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“There may be a few tweaks
needed,” she concluded, “but here are my suggestions.” She handed both Park and
Admiral Relaviss identical reports.

“You put a lot of thought into
this,” Relaviss told her.

“What did I get wrong?” she asked
hesitantly.

“How should I know?” the admiral
countered. “This is new to me too, but it sounds reasonable and since you
actually backed up your data by interviewing captains, I think your idea is at
least as good as anything we’ve come up with and probably better. I don’t suppose
you would consider a post on my personal staff?”

“What?” Marisea laughed, “and get
stuck in a deskjob? My father would never approve. Sorry, Admiral, but like my
Dad and my tamovir,” she indicated Park, “I’m a professional generalist. I
don’t care to get caught up in a specialty because there’s just too much I’m
interested in learning.”

“You might be invaluable for the
duration of this war, working here,” Park pointed out.

“You’re running the war fleet,
Park,” Marisea laughed. “If you want my organizational skills at hand I need to
be on your flagship and while there, what better post for me than to handle
communications and talk to everyone?”

“It’s not standard military
procedure,” Park pointed out.

“When was the last time I saluted
you?” she countered. “No, sorry, Admiral, I’ll stay on
Tawatir
for now. Park, have I ever told you how silly it was to
name a ship after a flying cephalopod?”

“It seemed like a good idea at a
time,” Park replied defensively.

“Maybe if she had eight fighters
instead of just five,” Marisea laughed. “You are aware that tawatiri have eight
tentacles, right?”

“Sorry, in my time we couldn’t
count beyond three,” Park told her flatly. “After that it’s all just ‘many.’”

“On second thought,” Relaviss cut
in, “I agree you’ll be better off on his ship. At least my office will be more
peaceful that way.”

“I’m still somewhat overwhelmed
by the scope of the whole thing,” Park admitted. “At last count we have two
thousand, one hundred and seven ships in the fleets. Split six ways that’s three
fifty-one or two in each fleet.”

“But I split each fleet into
three task groups.” Marisea pointed out. “That’s only one hundred and some
ships each and then each of those task groups is organized into squadrons.”

“And they all answer to me,” Park
told her. Admiral’s communicator chimes and he answered it as Park and Marisea
kept talking.

“Ultimately, perhaps, but not
directly,” Marisea argued.

“I’d better start conferring with
the admirals,” Park decided. “We’re going to have to make battle plans and it’s
not too soon to start.”

“Don’t overthink those plans,”
Relaviss told them both. “We’ve just received a distress call from the
Zartilenx System. They’re under siege by the Dark Ships.

Park quickly called a council of
all the admirals of his fleets and task groups in order to brief them on the
new organization. To his intense relief, they accepted the new chain of command
with a minimum of questions and without the skepticism he had expected. When he
commented to that effect, Admiral Gilatino replied, “Actually, I think we’re
all relieved that you have come up with a means to organize such a large
force.” Gilatino and Park had first met during the Siege of Owatino. Their
relationship had started out as mutual distrust, but after the battle Gilatino
had sought out Park and after a long night of beers and discussion they had
become fast friends.

“Well, I won’t pretend I know
what I’m doing,” Park replied modestly. “In fact, Marisea Waisau came up with
most of this organizational plan while Fleet Admiral Relaviss and I were at
wits end over the issue.”

“That’s a remarkable young woman
you have there, McArrgh,” Gilatino told him. Several others nodded agreement.

“She is,” Park responded proudly.
“I would nominate her as the next Prime Speaker, but I doubt she would ever
forgive me.” Most of the admirals chuckled appreciably at that and Park
realized that few of them had any desire to sit in the Diet. His torc chimed
just then. “Excuse me, gentlemen and ladies,” he told the assembled officers.
“Holman,” he answered the call.

“Park!” Marisea’s image formed
holographically in front of him, “Two more distress calls. Courier ships have
arrived from Kertream and Bourralenk. The Dark Ships are attacking in numbers
there too.”

“Shoot me the data and get
everyone on board
Tawatir
,” Park told
her. “I’ll catch up to you as soon as possible.”

