A Show of Force (27 page)

“The Ton-Gar?” Jessica asked, unfamiliar with the term.

“Loosely translated, it means ‘ruling class’ or ‘top leaders’.”

“So, there are more than one of them?”

“Yes. As I understand it, the Ton-Gar is like a board of directors,” Ellyus continued. “It is composed of the senior members of the original twelve branches of the Jung family tree.”

“How do you know all of this?” Naralena wondered. “I would have expected your focus to be more on military assets.”

“You can never know too much about your enemy,” Jessica said.

“Indeed,” Ellyus agreed. “In the beginning, I did focus on such things, but after the Jung settled in, they began to not only teach the Cetian population their language, but also their history and politics. Slowly but surely, they began to convince the Cetians that the Jung Empire brought peace and prosperity to those who welcomed them.”

“That’s the key phrase, isn’t it,” Jessica said. “Those who welcomed them.”

“Precisely. However, no one knows what the consequences are for
not
welcoming them.”

“I can answer that one,” Jessica replied. “Boom. Big fucking boom.”

Ellyus Barton looked quizzically at Jessica.

“When we liberated Earth, they tried to destroy it. I’m not talking destruction of infrastructure and the like. I’m talking about glassing the planet from orbit.”

Ellyus looked at her for a moment. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Hell, yes. Millions died on Earth. Nearly a quarter of the population.”

“My God,” Ellyus exclaimed. “I had no idea.”

Jessica looked at Ellyus, noticing that he was sincerely shaken by the news of the near destruction of his homeworld. “Did you have family back on Earth?” she asked.

“No,” he replied solemnly. “None of us did. That is why we were chosen for this line of work. We were to make lives for ourselves here, and to forget about our lives on Earth.”

“Makes sense,” Jessica replied. “That’s probably why I was turned down for deep-cover work. I come from a large family.”

Ellyus nodded his understanding, his mind still trying to imagine the damage the Earth must have sustained. “Perhaps the attempt to destroy Earth was a decision made by the local force commander?”

“More likely it’s SOP. When we attacked their fleet in the Alpha Centauri B system, they took out Kent.”

“They glassed it as well?”

“No, they took it
out
. They nudged their barely functioning battleship toward it, then detonated their antimatter cores as it made contact. It was enough to crack the planet open. The internal volcanic pressures inside did the rest, at least that’s what our science people believe. The point is, Kent no longer exists. There’s nothing left but a debris belt that stretches halfway around Rigel. And the people of Kent had
nothing
to do with the attack. They didn’t even know what was going on, since we didn’t land troops there like we did on Copora.”

“You captured 61 Cygni as well?”

“Yup. We’re working our way through every system within twenty light years. Since that’s the fastest ships we’ve seen, we’re assuming that doing so will buy the Earth a minimum of one year of recovery time.”

“I only recently heard rumors that the Jung had ships capable of such speeds. They are said to be building such ships here, in the Tau Ceti system, in the Alliyana shipyards over Sorenson.”

“They have shipyards here?” Jessica wondered, surprised by his statement. “None of our recon flights have detected any shipyards.”

“You have recon flights in this system?”

“We have Falcons cold-coasting through the system on a regular basis, same as all the other systems within twenty light years of Sol,” Jessica explained.

“Falcons?”

“New ships, sort of,” Jessica told him. “Long story.”

Ellyus nodded. “Well, I’m not surprised that your Falcons did not detect them. Unless one of the new ships is departing, the shipyard would just appear to be another of Sorenson’s fifteen moons. Alliyana is one of the smallest of them, more of a captured asteroid than a moon. No atmosphere. The space port is contained within. It is a series of chambers of varying sizes, capable of manufacturing up to four ships at the same time.”

“What size ships?”

“No bigger than a frigate. The facility was originally created to build interplanetary transports, in order to reconnect the three inhabited worlds of Tau Ceti. Once enough of them were built, Alliyana turned to building gunboats and the occasional frigate.”

“I wonder how many of these facilities the Jung actually have that we aren’t aware of?” Jessica wondered.

“I have heard rumors that more exist, but I have never been able to verify that information.”

“They must, especially considering the number of ships they already have. They had to be built somewhere, right?”

“How many ships do they have?” Ellyus wondered.

