Solbidyum Wars Saga 9: At What Price (27 page)

Kala squeezed my hand and gasped at this revelation.

“How long do I have?” I asked.  “I mean… before I lose my mind?”

“That’s difficult to say.  The treatments help to maintain your mental functions, but physically you're burning out rapidly.  I’d like to tell you that you have many years ahead of you, but honestly, you may not have more than a few years, if you keep functioning at this level of daily stress.  You’re pushing it mighty hard and it's taking its toll on you.  Surely you recognize this.”

“What am I supposed to do?  I can’t just walk away from my duties, especially now that Ming is gearing up with these major assaults.  If I could just find him and take him out once and for all, I’m sure the Brotherhood would collapse overnight.  Then I could relax and I wouldn’t have to deal with the constant stress.  Maybe I could even retire.”  I suddenly noticed that I was trembling and with my realization, A’Lappe stared at me a moment, then dropped his head silently and stared at the floor.

“You’ve been getting those tremors like you have now more frequently, haven’t you?” he asked in a quiet voice.

I glanced at Kala, who stared at me and said, “Tib?  Have you?”

“Only on the day of my treatments… usually just before I’m due,” I said.

A’Lappe nodded knowingly.  “But they have been occurring more often and earlier each time, yes?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess so.  I haven’t actually been paying attention,” I lied.

“Tib, you have been.  I’ve noticed it several times lately, “Kala said.  She turned to A’Lappe, “There must be
something
you can do.”

“Right now, the only thing we can do is to space the treatments closer together.  Instead of every seven days, we’ll need to do them every six days.  In the meantime, I’ll try to see if there isn’t something we can do to help the situation.  Tibby, I know you want to keep all of this secret, but I really could use Cantolla’s help on this.  She is a specialist in the human nervous system, you know, and she understands it better than anyone else alive.  She might be able to find something to help that I would never think of.”

“No, I don’t want anyone else knowing,” I stated flatly.

“Tib,” Kala began sternly.  “If Cantolla is an expert, we need to let her try.  Keeping this a secret serves no purpose if you’re going to get worse anyway.  It’s better that Cantolla is brought into this now if there’s a chance she can help.”

“Alright,” I conceded.  “But just Cantolla and that’s it.  No one else!  If word of my condition reaches Ming, there’s no telling how he’d use the information damage the Federation.  I want it made perfectly clear to Cantolla that outside of A’Lappe, Marranalis, you and me, no one, and I do mean
no one
, is to learn of my condition.”

“Good, I think you’ve made the right decision,” A’Lappe said with a more relieved tone.  “I believe that, given time, Cantolla and I can come up with something that will work better than what we are using now.”

By the time I had recovered from the treatment the next morning, I was angry with A’Lappe for revealing that I was getting worse while Kala was there.  I really didn’t want her knowing or worrying about me and even though she was putting on a good front, I knew she was deeply concerned.  I had no real reason to be angry with A’Lappe, as he was doing everything in my best interests and that included letting Kala know where things stood.  Even so, I was angry.

Of course, I needed to let Marranalis know where things stood, and that wasn’t easy either.  He admitted with some awkwardness that he had noticed I seemed to be developing problems sooner after a treatment and then quickly added that he was confident that A’Lappe and Cantolla would come up with a cure in no time, now that they were working together on the problem.  I was less optimistic about it than he was.

“Sir, have you ever thought about just giving up and letting someone else deal with these issues with the Brotherhood?” asked Marranalis suddenly.  “I mean, you have every reason to let someone else deal with this, while you seek out treatment and finally take things a little easier.  You're shortening your life by continuing on this way.”

“Well, you’ve sort of asked me that question before, and yes, I’ve thought about it, but only for a second or two.  What purpose would it serve for me to sit on the sidelines, watching others fight while I do nothing?  As long as I can do something, I will always do my best.  I won’t give up and just surrender – not to my condition and definitely not to the Brotherhood or Ming.  I’m not one to feel sorry for myself and believe that I should get special consideration because I don’t feel well.  I want my life to have meaning and if I do nothing, my life means nothing.”

“Sir, you’ve already done more than a dozen people will do in a lifetime.”

