All Enemies Foreign and Domestic (Kelly Blake series) (10 page)

Last in the conquest fleet were the large terraforming ships and mobile terraforming equipment designed to replicate the conditions of the mother world.
 
Once the insectoids held a planet for a complete orbit of its star, it was almost impossible to dislodge them.

      This queen was not the Supreme Queen the last time they invaded the bipedal furry race’s space and were turned back, but she would be the queen that saw to the civilization’s successful expansion into their space.
 
She reviewed the implanted memories of scores of supreme queens that came before her, saw the mistakes, and pledged to expand the civilization outward, to give them new worlds to subdue.

* * * * *
 

      It was late in the K’Rang capital and the guests slowly departed the reception.
 
As the guests dwindled to just the few diehards that never left until after the bar closed, Kelly and Candy were summoned by J’Gon’s military aide and directed to an innocent looking door opposite the staircase landing from the restrooms.
 
It opened into a hallway that turned right and led them to a security door.
 
The aide punched in a code and the door opened into a library of sorts.
 
The aide directed them to cushy chairs, and said someone would bring refreshments presently.
 
She told them J’Gon would be with them shortly and that if there was anything they desired, just ask and it would be provided.
 
She left them alone in the library for the few minutes it took for servants to bring Kelly a tall glass of T’Pala and a sparkling water for Candy.

      A few moments later, J’Gon and two beefy, no-nonsense security K’Rang entered through an elaborately carved door on the far side of the room.
 
J’Gon asked the guards to stand outside the two doors to the room.
 
He crossed to Kelly and Candy, who stood upon his entrance, told them to sit, took the seat opposite, and ordered a T’Pala from a waiting servant.
 
After the T’Pala was brought he dismissed the servant and switched smoothly to fluent Galactic Standard.

      “So, Captain and Mrs. Blake, you are probably wanting to know why I have asked you here.
 
I am going to tell you something that my fellow elders do not want to get to your people or the Angaerry.
 
I apologize, Mrs. Blake, for bringing you into my intrigue, but this matter is of critical importance to both Human and Angaerry.”

      He took a long sip of T’Pala and a determined look came over his face.
 
“More than a century ago, when we were settling our first planets, we ran into a race of sentient insectoids.
 
They came from a group of planets far off towards the galactic center.
 
They send out colony pods by the hundreds, each with a single unborn non-sentient larval queen, hoping to have her land on a planet suitable for their life form.
 
The queen hatches after the pod lands on a habitable planet and she establishes the first colony.
 
After her colony is established, she births more non-sentient queens that fly from the original colony with a few attendants and establish their own colonies, and so on, repeating the process until the insectoids, we call them the T’Kab, have become the dominant life form on the planet.
 
This process can take from six months to two years, depending on the extent and size of the indigenous population and other factors, like geography and size of the planet.

      “Once they are about to establish dominance over a world, some mechanism in their DNA, we suspect, causes sentient queens to be hatched.
 
They reorganize the colonies for final combat, if required, or to hatching sentient insectoids and preparing to align with the main civilization, located on the inner fringes of our arm of the galaxy.
 
Then they contact the home civilization and integrate into the greater T’Kab civilization.

      “One of our early colonial expeditions was wiped out by a massed movement of several tens of thousand T’Kab marching over their settlement.
 
It was that massacre that led us to deploy our army to defeat them on the ground wherever we found them and our fleet to destroy several of their civilization ship fleets.
 
It caused them to retrench back to their home worlds, but after almost a century they appear to be on the move again.

      “They are monsters that kill, eat, or enslave any indigenous species and then move their civilization ships in to terra-form the planet and provide the industry, defenses and infrastructure required by a spacefaring race.

      “A few days ago, one of our survey ships sent out an imminent capture message, saying they were attacked by large insectoids and were expecting to be overcome as the insectoids were all over the ship.
 
We’ve been unable to establish communications with our ship since that transmission.
 
If the T’Kab are on the move, we are in grave danger, especially considering our weakened state.
 
They are in range to fire their colony pods at several of our main and secondary worlds from that planet.”

      Kelly put down his T’Pala and asked, “Why are you telling me this, sir?
 
What do you expect my government to do?”

      The Elder took a sip of his T’Pala, looked up, and responded in a tone signifying a tinge of fear and resignation.
 
“We need your Fleet.
 
We need your scouts to help us find what other planets they are colonizing.
 
We have an army still and the means to move them and protect them, but we need to know where.
 
We need your carriers to intercept their colony pods.
 
We need your battlecruisers and cruisers to seek out and destroy their civilization fleets.
 
Since G’Durin, we are practically helpless against them if they come in force.
 
Our task force you were recently briefed on is conducting a reconnaissance in force to determine how severe the problem might be.”
 

      Kelly started calculating what the Galactic Republic might be willing to do to help out a former enemy, but his thoughts were interrupted by the entrance of a servant, walking through the ornately carved door, with a tray of T’Pala and fresh glasses.

      J’Gon looked up angrily, preparing to send him away, when his anger changed to alarm.
 
Not recognizing the servant, he fumbled with the arm of his chair then called for his guards.
 
Both doors burst open with a bright flash and loud bang.
 