“At least one hundred that we’ve actually verified.”

“How many ships did you say this ‘Alliance’ has?”

“I didn’t,” Jessica replied. “Right now, we only have two full-sized warships, both of them about the size of a Jung cruiser, and one of them is in dry dock for a while.”

Ellyus shook his head, looking quite confused. “That does not make sense. To have liberated 61 Cygni, Alpha Centauri, and to have delivered you and your friend here, you would either need several more ships, or you would need to have been fighting this war for many years, in which case we surely would have heard about it here in Cetia.”

“A little over a year,” Jessica told him. “Actually, more like half that, since we didn’t get back to Sol until about six months ago, I think.”

Ellyus looked even more confused than before. As he tried to reconcile the information she was giving him, his expression began to change further. His hands slid in relaxed fashion off the table and into his lap, as he leaned back slightly in his chair. “Back from where?” he asked as his right hand crept forward under the table in almost imperceptible fashion. “Liberating one of those systems? Were these preemptive strikes?”

Ellyus Barton’s right hand came out from under the table with considerable quickness, producing a small Cetian energy pistol. Jessica, who was looking at the images on the table display at the moment, caught the Cetian real estate agent’s rapid movement out of the corner of her eye and instantly reacted, leaning slightly to her left just beside the pistol’s line of fire. At the same time, her right hand came up from the table with even greater speed, grabbing the side of the pistol and twisting it to her right, away from her and out of the old man’s grip.

Jessica looked at the pistol, finding its design unfamiliar. “What the hell are you doing, Ellyus?”

“Who are you people?” he demanded, holding his right hand. “Where are you really from, and who is this ‘Alliance’ that you speak of?”

“We
are
from Earth, Ellyus, just like you.”

“Earth did not have the resources to do all that you claim to have done. Not forty years ago and not today.”

“Things have changed drastically over the last couple years,” Jessica assured him.

“You’re lying,” Ellyus insisted. “About which, I am not sure. Either about the number of ships or the time period, because nothing can go that fast.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Jessica assured him. She looked at him for a moment. “What’s your real name? Your Earth name?”

Ellyus looked at Jessica and then Naralena. “Tom. Tom Ryan.”

“Where were you born, Tom?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know where you were born?”

“I was an orphan. I was adopted when I was very young.”

“I thought you said you didn’t have any ties on Earth?”

“My adoptive parents died in a plane crash when I was twenty. That’s when I enlisted.”

“Rough.” Jessica set the weapon down on the table next to her, close enough that she could reach it, but far enough away from Ellyus so that he could not. She sat down and leaned back in her chair and looked him in the eyes. “Look, Tom…”

“Please, do not call me by that name,” he interrupted. “I am Ellyus Barton now.”

“Okay, Ellyus,” she continued. “What I’m about to tell you is pretty unbelievable, and I’m probably not supposed to be telling you any of it, but if I don’t, you’re never going to believe us. You see, we have a device called a jump drive, and it can jump a ship over a considerable distance in the blink of an eye.”

“How considerable a distance?”

“We’re talking light years,” she told him. “It depends on the ship, really. Generally, big ships can jump about ten to twenty light years in a single jump, but require hours to recharge in order to jump again, whereas smaller ships, like the Falcons, can jump a tenth of that distance at a time, but can do so repeatedly for hundreds of jumps.”

Ellyus said nothing, only stared at Jessica in disbelief.

“Long story short, we can go anywhere we want, in almost no time at all.”

Ellyus looked at her a bit longer. “You don’t really expect me to believe this, do you?”

“It’s true,” she insisted. She pointed at Naralena. “She’s from a world called Volon, about a thousand light years away.”

Ellyus looked at Naralena. “A thousand light years, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Get back home much?” he asked.

“Not often, no.”

Ellyus sighed. “Okay, let’s say, for argument’s sake, that I believe you. If you can move about so easily, why haven’t you simply jumped from system to system and taken out all the Jung ships?”

“It’s not all that easy,” Jessica explained. “Like I said, the Jung don’t like to leave anything of value behind when they lose a system, so we have to take them by surprise, with enough firepower to destroy their battle groups before they can glass the worlds they are holding.”

“And the Jung love large battle groups,” Ellyus realized.

