The Curanian Dominance: The Linda Eccles Series - Volume Three

by Robert Woodard

  Entering the square, he watched as she made her way to the couch and sat slightly while cocking her head to one side. She crossed her ankles and turned her head to look at him. In a motion he never would have expected, she padded the couch, and said, “Plon, come and join me.”

  If there had been any kind of breeze in the room, it probably would have bowled him right over backwards. Plon had never even heard of a Supreme allowing anyone to sit in her presence inside her personal square, let alone on her couch.

  He felt his legs moving, but he wasn’t all that sure his conscious mind was controlling them. He reached the couch and sat down facing her. The situation felt so odd that his mind seemed to struggle to understand the rational of her action.

  “You seem to have much conflict on your mind, Plon. Why don’t you tell me what is troubling you?” Kold’s voice came across as sweet and melody like.

  “What makes you think I am troubled, Kold?” Plon managed to get out, but his tone didn’t sound convincing at all. It was like his own body was giving him up for sacrifice.

  “You don’t become Supreme without being able to detect when one of your subjects is struggling to cope with something. Part of being Supreme is seeing such things and helping them come to grips with whatever is troubling them.”

  By removing their troubled heads from their bodies, no doubt. Plon fought hard to keep his expression neutral while his very soul yelled for him to get out while he was still in one piece. He knew it was way too late for that now. He was in her clutches. Any attempt for him to depart without her expressed permission would be met with resistance by the very guards who stood at the end of the one and only entrance to the room, or at least the only one that he could access, anyway.

  “You don’t have to fear me, Plon. I’m only interested in helping you.”

  Plon heard a sharp snap just before Kold leaned forward to place a hand on his shoulder. She leaned in closer to him, and he caught wind of a sweet fragrance. It was similar to the one he had experience before, but also smelled slightly different. Perhaps the same flower but different spices, or maybe the other way around. Whichever, it smelled enticing.

  Warning bells suddenly went off, but the more he took in the scent the less he cared about them. He began to feel relaxed and comfortable. He felt safe and protected. Perhaps Kold wasn’t the evil witch he took her for after all. He looked into her eyes. Her face seemed slightly blurred. She sat back that made her seem far away and distorted.

  “So, Plon, what is really bothering you?” Kold’s musical voice seemed to reach right into his brain and withdraw the answer.

  “I don’t understand why we don’t reach out to this species. You know, make some kind of agreement with them. They are dangerous and strong. We are spilling too much Curanian blood trying to subdue them. Who knows what capability they may be able to bring against us if we did find their home planet?”

  “I see. How long have you had these reservations, Plon?” Kold asked. “It doesn’t seem like you to worry about such things. You have always been the one that I could trust to complete any task I gave you.”

  “I’ve had my doubts ever since I reviewed the way they so easily outsmarted Nage. Nage was a well experience Control, yet they easily swept his efforts aside. It became even stronger when I attacked their outpost. I experienced for myself how well organized this species is when it comes to military tactics. They are dangerous, Kold, very dangerous.”

  Plon felt himself rocked slightly and realized that Kold had stood up. She paced back and forth on the other side of the table in front of the couch. He could feel his upper body sway back and forth as he followed her movements.

  “Plon, what do you think could be gained by trying to partner with this species?”

  Plon rolled his head to look up at her. His head felt heavy, and his eyelids kept drooping. “We could share technologies for a change. Just think of how much stronger we could become if we gained such things without losing ships and crews getting it. There may be ideas hidden in their culture that we can only access by talking and working with them.”

  “You’ve given me much to think about, Plon.” Kold returned to the couch and placed a soft hand on his shoulder. He felt her gently pushing him into his side. “Go to sleep now, Plon.

  Plon gladly obeyed the order.

  ◆◆◆

  Kold watched as Plon’s eyes closed and his breathing slowed as he fell into his drug-enforced sleep. Based on her experience in using the drug, he would sleep for at least four hours. Staring down at his body as his chest slowly rose and fell to his rhythmic breathing, she thought over how to digest his information.

