by Max Glebow
“How did our ally feel about an armored suit with a tail?”
“Better not remind me of that,” Mbia made a sour face, “The four of us had a hard time putting him in that suit. It’s a good thing he didn’t resist much, but for the first hour, he wore this suit like he was shitting himself. Then he sort of got used to it, but he asked me to explain the meaning of some of the words he’d heard while we were putting him in that suit.”
“Did you explain?”
“Sure. We need to communicate with an ally, because we’re about to go on a raid together, and what am I gonna do if he doesn’t understand half the orders?”
***
There was a modern infrastructure on Kappa Ceti-2, except our probe was unlucky, because during its passage the quarg ground base was on the invisible side of the planet together with a huge orbital terminal hanging above it. Similar structures in the Federation were sometimes located above the resort planets, where a large flow of tourists could not be processed without a passenger terminal in orbit. However, travel to this particular resort seems to have been strictly compulsory.
The terminal was still in operation. It was approached by transport ships that docked at the external locks from outer space, and small orbital shuttles were constantly departing from the planet’s face and descending into the atmosphere in a continuous stream, however, the oncoming flow of shuttles from the surface was no less intense.
Mbia picked up an area a few thousand kilometers away from the quarg base. He did not want to get into this snake nest immediately, and the scout hoped to avoid it later on.
The landing went smoothly. The engine made by the lizards turned out to be a godsend for these operations. Its power was relatively small, but this engine had a remarkable ability to keep the ship off enemy scanners. It had another nice property: now the fly-car could go up into space unaided, not fast, really, but on its own! And that meant that Yoon Gao wouldn’t have to risk landing the ship on the planet. Of course, Jeff’s engineers provided it with a remarkable camouflage, but landing on the planet carried a lot of risks.
The planet did not indulge its inhabitants in a mild climate. The quargs who chose to save on the artificial sun probably cared the least about the comfort of those who would live here. The equatorial region of the planet met the scouts with a mild frost. Sure, it did not inconvenience them, because they were wearing their combat space suits, but when they thought about the people who live here all the time, the scouts couldn't help but shiver.
The nearest town was five kilometres south and Mbia decided to walk there. They could have sent drones out to scout, but the three men and the lizard in combat space suits had much better camouflage than the small reconnaissance drones that were not equipped with EW means.
Mbia hid the fly-car in the thickets of some thorny shrubs, he also pointed out that there is probably a relatively warm summer here, since these bushes have managed to grow here. After walking through the bush about 700 meters, the scouts made their way to the road. The existence of a road itself has already raised a number of questions. In the Federation, ground transportation has long been a thing of the past, together with wheeled land transport. Even the streets in the cities have become exclusively pedestrian zones. As for the country tracks, they have long been dismantled, freeing up much useful space on the overcrowded planets.
There was a road here, and apparently it was used extensively. This track had no hard cover. The locals who built it confined themselves to finely fragmented rocks, which were sprinkled on the road and then tamped.
Ten minutes later, they met the first local resident who was driving a very remarkable specimen of the means of transportation. The vehicle had four wheels, a frame structure, a cab and a factory built body, but all of the parts of this machine were made in a very crude way, using a primitive equipment and technology. However, there was no doubt that this product was assembled by people. But there was a lizard in the cab! It was the most authentic lizard, just like Dirr-go, who was now puffing in an unusual and alien combat space suit made by Jeff specifically for him with the laughter and jokes of Professor Stein and Yoon Gao.
After looking at a primitive truck, the scouts stopped.
“This is a very interesting meeting,” Mbia said, “It looks like all the prisoners are being taken here indiscriminately. If the lizard is driving a car that’s obviously made by humans, then there are people out there, too, unless, of course, this thing was made by the quargs, but I doubt that. Dirr-go, what do you think of all this?”
“That lizzzard’sss been here a long time. He’sss fully massstered the human machine, and it’sss not easy. We ssshould have ssstopped him and quessstioned him.”
“So, guys,” Mbia answered after some thought, “We’re not on an ethnographic expedition to the jungle. We don’t have a right to risk, we already know too much to afford to stay here forever or stay indefinitely at the quargs'. So, we'll keep moving towards the settlement along the road. We need one man and one lizard. We just knock them out gently, scan for bugs or markers, and take them with us. At home, let the commander deal with them or the security officers, that’s for him to decide.”
Within a mile of the city, they met the first man. He was riding a small two-wheeled vehicle that hummed a little bit and rattled on the rough edges of the road. The speed of this machine was low, but Mbia did not risk shooting the driver with a paralyzer, fearing that if he fell, he would damage himself. The combat suit is equipped with exoskeleton and servos for a reason. After making several jumps, the Lieutenant Colonel caught up with an unsuspecting man and gently pulled him out of the saddle while pressing the right spot on his neck. The two-wheeler flew into a ditch, and the road was empty again.