Four black-clad K’Rang sprang into the room through each door as the servant hit J’Gon with a ray that caused him to crumple to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.
 
Kelly jumped in the way of one of the commandos as he advanced on Candy, only to be cut down with a kick to the leg and butt stroke to his head.
 
Candy screamed, but the scream was cut off as the servant aimed and fired his beam at her.

      The servant quickly surveyed the situation and made a hand signal for assuming a defensive posture.
 
One of the black-clad figures came over to him as the other seven guarded the doors.

      The servant looked at him and said, “My detector shows alarms going off all over the building.
 
He must have had an alarm built into the chair our agent was not aware of.
 
Our egress route is likely to be blocked off.”

      The black-clad commando asked, “What do we do, Shadow Leader?”

      “Two of you take J’Gon.
 
Two of you take the Human woman.
 
We can use her as a hostage to get out.
 
Call the hover ship to land on the front lawn and wait for us.
 
Let’s go!”

      They moved with practiced ease.
 
Two commandos picked up J’Gon between them, another threw the much lighter Candy over his shoulder, and they all ran out through the less ornate door down the utility corridor, down several staircases, and out of the building, without meeting any security forces.
 
They exited into the brightly lit front garden, blended into the shadows of the hedges, and waited for the hover ship.
 
The servant turned on an ultraviolet strobe to guide the hover ship in.

      A quick response team burst into the room, finding Kelly alone and barely conscious on the floor.
 
Kelly saw the team come into the room as if looking up at the surface from the bottom of a pool.
 
Slowly his head stopped spinning and he realized all guns were pointing at him.

      He cried out, “They’ve taken J’Gon!”

      He looked around him and didn’t see Candy.
 
He almost blacked out again, but focused his consciousness to yell at them, “They’ve taken my wife, too!!”

      As Kelly tried to sit up, a K’Rang boot came down on his shoulder and kicked him back down.
 
Kelly felt his collarbone snap.
 
He became slightly more lucid and realized he had just yelled at them in Galactic standard.
 
This time he yelled at them in K’Rang, “They took J’Gon and my wife!”

      The apparent leader of the security detail came over to Kelly and growled down at him, “Explain who you are and what you are doing in the Elder’s personal quarters and be quick about it.”

      “Kelly gathered as much strength in his voice as he could and announced, “I am Captain Kelly Blake, Defense Attaché of the Galactic Republic, accredited to the GR Embassy.
 
The Elder invited my wife and me here.
 
A K’Rang dressed in house livery entered the room, followed by eight commandos.
 
Elder J’Gon must have been suspicious of the unknown servant and hit the alarm button in his chair.
 
I was knocked unconscious by a butt stroke to the head. They have taken your elder and my wife.”

      The K’Rang team leader made a quick query over his communicator and ordered his team to take their weapons off of Kelly.
 
Kelly heard as an announcement came over the communicator of a hover ship landing on the front lawn.

      He got the attention of the team leader and said, “They have my wife and she is pregnant.
 
Be careful.
 
I also think my leg and collarbone are broken.”

      The team leader got on his communicator and sent out a general broadcast that the kidnappers had a human female hostage and that she was pregnant.
 
A call came back from security control to take no actions that would directly or indirectly hurt J’Gon or Candy.

      The hover ship landed on the lawn and the commandos quickly and efficiently bounded into the ship, as it rose off the lawn and headed off low-level to the east.

      The security team chief called a medic for Kelly and informed him that the commandos got away clean and no harm came to his wife or the Elder.

      Kelly acknowledged the team leader’s report, but he was left with a cold, hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach.
 
His wife and unborn child were out there, under the control of whoever those raiders were.
 
He needed to get to the embassy and report this so he could get the forces together to find and free his wife.
 
The security team didn’t want him to leave, although he informed them in no uncertain terms that he needed to contact his embassy immediately.

      It wasn’t until Baron N’Gana arrived, with Elders J’Kol and G’Tol, that medical care was provided – along with a communicator to contact the embassy.
 
Kelly informed the duty officer of the situation as best he could; given the adrenaline was wearing off and the pain medication taking effect.
 
He asked that the Defense Attaché staff be assembled and ready for him as soon as possible.
 
Kelly finished by saying he would return to the embassy as soon as he could.

      Baron N’Gana, in accordance with treaty protocols, got Kelly’s details of the twin abduction.
 
Treaty or no, pain medication or no, Kelly wanted to give them all details he could to assist in getting Candy back unharmed.
 
They only held him for the minimum time needed to get the details of the abduction and released him to a waiting medical team to stabilize his broken bones and an imperial ground car to deliver him to the embassy.

      The embassy triage team met Kelly at the entrance, examined the care given him by the K’Rang medics, and pronounced it excellent after reviewing the med-scans.
 
Kelly was placed in a hover chair and taken to the secure room where Alistair and the acting ambassador were awaiting him.
 
He recounted the evening’s events and helped prepare the reports to be sent to Earth.
 
When they had all the information out of him they could expect to get, they called the doctor in to give him a strong sedative (against his wishes) and set him up on a cot in his office.

* * * * *

      The president’s personal aide entered his bedroom and turned on a table lamp.
 
He said, “Mr. President, wake up, sir.
 
You have a call from Admiral Craddock.
 
He says it’s urgent, sir.”