“I have to share this information,” Dean told Esma as he pulled away from their kiss.
“Don’t forget what I’m telling you,” she said softly. “I’m really glad you’re okay.”
“Me too,” he said. “I want to spend the rest of my life kissing you.”
She smiled. “The rest of your life?”
“That’s right, Esmerelda Dante. I love you.”
Chapter 34
“The disciplinary committee has met,” Dean said, striding quickly into the holding cell.
Tallgrass looked up with a look that was both hopeful and resigned at the same time.
“You’ve been exonerated of all charges,” Dean said happily. “And there’s someone who wants to see you.”
“Major, does he really want to see me?” Tallgrass asked. “He probably hates me.”
“No, he wanted to fight for your release,” Dean said. “He said you were clearly not yourself when you shot him. It was obvious something very wrong was happening. He wanted to come get you, but they won’t let him out of the med bay. He has a lot of healing to do—don’t be fooled by his attitude.”
They moved briskly through the ring and into the Hannibal. Dean noticed that Tallgrass walked with her head down. She was ashamed of what she had done, no matter what the cause or if she hadn’t been in control. He didn’t know if she would be able to serve in his platoon again. She was cleared of any charges against her, but she had lost herself in the terrible ordeal. Finding her way back would be difficult, but Dean hoped that seeing Chavez would help.
“What did they have to do?” She asked.
“Two surgeries,” Dean replied. “They were forced to remove a kidney, his spleen, and part of his small intestine. There was a lot of blood loss, and they’re keeping him on IV antibiotics to ensure no infection takes hold. He’s talking a big game, but I can tell he’s pretty weak.”
There were tears in Eleanor Tallgrass’s eyes as they entered the Med Bay. Dean led her over to the curtained area where Chavez was recuperating. Dean had skipped Robb Landin’s assessment that Chavez would never serve in Force Recon again. Tallgrass was battling enough guilt, and Dean wasn’t so sure his staff sergeant wouldn’t beat the odds. Chavez was a disciplined man of great strength. If he set his mind on coming back, Dean believed he would.
As Dean was leaving the med bay he saw Anders walking from the bridge toward his cabin. He waved Dean over.
“We’re ready,” he said, leading the way into his office on board the Hannibal.
Admiral Matsumoto was already there, sipping hot tea and obviously lost in thought. On two large vid screens Dean saw Admiral Aviv and Admiral Masterson. respectively. They nodded as Dean took a seat and removed his TCU.
“Should we ask?” Masterson said when he saw Dean’s bruises.
“Recon matter,” Dean replied. “It’s handled.”
“I wonder what the other guy looks like.” Masterson said.
“I take it you’ve all watched the interrogation,” Dean said. “Obviously there are a lot of implications to the Pergantee calling himself Querf. I have an opinion, as I’m sure each of you do. What I need us to agree upon is the best course of action at this point.”
“What are you driving at, Major?” Aviv said.
“Well, I was put in charge of a preemptive strike against the Kroll. It’s a military operation and I have the most experience with the Kroll, so it makes sense that I be put in charge of it. But in my opinion, if we can trust Querf, his presence on the ship changes things.”
“In what way?” Matsumoto said.
“In that we have a chance to take advantage of the Pergantee’s superior knowledge of the galaxy and technology. I have to ask myself: is the intelligence we could glean from Querf more valuable than a nuclear strike against the Kroll?”
No one spoke right away, which Dean took to be a good sign. He trusted the three admirals to be more than capable of focusing on the bigger picture, not merely carrying out orders that had been handed to them. Everything in the service had changed, and Dean believed it was for the worse. The people who had taken control of EsDef were set on abolishing Off World Force Recon. They wanted to rely solely on drones to carry out any fighting that needed to be done. Dean was diametrically opposed to that course of action, and not just because he was an OWFR officer, but because he had seen and fought the Kroll. He knew their technology was superior to humanity’s. He also knew that EsDef didn’t possess enough drones to be able to keep up a running battle with the Kroll; they needed a period of peace to prepare for the predatory race.
Humanity had learned a lot from the Urgglatta ship Dean had managed to capture, but the Pergantees were even more technologically advanced—and Querf was not just a Pergantee, but one of their engineers of the creator caste. It was possible—although Dean didn’t think humanity had the time—that with access to Querf’s technical knowledge, they might even the odds with the Kroll.
“It is possible that we may not return from our current mission,” Matsumoto said. “And if we are destroyed, the knowledge of the Pergantee would be lost.”
Dean nodded, glad that he and the admiral were seeing things the same way.
“But I do not believe we should abandon our mission,” he concluded.
“This Querf guy is a game changer,” Masterson said. “Whatever we do, we can’t waste such a valuable asset.”
“Nor can we put our hopes on him,” Aviv said. “The Pergantees are a deceptive race. I do not believe that we can trust this Querf, not long term. I believe he will do or say anything he can to escape.”
“I agree, but after speaking with him, I think he would trade information for freedom,” Dean said.
“So let’s blast the Hannibal free and send them back,” Masterson said.
“Is that safe?” Anders asked.
“We would need to come to a full stop,” Matsumoto said.