“Already done. I’ll see that a
shuttle ship is left on stand-by,” Marisea promised and promptly winked out.

“Sounds like we’re going to see
how well her plan works a little sooner than I thought,” Park commented. “All
right, this part I have thought through. I want to keep our forces as strong as
possible so Fleets One and Two, will respond to the alarm at Zartilenx, Three
and Four to Kertream and Five and Six to Bourralenk. I’ll take my
Tawatir
to Zartilenx, so send couriers
with reports to me there for the time being.

“I realize that will be putting
two commanding admirals in each pair of fleets, I expect you all to work as a
team. With two fleets each we should be able to come at the Dark Ships from
different directions. Don’t forget the Earth Ships’ stasis plating. We’ve made
darned good use of it in the past, don’t waste the opportunity now. We’ll have
several days to continue this discussion as we all head out to the Stierdach
limit.”

“Only about two days for easy
conversation,” Admiral Gilatino corrected him. “We won’t all be going the same
way and we’ll soon be too far apart unless you like waiting an hour or so for
the answer to a question.”

“Good point,” Park nodded.
“Gentlemen, let’s continue this conference in three hours from our ships.”

Park arrived back at the suite he
had stayed in to find, as Marisea had implied, that all his belongings had
already been packed and removed. “Admiral?” a polite voice inquired from the
doorway. “Your ride is waiting in the courtyard.”

Park did not have time to watch
the landscape on his trip to the spaceport. He was already reading through
Marisea’s latest simulation results on his computer pad and only paused briefly
while he stepped out of the floating limousine and up the stairway to the
waiting shuttle vehicle, a fairly standard Alliance spaceship that had been
fitted for passenger travel. Park was vaguely aware that it was the Pakha’s
personal ship and after being shown to a seat, he composed a brief message of
thanks to Montz both for his hospitality and the use of his ship. He was still
running through the simulations when Montz’s ship docked with
Tawatir
an hour later.

“Admiral on the bridge!” one of
the Atackacks announced as Park entered. He wasn’t sure which one. Their
torc-simulated voices were hard to differentiate from each other.

“Keep working,” Park grumbled as
he sat down in his chair. “Marisea, I have another fleet meeting in just over
an hour.”

“I can funnel it down to the ward
room if you like,” she offered.

“No,” Park decided, then changed
his mind, “Yes, that’s a good idea, but I want you down there too.”

“No problem,” Marisea smiled. “Packtikac
is better at coordinating large conferences than I am and I’ll put Tilrany on
as second during the conference in case something else comes up.”

“Admiral?” Garro Tinns asked from
the navigator’s station, “What is our destination, sir?”

“Zartilenx System,” Park replied.
“Do you need coordinates?”

“Not these days,” Garro chuckled.
“We’ve had the entire Alliance programmed in for a few years now and we sync up
to changes every time we arrive in a new system.”

“Good,” Park nodded. “Just follow
the First and Second Fleets.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Garro laughed.
“Second star to the right and straight on til morning.”

“Where the heck did you pick that
expression up?” Park wondered.

“Ancient human literature is all
the rage across the Mer cities of Pangaea,” Garro explained, “and Peter Pan was
a good book to read while learning English.”

The trip to Zartilenx system was
uneventful and they were surprised not to be attacked the moment they broke
back into normal space. At first the system seemed unusually quiet and then the
distress calls started coming in from Zartilenx itself.

“No Dark Ships anywhere, Admiral,”
Admiral Yorro of the Second Fleet reported a week later, “but they were here.
Have you seen Planet Zartilenx yet?”

He had. Every volcano on the
planet was erupting and Park was fairly certain that some of them had not been
volcanos before the attack of the Dark Ships. “What word of the survivors?”

“Every ship on Zartilenx lifted
from the surface filled to capacity,” Yorro replied. “There are more still down
there. The ships from both fleets are rescuing everyone they can. I’d like
permission to send a courier back to Felina to ask for more ships. Not
warships, of course, liners and cargo ships for the humanitarian mission.”