“I don’t judge myself by what others do,” I replied.  “I judge myself by what I can do and what I actually do.  If I am not doing all that I can, I’m cheating.  At least, that’s how I feel about my life.”

“Well, sir, all I can say is you have done more than anyone else that I know.  You and A’Lappe amaze me constantly with the things you accomplish.”

My comlink beeped. 

“Tibby here,” I responded.

“Admiral, Leader Pheosa has requested that you meet with him in his office at the Capitol Station in one hour,” replied the voice of one of the aides in the War Room.

I sighed.  “Very well, tell him I’ll be there.”

“I suspect he wants a briefing of all that has been unfolding and wants to know why I don’t know more,” I said as Marranalis gave me a questioning look.  “Do we have any new reports from Wabussie regarding the attack on CGS-3?”

“The station is still in the process of relocation.  Captain U’Dingan is moving it quite some distance from where it was before.  They did have a mysterious death aboard the station… a murder.  The victim is a civilian who was possibly in transit when the station came under attack.  So far, the FSO has been unable to identify the victim or his home planet.  The body was found in one of the compartments where the cleaning equipment is stored.  The locking mechanism on the compartment was broken and it appears that either the person who murdered the victim or the victim himself broke the lock to get inside.  Nothing seems to have been taken or tampered with.”

“There was no identification with the victim?” I asked.

“None, sir, though he still had his credit chip on his person.  According to the FSO this guy had several million units of credit.”

“Can’t the FSO find his identity through the account number of the chip?”

“No, sir.  It was a prepaid credit chip.  At this time, it’s unknown where the chip was purchased.  Wabussie has agents checking into it.  With that amount of money being put on one chip, the individual loading the chip would have to remember it.”

“Do they know what time the victim died?” I asked.

“Yes, sir.  He would have to have been killed sometime during the attack on CGS-3,” Marranalis answered.

“So it might have something to do with the attack or it may be that someone used the confusion of the assault to kill a person that they wished to be rid of for other reasons.  But at the moment, we don’t know if there is any correlation between the two events.  It doesn’t give me a lot to tell Leader Pheosa,” I said.  “Ultimately, we don’t know how the Brotherhood discovered the location of CGS-3.  We don’t know where the Brotherhood ships are going when they escape.  We don’t know where Ming is and we don’t know who the murdered victim is or if his killer is connected with the attack on the station.  This day isn’t starting out very well.

“OK, it’s time for me to meet with the Leader.  There is one thing more I need you to do.  Set up a vid conference meeting for later this afternoon with the fleet admirals and CGS admirals, as well as the head officers of the planet-side Cantolla Gate hubs and stellar gates.  I’m hoping this meeting with Pheosa doesn’t last too long.”

“I’ll see to it, sir,” said Marranalis with his usual responsible voice.

I arrived at Leader Pheosa’s office about five minutes early.  Usually when I met with the Leaders, I was admitted as soon as I arrived, but on this occasion I was kept waiting for nearly a half an hour.  When I was finally permitted to enter, I found the Leader staring out a giant window that faced the planet below.  He turned to face me when he heard me arrive.  “Admiral, I’m sorry about the delay.  I had to deal with some very upset and concerned senators.  Come.  Let’s opt for these settees rather than the conference table, so we can relax a little.

“Redina, bring us some foccee and pastries, please,” he said as she was about to leave the room.

“Certainly, sir.  Will there be anything else?”

“No.  That will be all for now.  Thank you.”

Once she had left the room, I said, “So, I’m assuming you’d like an update on what’s going on.”

“Yes.  Unfortunately, the natives are restless and demanding answers from the senators, who are demanding answers from me, and now I am passing on their concerns to you.  You know, Tibby, when you saved my life years ago at my inauguration dinner, I thought you did me a huge favor, but now I think you might have been more generous had you let them kill me,” he said jokingly.

“Well, sir, if I recall correctly, it wasn’t me who saved you.  It was your bondmate, Taunet.”

“Ah, yes.  However, it was you and First Citizen Kalana who alerted us to the presence of the assassins,” he returned with a grin.

“I guess you got me there,” I chuckled.  “But seriously, what can I do to help now?”

“Well, to start, what is the situation with CGS-3?  When can we expect it to be operational again?”