“Yes, they do,” Jessica agreed. “It isn’t easy to take out a battleship, my friend, let alone a battle platform. That’s why one of our ships is in dry dock for a few months. She got pounded pretty good in her last engagement with a battle platform. That’s why we are limiting ourselves to clearing out a twenty light year safe zone around Sol. We’re trying to buy time to get more Alliance forces to Sol.”

“They don’t have jump drives?”

“They do now,” Jessica replied. “Still, it takes time to retrofit their existing ships, and things are a little shaken up back there as well. They also just defeated an ‘evil empire’ of sorts.”

“So, our ships, or should I say ‘ship’, can take out an entire battle platform?”

“Like I said, it isn’t easy,” Jessica assured him. “Without the element of surprise, it would be impossible. Even with it, if we don’t take that platform out within the first minute, our chances of victory go down drastically.”

“Why are you here then?” Ellyus wondered. “Surely no information that I can provide will assist you in taking down a battle platform?”

“We’re here, because Tau Ceti has, by far, the largest population of any system within that twenty light year safe zone I spoke of. Every other system has only a single inhabited world. This one has three, each of which rivals Earth in population and industrial capacity. Hell, right now they probably surpass that of Earth. Normally, we put boots on the ground and close air support in the skies at the same time, in order to neutralize the Jung forces on the ground so that they cannot punish the locals. But with three worlds, that becomes far more tricky. Copora had considerable anti-aircraft defenses, as well as guns capable of reaching targets in orbit overhead.”

“I thought you had recon ships passing through on a regular basis?”

“Yes, but because of the amount of interplanetary traffic in this system, it’s too risky for our recon ships to make passes close enough to determine the surface defenses of all three worlds, as well as the strength of their ground forces.
That
is why we are here.”

“I see,” Ellyus said. “And how do you propose to get this information
back
to the Alliance? Even if we possessed the proper equipment, would it not take years for the message to reach them?”

“Originally, we were supposed to obtain what information we could, then return to the pickup point for extraction. Unfortunately, our vessel was destroyed.”

“Ah, then that
was
you, in the lake?”

“Yes,” Jessica acknowledged.

“Again, the question remains.”

“Not really,” Jessica said. “If we fail to return, the Alliance will carry out their plans with the intelligence they have. Unfortunately, that may result in not only additional losses for the Alliance, but possibly thousands of innocent Cetian lives as well.”

Ellyus stared at the display table for several seconds, seemingly transfixed by the images. Jessica looked at him, wondering if he was going to speak. Finally, she waved her hand in front of his face. “Ellyus?”

“Sorry,” he replied, “I was just thinking about everything.”

“For I second, I thought we lost you again.”

“No, I don’t believe so,” he replied. “Anyway, you need not worry about the Cetian surface defenses. Other than anti-aircraft systems intended to protect surface military bases, we have no other defenses. Certainly nothing that could reach your ships in orbit. That is why the Jung keep two full battle groups in the system. If you destroy them, you shall have control of the system.”

“And what about the Jung forces on the ground?” Jessica wondered.

“There are many, that is true,” Ellyus admitted. “However, without support from the Jung ships, they will not be able to fight for more than a few weeks before their provisions are depleted. A starving, thirsty man cannot fight.”

“What about the Cetian people? Will they provide aide to the Jung ground forces?”

“Some may,” Ellyus admitted. “As I said, many favor the Jung’s presence, as they have brought considerable prosperity to all the worlds of Tau Ceti. However, I have always felt that the majority of the Cetians who openly support the Jung do so in word only. When the fighting starts, they will most likely change their opinions, especially if your ships are able to defeat those of the Jung.”

“Exactly how many troops are we talking about?” Jessica asked.

“That I shall have to determine,” Ellyus confessed. “It has been some time since I have updated this intelligence. As I said before, I had all but given up hope that any of this would ever be of use.”

* * *

“Jump flash,” Mister Navashee reported from the Aurora’s sensor station. “Scout Two has returned.”

“Incoming message,” Ensign Souza announced. “Scout Two reports KKVs three and four are in position and ready to deploy.”

“All KKVs are ready for launch,” Lieutenant Delaveaga reported from the Aurora’s tactical station. “Latest recon shows no change in the orbital plots of either target, Captain.”