“You don’t need my permission for
that,” Park told him “Any idea of what could possibly have caused all those
volcanoes to blow at once?”

“No, sir,” Yorro replied, “but
then science was never my strength.”

Park had Ronnie Sheetz examine
the planet a few hours later when
Tawatir
finally established orbit. “Well, that’s half the answer to the melted worlds
mystery we heard about a few years ago,” Ronnie commented. “They seem to have
something that increases volcanic activity, but as for how, well you have me
there.”

“Some sort of beam weapon that
excites atomic activity in some way?” Park suggested.

“I don’t think so,” Ronnie shook her
head, unable to completely hide a smile. “Park, stop acting like you don’t know
this stuff. Your education is better than that. I suppose it’s possible that we
don’t know all there is to know about energy transfer. In fact I’d stake my
life on the fact we do not, but I have a hard time believing this sort of
activity can be initiated remotely via a beam weapon any ship might be
carrying. I have all sorts of ways to increase atomic activity, especially if
by that you mean the atoms are bouncing around at a faster speed than normal. I
do that any time I make tea.”

“So how would you put this kettle
on the fire?” Park asked.

“Good question,” Ronnie admitted.
“I’ll need to compare notes with Iris, but the only way I can conceive of
something like this is by delivering some sort of device to the planet itself,
maybe a whole bunch of them, but if the actual device is self-replicating, it
would only take one at first.”

“Are you saying the Dark Ships
landed here and set something up that duplicates itself?” Park asked. “Would
that work in only two or three weeks?”

“Half right, maybe,” Ronnie told
him. “First of all, they wouldn’t have to land. Any such weapon could be
deployed remotely and set to land on the world under its own abilities. I don’t
know how small such a thing might be, but I suspect they are fairly small and
that hundreds of them were deployed. Once on the ground they would seek out
resources and use them to build more of themselves. Basically, I think they are
energy generators of a sort, but they transmit that energy to atoms and
molecules of the world, probably in the magma layer. For all I know, the first
thing they do is dig their way through the crust before building their
children. Anyway, I would bet that they don’t start heating up the magma until
their population is high enough, but at a certain point you start getting what
you see down there. Nasty.”

“But in only two or three weeks?”
Park asked again.

“I don’t know,” Ronnie admitted.
“I don’t even know if that is how it was done. It’s just my first guess. Find
me a Dark Ship alien scientist to chat with and maybe I can get you a better
answer.”

“Then why send a large fleet of
ships here?” Park wondered.

“How many Dark Ships were here?”
Ronnie countered.

“Enough to consider it a
besieging force according to the report we got on Felina,” Park replied.

“But not enough to keep a single
ship from getting out of the system?” Ronnie countered. “I suspect someone
panicked. Mind you, given the results, the panic was quite justified, but not
for the reasons they thought. If you didn’t get an actual ship count I would
suggest that a single ship could have done this, and at most three of them, but
that’s just an estimate based on nothing much more than guesses of how I think
whatever they did worked.”

“So essentially you’re saying you
don’t know?” Park suggested.

“Pretty much, yes,” Ronnie
admitted easily. “I’m basing it all on a possible way I might attempt to
accomplish the same thing if I had the technology to do so. But the thing is, I
don’t have the technology and I’m only casting in the dark for a way in which
it might have been done. In any case, I suspect a dozen or so Dark Ships came
here, the locals panicked and sent out a call for help – quite reasonable
really. Of the dozen or so ships the ones with the planet-melting payload did
their thing and then they were off.”

“That last part fits in with what
the survivors are telling us,” Park agreed. “There was one battle in which the
three battleships that belonged to Zartilenx were destroyed and then the Dark
Ships turned around and left the system. If they did not have to land, the
whole thing might have been a diversion while they did what they really came to
do – melt the world.”

“Fighting those battleships might
also have served the purpose of keeping them from stopping whatever it was that
started that disaster down there,” Ronnie told him.

“True,” Park admitted. “I’ll tell
Iris you want to talk to her about this. Maybe the two of you can both figure
out what did this and also how to stop it.”