Mbia sent one of his men to the fly-car together with the 'invited' former prisoner and ordered the reduced unit to continue towards the city. The lizard found them himself, or rather, it was a female. She was walking down the suburb street of a village that reminded Mbia of the flat photographs of Mogadishu, capital of Somalia, from the beginning of the space age, which he had seen while studying the course of Earth history.
“Can I do it myssself, Commanderrr?” Dirr-go asked the Lieutenant Colonel.
“I don’t mind,” answered Mbia with some doubt, “Can you make it quietly? You’re an engineer, not a saboteur.”
“I can, but I’m asssking you to ssstay out of it, Commanderrr.”
“Okay, Dirr-go, go ahead, I trust you.”
“Thank you, Commanderrr.”
What happened next, Mbia couldn’t even imagine in a bad dream. Dirr-go rushed away and disappeared from view. On a tactical projection, the Lieutenant Colonel observed the engineer bypassing the reptile walking slowly down the street along a large arc.
Now he came to starting position behind some barn, and then... The lizard jumped out in front of an unsuspecting female in one long jump, and... bowed before her.
“What are you doing, Dirr-...”
“Asssking you to ssstay out of it, Commanderrr... Everrrything will be OK.”
According to Mbiya, the lizard in the battle suit was to produce a shocking impression on an untrained viewer, whether human or reptile. The suit was translucent, and the tailed lizard could be seen in it with great difficulty, Jeff really did his best. But the female wasn’t scared, at least she wasn’t showing any emotion. The silent scene lasted for 15 seconds, then both figures turned in sync and ran towards the lurking scouts.
Chapter 4
“Igor, look at the pros and cons,” Professor Stein’s voice sounded anxious,“In my experience, you can’t jump stairs in such complex projects. Maybe we should build at least one pair of stationary transport rings first and work out the nuances of the technology on them? Do you have any idea what would happen if your scheme of segments doesn’t work? We’ll just wreck the project and waste trillions of rubles of government money. This is likely to be the end of our activities, since no one will forgive us for such a failure.”
“Why are you so sure your version will work out right?” Stein didn’t give up, “The tests we have conducted are clearly insufficient for such conclusions.”
“Professor, you remember our previous projects...”
“I remember everything, Igor, and I still don’t know why it worked out for us back then.”
“Because you’ve put together a great team of scientists and engineers, Professor. You underestimate the potential of our people. Do you really think there’s any piece of iron in this world that Jeff and his boys can’t force to work for the good of the fatherland?” I smiled, “What's important is that you don’t let us down with the basic principles of the ring's work, the scientific part, but how to do the rest, they’ll figure it out.”
“I wish I shared your confidence,” the Professor shook his head, still doubting,“So the decision is final?”
“Yes, Ivan Gerkhardovich, the decision is made. We just have no other choice.”
***
“The shipyards here are empty, too, and there are surprisingly few ships in the system,” Mbia commented on the information the probes brought, “When we were here two weeks ago, the cover squadron consisted of ten battleships and three aircraft carriers. Now there’s a third of them.”
“Eight battleships and five aircraft carriers, including the ones that were being built at the docks, have gone from here. If you put it together with what we’ve seen elsewhere...” Yoon Gao became silent, calculating the total number of ships that had left the quarg star systems, which the scouts visited again on the way back.
“They’re assembling a fleet, no doubt. So, in a month at most, they’re gonna strike. Except where?”
“In a couple of days, we’ll pick up the anchor signal from the nearest beacon and send a message to Earth,” there was tiredness in Yoon Gao’s voice, “They won’t have much time to prepare, but it’s still something. That’s what they’re admirals for, to decide which systems to cover first.”
***
Understanding the lizard hierarchy was not so easy. Not only most of their leadership positions were held by females, in addition, male attitudes towards them were regulated by some ancient traditions that severely limited career opportunities of the male population. However, there were exceptions.
The whole lizard state was run by a senior female, but she was not the oldest, of course, this was an elected position, but the lizards have never even heard of any universal suffrage. The Senior was elected by the High Caste Council for an indefinite term, and her powers were comparable to those of Emperors. All other lizards built relationships with each other and with the authorities according to their positions and social status. There were ranks in the army.Their names in the lizard language were utterly unpronounceable to humans, so when translated, they were simply approximated to the ranks of the Federation Army and Fleet.
And now I had a lizard in front of me, one of the very exceptions that Lit-ta told me about.
“Rear Admiral,” the lizard said those words with the purest pronunciation that struck me and without any growling or hissing, “I’m Colonel Slin-at, I came to your base by order of the Governor-General Lit-ta, approved by the Senior. My orders are to assist you in every way possible and to participate in the construction of a hybrid fleet with the experts who came with me. I’ve brought a convoy with the cargo and crews necessary for the new ships.”
“Very well, Colonel,” I was really pleased,“I see your speech synthesizers have become much more perfect.”