“And you would have to keep them separated and sedated until you reached the Sol system where you could turn them over to EsDef officials.”
“Before that happens,” Dean said. “I think we should take full advantage of the situation we find ourselves in. Captain Dante has informed me that the operators and engineers are at a standstill with the remote piloting program. With the Pergantee’s knowledge of the Kroll spacecraft, it is possible that Querf could help.”
“I don’t like the idea,” Aviv said. “We must be careful how much of our plans we share with the aliens. I don’t believe it isn’t possible for the Pergantee to communicate with the Kroll.”
“We don’t have to release it,” Masterson said. “Keep it confined to the room and use video to question it, and even allow the Pergantee to direct our engineers in the effort. We can test their work when we stop to free the Hannibal. If it works, we’re good to go. If not, we’ll know the bastard is a liar and we can deal with it however we see fit.”
“I think this is a good plan,” Matsumoto said.
“I agree,” Aviv said.
“Vice Admiral Anders?” Dean asked.
“Oh, you want my opinion?” he asked, surprised. “Yes, well, I hate to leave the mission, but I’ll do what’s best. Whatever you all decide is fine with me.”
“Alright, I’m in agreement with the rest of you. I’ll set a rotation schedule for different department heads to question the Pergantee,” Dean said.
“And you would be wise to implement a strict protocol over what can and cannot be discussed,” Aviv said. “We must remain vigilant lest we fall into the alien’s trap.”
“I’ll do that. In fact, I’ll send the protocol over and let each of you take a look at it before it’s finalized.”
“Excellent,” Matsumoto said.
He stood and bowed before leaving. Once he was gone, the other admirals said their goodbyes and left the virtual meeting. Dean turned to Anders.
“What do you really think?” Dean asked.
“I shouldn’t be happy at the prospect of leaving th
e task force before we’ve dealt with the Kroll,” the vice admiral replied.
“You shouldn’t be bothered that you are, either,” Dean said. “Sometimes discretion really is the better part of valor. And caution is preferable to rash bravery.”
“Shakespeare, King Henry the IV, I believe,” Anders said. “I love the classics.”
“And you’ll be carrying out a vital part of the mission. There’s no telling what type of reception you’ll get back home. But delivering the Pergantee and downloading the personal messages from the task force crew to their loved ones is a noble and worthy task. One I wouldn’t trust to just anybody. You’re a good ship commander. I hope the new brass sees that.”
“Thank you, Major. I… I believe that’s one of the finest compliments I’ve ever received. I will do my best.”
“I know you will,” Dean said, shaking Anders’ hand and feeling a touch of jealousy.
A part of Dean wished he too could slip away before the fighting started and still feel that he had done his part. He wondered for a brief moment if he might convince Esma to return with the Hannibal, but he dismissed the idea almost as quickly as he thought it. She would never go, and in truth he was glad she wouldn’t. Their fate would be the same, one way or another, which in Dean’s mind was exactly the way it should be.
Chapter 35
Over the next ten days, things changed radically on the E.S.D.F. Bushido, starting with Captain Grant’s attitude. The arrogant officer went from cocky to humiliated to morose to humble in just a few days’ time. The beating he received was difficult to bear, but when the video from several of his own platoon members was shuffled around the task force network showing Staff Sergeant Furoke trying to kill Dean, the outlandish captain finally came to his senses and realized he was completely out of line. There was no proof that he had urged Furoke to intervene, but Grant could hardly look the other officers in the eye knowing that they all suspected him. To Dean’s surprise, Grant didn’t try to fight Furoke’s incarceration, but rather threw himself into his work. He kept his platoon busy policing the ring, helping out where and however they could.
There was an air of excitement as people of different specialties interacted with Querf and learned more in a one-hour session than many of them had learned over a lifetime. The wounded Pergantee had received medical care on his feet, and Dean had moved the little alien to a more appropriate room where he had a bed, a chair, a table, and plenty of water to drink. The Pergantee, Dean learned, didn’t eat. They also didn’t age. Once they came of age, a Pergantee would live until it was killed or died of dehydration, which was why so many had volunteered to help the Kroll, where they might serve a decade or two before returning to their home world.
The Grays utilized a rigid class structure, with individuals demonstrating remarkable ESP abilities being placed in the prestigious supreme caste and serving as rulers on their home world. Beneath the supreme caste were the breeding caste, followed by scientists called the learned caste, then the creator caste. The lowest levels of society for the Pergantee were the labor caste—which weren’t actually laborers, but rather overseers—and then the uncasted, and then slaves. Uncasted Pergantees were those without any discernible skills and were used as general workers but given no oversight responsibility. Slaves could be Pergantees who had traded their freedom to pay off debts or aliens enslaved by the supreme caste. It was not unusual, Dean learned, for the wealthy supremes to collect slaves from various worlds. Most species lost all mental coherency after being controlled by a Pergantee of the supreme caste using their ESP abilities for a few days’ time. Humans were one of the few species that were more resilient mentally, which made them both highly sought after by the supremes and rare in Pergantee society.
