were grouped together by tall fences. The infrared showed them to be hot. It was assumed the fences were electrified.
“The Qualls have fortified sections that they could defend,” Sam said hopefully.
“They’ve boxed themselves into defensive positions,” Homsaff riposted. “It’s a temporary solution, not a permanent answer to the invasion.”
“We’ll start our survey there,” Jess said. He manipulated the holo-vid until he had what he wanted. “There,” he said, “that field will afford us a safe perimeter around the traveler, and it’ll give us a fairly open approach to those protected buildings.”
By early next morning, Sharon had rejoined the Judgment. After morning meal, she returned to her pilot’s seat and was taking on passengers — Lucia and the entire group of veterans.
Sharon received the landing coordinates from Orbit. When Lucia signaled the launch, she exited the bay and dropped planetside. Her target was a field dotted with the stubble of dried stalks, the remnants of some forgotten crop.
Hovering over the field, Sharon extended the landing gear, settled the traveler on the ground, and waited for permission from Jess to drop the hatch.
Linked to Jess, Lucia watched him study the terrain through the ship’s sensors. Obviously, he wasn’t in a hurry to exit the ship into a mass of insectoid young.
Within moments, the controller began producing a report, marking the motions on a map, labeling the species, and tallying the numbers.
The shadows, which had lain on their bellies on the deck, rose on their legs, hurried to the hatch, and jumped through the opening. When they landed, they assumed back-to-back positions. Their link to the ship’s controller enabled them to identify the variety of the field’s targets. They divided the territory in half, sharing the directive’s responsibility to protect.
Birds, rodents, and other species were eliminated from the shadows’ target lists, and working from near to far, they eliminated, with machine precision, the insectoid juveniles.
Jess monitored the progress of Julius and Brutus. He started an implant list for Mickey’s notes. The first entry was an appreciation for the last-minute addition of the grav cells. The shadows were marching around and firing their lasers nearly continuously.
he team link.
The team waited while Julius and Brutus cleared the field.
When the shadows paused, having found no more targets, Jess checked their power crystals. Each shadow’s power level was depleted by over half, but with the respite, the grav cells could replenish the crystals.
