All Enemies Foreign and Domestic (Kelly Blake series) (25 page)

      She ran down hallway after hallway, looking for a path to outside.
 
If she could get outside she would see how far away she could get.
 
She even toyed with the idea of escaping and colonizing this planet.
 
She could hear the sounds of panic subsiding behind her.
 
The path ahead of her was starting to clear of bipeds.

      She grabbed one of the bipeds with her mandibles, a female from the way it dressed, and carried it to open doors.
 
The close pursuit she had sensed getting nearer now held back.
 
An added benefit, she thought.
 
She came to a set of double doors and held the biped up to them.
 
They opened and she saw sunshine.
 
She dropped the biped and dashed through only to skid to a halt on the highly polished floor.

      The room was circular and obviously some type of gathering room.
 
Tables and chairs covered most of the floor space, but for the clear area where she stood.
 
She looked up in despair.
 
The view was that of a far off planet with seas and land and clouds.
 
She was in space.
 
She could not colonize a vacuum.
 
The bipeds had thought of everything.
 
How was she to get away now?
 
She stopped and waited for them to come in and recapture her.
 
She lay in the full sunlight and at least felt its warmth for the few moments of freedom she had left.

* * * * *

      Newly ascended Duke G’Rof, First Lord of Defense, presented himself before the Elders.
 
His new rank put him just below the Elders in seniority.
 
He could command any military unit or ship, except the Imperial Guard.
 
He noticed a new familiarity on the part of the Elders.
 
Their attitude towards him was more that of a trusted colleague than a servant of the Empire.

      They met him in a conference room instead of the usual audience chamber.
 
He was greeted with handshakes as he entered, offered a glass of T’Pala, and a comfortable seat at the table.

      Elder J’Kol started the briefing by asking, “Tell us how you intend to end the T’Kab threat.”

       G’Rof stood and moved over to the holographic projector.
 
He inserted a data cube and walked back to the table.
 
He brought up a hologram of space far in toward the galactic center, and pointed to a moving blinking green dot following a red dot.

      “Esteemed Elders, what you see before you is the track of the GRS Vengeful trailing the flagship of the 2nd Annihilation Task Force.
 
We have determined that the ship, which was heavily damaged in a Human ambush, is proceeding to their home planet or to a nearby shipyard.
 
It is traveling at just below FTL factor 4, probably because of structural damage.
 
The ship took six ship killer missiles and was still able to slip away under its own power and make this run for home.”

      “The Vengeful is staying at the far range of its sensors so that they can avoid detection as long as possible.
 
The flagship has two deep space trackers on board, so the Vengeful is unlikely to lose track of them.
 
Once we locate the T’Kab home world, we will have leverage over them that we never had in our last war with them.”

      He changed the image from space to a security camera view of the space observatory on G’Durin’s second moon.
 
It showed the queen barging through the double doors with a female in its jaws looking up, dropping the female, and slumping to the floor.

      “We had a breakthrough this morning with our captive T’Kab queen.
 
She made a break from the observation facility and terrorized the staff for a few minutes until she entered the space observatory and saw she was not on a planet, but a moon far out in space.
 
She had been careful to reveal nothing of her civilization other than useless trivial information.
 
After her failed escape, she has become more pliable and talkative.
 
It seems she needs the company of other T’Kab to maintain her mental well-being.
 
The more she is denied this the more morose and suicidal she may become.
 
The scientists have started using this despair to pursue a line of questioning I had them initiate after the attempted escape.

      “The scientific team is now exploiting her weakness to learn everything we can about T’Kab internal governmental structure and prepare for an eventual invasion of their home world.
 
Rather than claw our way planet by planet where they can out-produce us reproductively and flank us by establishing new colonies leapfrogging over entire star clusters and establishing colonies onto our planets if we can’t stop them, we should go to them and dictate terms on their home turf.

      “We are also exploring gathering specimens of a T’Kab-eating flying animal from one of the worlds they recently used their 1st Colony Fleet’s annihilation task force upon.
 
They didn’t successfully clear the planet of this flyer.
 
Many of these creatures were able to discern what was happening and flew out from under the annihilation radiation footprint.
 
We suspect some inherent psychic connection among the species allowed them to pass on warnings about the annihilation task force and devise a way around it.

      “We have a covert team on the T’Kab-infested planet, attempting to communicate with the flyers and determine their level of sentience.
 
We suspect they may be sentient and we may be able to ally with them.”

      J’Kol held up his paw and asked, “Duke G’Rof, we called you here today to hear your strategy for dealing with the T’Kab.”

      “Yes, your Excellency and I am coming to that.
 
This is based on discussions with our allies.
 
We need to find the T’Kab home world first.
 
We send an allied combined fleet to destroy as much of their spacefaring capability as we can.
 
We take out their ships, comms facilities, governmental facilities, shipyards, and repair stations.
 
We populate their home world with the flying creatures.
 
We send them our captive queen to teach the T’Kab how to communicate with us.
 
Then we lay out our terms.
 
As we tighten the screws, they should see a better path than they are currently on.”

      J’Gon interjected, “Just as the humans were unable to deter us until they landed on our home world, are you prepared to invade theirs?”