There were also rogue Pergantee, who rejected the caste system and were banished from the Pergantee home world. These outlawed Grays often traveled the galaxy looking for ways to entertain themselves. Dean suspected much of the outlandish unexplained phenomena on Earth may be caused by the rogues, while many of the abductions he guessed were surely supremes trying to enslave a human for their own personal menagerie.
Querf took to his new surroundings with enthusiasm and the attention he received from the humans with great pleasure. Bon’a’grif, on the other hand, had to be kept sedated after refusing to participate in further questioning. The stubborn Pergantee was taken to the med bay, strapped to a bed, and kept in a medically induced coma where it couldn’t cause problems. Querf was hesitant at first, not quite trusting of Dean and the other crew members, but once he realized they didn’t intend to harm him, he told them everything they wanted to know.
Esma and a team of operators questioned Querf about the controls of the Kroll ship. It was the one thing that the little alien knew very little about. He knew the Kroll manually piloted the ships, and had an instinctual sense of direction even in the vast reaches of space, as well as a spacial understanding that went beyond simple ESP. They knew what was happening on the ship even though they rarely left their aviary, and they could dock their vessels without seeing anything outside their own ship, and without the aid of computer telemetry.
The engineers were thrilled to learn about Pergantee tech and how the Grays overcame the basic laws of physics. Some of the subject matter was at such a high level that the engineers could only guess at what it really meant, but they learned exactly how the Kroll ships were built and how to build remote piloting controls for the teardrop-shaped tug vessels. The biggest obstacle was overcoming the gravity envelope or bubble that surrounded the ship. It was held in place by a field of magnetic and electrical energy that served not only to hold the gravity in place, but also to keep out the prying mental capacities of other creatures.
The admirals, along with Dean, were anxious to learn about their enemy. The Kroll were tribal, and each ship or group of ships represented a single, autonomous tribe. They could sense one another, but as long as the field was in place, they could not communicate directly with other tribes. It wasn’t unusual for the ships to flock together and then split apart and set off in different directions. The ship’s artificial gravity could be maintained using a subsystem that would allow the admirals to drop their containment fields long enough for the operators to pilot the ships, and although Querf knew nothing about it, fire their nuclear payloads.
The admirals planned for a single exercise before reaching the Urgglatta home world. They would bring their ships to a full stop, blast the Hannibal free, then practice dropping their containment field and piloting the tug vessels. Once they had completed the maneuvers, they would continue with the original mission.
Sergeant Eleanor Tallgrass was given the task of setting the charges that would blast the Hannibal free from the pink goo that held captured ships to the Kroll vessel. Having experience breaking the Apache free made her the obvious choice for the duty, and it also allowed her to work alone, which seemed to help her as she struggled to move past having been manipulated by the Pergantee. Unlike the rest of the crew, she had no desire to converse with the alien and spent all of her free time with Chavez in the med bay. Whenever Dean was present, she struggled with falling into a state of depression. Chavez assured Dean that she was improving, but only time would tell if she would ever be her old, reliable self again.
Dean spent more time with Querf than any member of the crew. He wanted to know his enemy—and not just the Kroll, but the Pergantee as well. Querf had proven himself to be trustworthy, sharing his technological knowledge with the crew of the Bushido, and Dean felt he could believe the alien. The Kroll were an intelligent race, although their logic was vastly different from humans, Querf explained. They were predators whose first and foremost desire was food. They had no concept of morality and only saw technology as an avenue to more food, without any other thoughts of uses such as comfort, quality of life, or expansion. The Kroll had once been bound to their own world; how or why they built their first ships was a mystery to the Pergantee, but they had long since a
bandoned the idea of dwelling on a planet, which they viewed essentially as an oasis of food in the vast scarcity of the galaxy.
“What about the feline creatures?” Dean asked. “What are they?”
“Semi-intelligent beings from the Kroll home world,” Querf said. “They were and still are the scavengers of the Kroll. They gain sustenance from whatever the Kroll leave behind and act as a type of housekeeping. They stay in the aviary mostly, roaming along the ground and fighting over scraps.”
“But they have weapons,” Dean said. “They fly the tug vessels.”
“We introduced the laser weapons that the Flaugg wear. You are the first species to resist energy-based weapons. The Kroll taught the Flaugg to fly as a boon, the way you might give a child a toy vehicle to play with. When the Kroll realized that their pets could be useful, they built smaller versions of their harvest ships to collect technology and resources whenever it was needed. This allowed the Kroll to avoid unnecessary risk. The Flaugg are naturally aggressive, so using them as soldiers was basic logic.”
“What about the Simians?” Dean asked.
“The Korbo are not intelligent but are incredibly strong. When the Kroll first encountered their kind they were seen as just another food source, but the Korbo are extremely open to mental suggestion. What the supreme caste can do to humans, even the lowliest Kroll can do with a Korbo. They were the uncasted workers of the Kroll.”
“Why do they wear the helmets?”
“Their small brains are extremely vulnerable and must be protected. Where a laser-based weapon might require thirty or forty direct hits to bring one Korbo down, a single shot to their small, brittle skull would kill them instantly. So they were given armor to protect that weak point.”
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