“The cargo transfer level will probably be out of commission for a full week while the FSO conducts their investigation, and then it will be a few more days before repairs can be completed that will allow the Freight and Cargo Pod to become functional again.  However, the rest of the station should be open by the end of today, which will at least relieve the passenger congestion at the other two stations.” I replied.

“Well, that’s good news.  I’ve heard rumors that the station wasn’t hit by a torpedo but was actually damaged from within.  Is that correct?”

“Unfortunately, it is.  The initial assessment indicates that the enemy appears to have shipped a container that enclosed an explosive device.  Somehow the device wasn’t detected and it was detonated either remotely or with a timer.  We suspect that the enemy expected the explosion to result in more damage than there was.  We’re upgrading all the CGS cargo scanning equipment and procedures to prevent a repeat of this incident.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“We have another situation I just learned about today,” I began.  I saw Pheosa frown as I started, but he said nothing.  “There was a murder on CGS-3 that occurred at the same time as the attack.  At the moment, we aren’t sure if it is part of the plan or if it was a coincidence.”

“Who was killed?”

“At this time, we don’t know.  Wabussie and his team are working on it and as soon as they can run the DNA samples against our databases, we should know more,” I replied.

“That is,
if
the individual who was killed exists in our database,” said Pheosa, “If he’s a Brotherhood agent, it's possible he was recruited outside the Federation and his DNA won’t be in our system.”

“Yes, that possibility exists, but that will tell us that his presence on CGS-3 was part of their plan and that his death is part of what happened there,” I said.

“Maybe it was just someone taking advantage of the moment to rob this person,” Pheosa said.

“I doubt that.  They found a prepaid credit chip on the guy worth several million credits.  A robber wouldn’t have left that behind.”

“Yes, I see what you mean.  What happened with the raid you made on the Brotherhood asteroid-ship production site?”

“Ming wasn’t there.  We managed to destroy ninety-seven Brotherhood asteroid-ships and scores of their fighters, but at least seventy managed to get away through their stellar gate.”

“So you managed to destroy a little over half their ships.  That’s good,” Pheosa said.

“Just a little over half the ones they had at this site and at this particular moment.  There is no doubt that the Brotherhood fleet is many times that size.  We can be sure they have hundreds of thousands more out there.”

“What about this new weapon you have?  This PLABE thing?  Doesn’t that give us an advantage?”

“Only in battles where we have one of the PLABEs with us,” I said.

“How many do we have?”

“Four,” I replied.  “Only three on Federation ships,” I replied.  “And I have the prototype installed on my personal fighter on the
NEW ORLEANS
, but that’s it.”

“How long before we can build and install more of them on our ships?” he asked.

“Possibly never.  We had only enough rundadite to build five and though we’ve been searching we’ve not found any more sources anywhere.  There was a wartime edict to seize a few known samples held at some universities, but when we went to collect them, it turned out the samples weren’t rundadite at all.  It’s an exceedingly rare element.”

“So we're dependent on those three PLABEs to defend us?  Against hundreds of thousands of those asteroid-ships?” Pheosa said quietly more to himself than to me.

“Well, we do have armaments on our ships that can destroy the enemy’s asteroid-ships as well as their other ships, even though it's more difficult to do than it is with the PLABE,” I replied.

Leader Pheosa sighed and rubbed his forehead.  “Admiral, I’m not going to tell you that the Senate is alright with how things are going at the moment.  News that the enemy now has Cantolla Gate technology and gates of their own and that they are popping up randomly and making hit and run raids has them terrified.  Anything you can do to abate their fears will be greatly appreciated at this point.”

We were interrupted momentarily as Redina returned with a cart bearing the foccee and a tray of pastries.  When we were alone again, I said, “I understand, sir, and I wish I could give you better news than I have so far, but I’m afraid this is how things stand.  And I suspect we can expect to see more of the same and maybe even more havoc shortly.  The only thing I can suggest is that worlds beef up their local planetary security forces to help repel invaders and not just leave it all to the Federation military.  We’re doing all we can, but we have no way to predict or defend against the Brotherhood randomly setting up gates and using them for attacks.  Because of the nature of these blitz assaults, our response time simply isn’t going to be fast enough to stop their strikes on any world.  By the time we learn of an attack and mobilize to the site, they’re gone.”