“We’re making progress, Rear Admiral,” the lizards largely ignored the word 'Sir', and I thought it was for the best.
“I’m glad to hear that. Do you need any help locating your staff?”
“Thank you, Rear Admiral, we’ll be quite comfortable aboard our ships. The Governor-General has informed me that we have very little time. Would you please fill me in on your plan?”
“Lit-ta understood my mood very correctly, Colonel. Let me show you something. I think you’ll like it.”
The Minister of Military Production Zverev finally fulfilled his promise, which Admiral Nelson had extracted from him. The captured battleship Titan left the dock a week ago renovated and ready to fight. The major caliber cannons and anti-aircraft guns had to be completely replaced, it was easier than trying to replicate the quarg technology and make shells available for their artillery. But the engine was still the same. Its design and layout were so successful that our engineers decided that the perfect is the enemy of the good and they limited themselves to adapting the control systems to human standards. The scanners, the sighting-navigation complex and the EW systems have naturally been replaced by ours, since the enemy had nothing comparable in level. As a result, the ship was extremely versatile. Having thrown away a lot of specialized junk from the hull, apparently designed to withstand the lizards' weapons, our shipbuilders were able to place in the vast hangars of the central part of the battleship ten groups of drone torpedoes and five squadrons of unmanned pursuit planes.
I decided to begin by demonstrating this modernized miracle of hostile equipment to the ally, which I regretted a little.
Upon seeing the image of Titan on the projection screen, the Colonel issued an inarticulate exclamation and moved back.
“Where is this coming from?” asked the lizard, having overcome finally the shock.
“This is battleship Titan that was captured by our fleet in the battle of Barnard’s Star, after which it has repeatedly fought on our side.”
“After the enemy had these ships, our space forces suffered a series of defeats,” said the lizard slowly. “We’ve destroyed two of these battleships, but it had brought so much loss to us that our fleet can still not fully replenish them. In return for almost all of the lost ships, we’re about to grow new ones, and they need crews, but experienced officers have died in battle, and there’s nobody to replace them yet.”
“Are there any ships in your fleet comparable in power to such battleships?”
“No. We’ve been looking into that. We could create weapons of the right caliber and power, but our bio-engineers can’t grow engines capable of giving such a giant the maneuverability needed to fight. Besides, at this size we have structural rigidity problems.”
“We’ll make a bearing frame, march engines, scanners and electronic warfare complexes, but the armor that can heal the holes, and the auxiliary engines are going to be yours. We’ll put both types of guns on the ships, ours and yours, let the quargs be happy,” I gave the Colonel the concept presented to me by the engineering team led by Jeff a couple of days ago.
For a few seconds, the lizard silently looked at the image of Titan, then turned around to me with his whole body.
“We are ready to proceed immediately, Rear Admiral. Our fleet desperately needs such ships.”
“We’ll start immediately, don’t worry,” I smiled in response, “but we probably won’t start with the battleship after all. I’ll show you something else first. You’ve seen this weapon before, and I think you liked the result, but now, together, we can make it even more formidable and effective.”
“Are you talking about drone torpedoes, Rear Admiral?”
“That’s right, Colonel, it’s the drone torpedoes, but we will equip them with your engines and a three-part warhead, including, in addition to the cumulative and high explosive parts, your quasi-live
combat cocktail. I think your fleet could use that weapon, too.”
***
The information packet from Yoon Gao and Mbia came to my tablet during a working conference. After reading the first few lines, I apologized to Jeff and Stein, and five minutes later I was in the Minister of Defense’s office.
“Mr Minister, the enemy’s heavy ships and aircraft carriers have left the bases and are concentrating to strike,” I reported this to Bronstein while sending him a copy of the intelligence report, “We have one month at our disposal, probably less, depending on which of our systems they’re attacking.”
Bronstein opened the document and spent five minutes studying it.
“Rear Admiral,” the Minister looked at me, “I will now report this to the President. Today there will be an expanded meeting between the General Staff and the Admiralty. Your presence is mandatory. You will be notified of the exact time and place.”
“Mr Minister, may I pass on the intelligence we have gathered to the Allies? 'Cause the quargs can strike at them, too.”
“We wait for the President’s decision, Rear Admiral. A few hours won’t make a difference.”
This time, the High Command meeting was held at the President’s country residence. It's circle of participation was very different from the Federation leaders' meeting I remembered, where I was almost politely told that strategic planning was not my thing. Since then, my level has risen slightly, so I was no longer seen as an outlandish beast who was allowed to walk among the esteemed public because of the negligence of the zookeeper.
There were no civilians here except the Minister of Military Production, in the small hall of the Presidential Palace there were no more than 20 high-ranking Federation officers. All experts and other specialists were waiting in a different room and could be called at any time if necessary. A projection screen was installed in the middle of the room, it was now displaying a volumetric diagram of the Federation-controlled section of the galaxy and the space of quargs and lizards.
The meeting was opened by the President.