      “Yes, Excellency, but only as a last resort.
 
We have our five unified forces, an A’Ngarii Pod Force, and five Human Corps, which they claim can be expanded to 16 if they call up their Galactic Guard.
 
These organized militia units will take longer to prepare and deploy, but we don’t know how long it would take to subdue a major world.
 
No one has ever done it before.”
 

      J’Gon, with a skeptical look in his eyes, spoke again.
 
“Duke G’Rof, your plan requires finding their home world, destroying their spacefaring capability as the Humans almost did to us, enlisting the aid of these flying T’Kab feeders, infesting their world with these creatures, using our sole T’Kab able to communicate our demands to the T’Kab and convey their reply back to us.
 
Finally, if they don’t agree to our demands, we invade with 22 unified force equivalents and subdue them on the ground.
 
I give you credit for an imaginative plan, but there are holes in it you could fit our moons through.”

      “I know, your Excellency, everything depends on finding their home world.
 
Everything pivots on that.”

J’Gon said, “How long do you anticipate before the Vengeful finds their home world?”

      “Excellencies, at the rate of travel of the T’Kab flagship and the density of systems along the edge of the spiral arm, I anticipate no more than two weeks.”

      J’Gon stood up dismissing him and said, “Great, Duke G’Rof, we will see you again one month from today.”

* * * * *

      The Vengeful trailed the flagship into the edge of the spiral arm of the galaxy, where the stars were truly few and far between.
 
Evan woke up in the middle of his sleep period and couldn’t get back to sleep.
 
He pulled on his jump suit and walked back to sensors.
 
He found Petty Officer First Class Jensen on watch wearing earphones.

      “Jensen, anything going on?”

      He got no response and saw her eyes were closed.
 
He reached over and touched her on her shoulder.
 
Jensen’s eyes flew open, she saw the captain, and tried to come to attention, only to be stopped by the length of the headphones cord.
 
This threw her off balance and she tumbled forward headfirst into the captain’s lap.
 
She looked where her head was and her eyes got big as saucers.
 
She got her feet under her and hoisted herself off the deck.

      “Oh, I do beg your pardon, sir!
 
I’m so embarrassed.
 
Oh, my God!”

      Evan tried to keep from smiling or laughing, “Petty Officer, were you sleeping on watch?”

      Her eyes got even bigger and she blurted, “No, sir, I was listening to a strange transmission our sensors have picked up.
 
It’s like nothing I have ever heard before and it is very faint.
 
I had the gain turned all the way up and still could only hear part of it as it faded in and out.
 
Here, sir, put these on and you’ll hear it.”

      Evan slipped on the spare headset and listened.
 
He could hear a high-pitched screeching noise running up and down the harmonic scale.

      “What do you think it is, Jensen?”

      “Sir, I think it is some sort of communications protocol, but it is like none I have ever heard before.
 
I was trying to record a long enough clear sample when you tapped me on the shoulder.
 
I’m sorry about my overreaction, sir.
 
You gave me quite a start.”

      “Think nothing of it.
 
Just pretend it never happened.
 
Let me know what you find out on that noise.
 
Do you need any coffee?
 
I’m headed that way.”

      “Thank you, but no thank you.
 
I’m fine.
 
My relief comes on in twenty minutes and I’ll get breakfast then, sir.”

      Evan walked away, chuckling to himself.
 
He loved having a mixed crew.
 
It made life so much more interesting.
 
His thoughts turned back to the sound he heard on the earphones.
 
He had heard that sound before and he thought he had heard it in a movie.
 
He was a movie buff and had several terabytes of vintage movies on his computer for late night watching.
 
He had one he especially liked about a computer trying to destroy Earth back in the pre-Republic days, when nations vied against nations over ideology and worldwide devastation was only a key turn away.
 
He walked up to his cabin, logged in and searched for that movie.

* * * * *

      The queen captain was breathing in relief.
 
She was only two days away from completing a successful escape.
 
The space dock was being cleared to make room for her gargantuan ship.
 
She would also have them do a full diagnostic on the gunnery system.
 
It had been slow to track some of the inbound missiles.
 
Two of the shipkillers could have been eliminated and she might have only gotten minor damage.
 
She started seeing familiar systems and stars as they plunged deeper into the Civilization’s space.

      She went through her loss report and counted up the number of workers, soldiers and drones lost during the battle.
 
Not counting the escort crews, she had lost a third of her crew in the ambush.
 
She was still fertile and she made up those losses on this return trip.

 
She shouldn’t have gotten surprised like that, but the furry bipeds had never had small ships like that before.
 
Perhaps there was another race involved.
 
She would have to mention that during the debriefing.

      She worked on her after action report while the distance clicked away on her command console.
 
She paid particular attention to those that had distinguished themselves in the face of danger.
 
Her escorts proved their worth by holding the enemy fleet back until she could make her escape.
 
If this ship had been lost, it would have pushed colonization efforts back five years.
 
She composed heroic citations, imagining the ship captains valiantly fighting to ensure her safety.
 
She actually did not know them.
 
They were only minor queens and told to deploy their ships so their representative queens in the Conclave would have a vested interest and support the cause of the increased colonization effort.