  Instinctively, she reached up to her nose to pull off the transparent filters covering her nostrils that prevented her from feeling the effects of the drug. As she rolled each thin sheet between her fingers, her mind worked over the concerns that Plon had expressed. Tossing the filters onto the table, she stood up.

  She hadn’t suspected there was such an undercurrent of dissent within her own Controls until those troopers had stormed into her very sleeping chamber. At first, she thought they had come for her, but she quickly realized they had been sent to pull Plon out of her clutches. What had brought Plon to such fear that he would have taken such a precaution before coming to see her?

  Kold slowly walked over to the window and looked outside. She had screwed up. There was no denying that fact. Before she died, the prior Supreme had warned her that she detected a change coming in her people. Kold had taken that warning to heart and thought making an example of Nage would head it off. It backfired on her instead. Nage had become the rallying cry against all her efforts. She hadn’t suspected how bad that cry was until the arrival of the troopers.

  She smiled over how surprised Plon had been when she had reappeared into the sleeping square without his hearing her. It was the simple things that made a Supreme so mysterious. With Plon, she had gotten lucky. He had been in such a deep sleep that he failed to hear the sensor tone activate that told her someone was approaching.

  Since the entire complex was filled with such detectors, no one could go anywhere without her knowing about it. She got up, slipped into her security room through a hidden access door and spied on the activity through the monitor in the room that allowed her to control the hundreds of security cameras that observed every inch of her complex. She spotted the troopers and noticed right away, by the fleet insignia on their battle gear, that they were part of Plon’s fleet. After learning why they had come, and waiting until they left, she slipped back into the room to startle Plon. She knew he got the message never to underestimate her again.

  There had never been any true danger to Kold. The security room could be sealed off with the touch of a button. Plon and his troopers had no idea how close they came to becoming prisoners for treason against the Supreme. When they barged into the sleeping square, Kold had her finger on the button that would have flooded her room with a paralyzing toxin. The idiots hadn’t even dawned protective gear to prevent such disabling defenses from being used against them. Then again, they wouldn’t have known these defenses existed at a Supreme’s fingertips.

  Had she pressed that button they all would have been paralyzed for easy captured by her personal guards. They would then have faced a public trial for treason. The very idea of harming a Supreme was so far outside the beliefs of her people that they would have been quickly convicted and put to death in the most hideous fashion possible. The relief Kold felt when she came to realize they were only on a rescue mission had put her at ease. Her subjects were not out to get her as much as protect one of their own. She could almost applaud Plon’s inventiveness to trying to save his own skin to avoid receiving Nage’s fate. That attempted rescue of Plon really drove home how far reaching her error in her treatment of Nage had gone.

  “How do I make it right again, Plon?” Kold looked over at his sleeping form, but no answer came back to her.

  She had tried to use her feminine means t
o pull Plon into her fold again, but she had been too late and too secretive for it to have worked as she intended. It was a shame, too, for Plon had the makings of a wonderful concubine to fulfill her needs.

  “Perhaps you still can, my love.” She worked her way back to the couch to look down at his sleeping form.

  It was quite possible that Plon held the answer, even if she did have to coax it out of him with her drug. If his beliefs were seeded into the will of her people, then why not water and grow that seed? She could see how years of having love ones away on ships, and many never to return, could begin to rot the desire of the people to continue to support the Supreme’s desire to reach beyond the stars.

  “You saw this coming, Cosa, but you didn’t see the real problem, did you?” She looked out the window as she spoke to the long departed Supreme, and her very mentor. “You warned me of change, but you failed to see that it was not reversible. I can see that now. Instead of heading it off as you suggested, I should have embraced it. The outcome could have made me the best Supreme of all time, not the most hated Supreme that my own people fear.”

  Yes, she had to reverse her people’s belief in her before it was too late. How fortunate it was for her that the Supreme Blossom Celebration was upon them. It was her opportunity to speak to all Curanians. She could set the tone for the future. The time was now to win back her subjects, her fleet and her Controls. If she didn’t, she could end up being the very last Supreme.

  Walking back to the windows, she stared down at the beautifully maintained lawn. Could Curanians really exist without a Supreme to guide them? It seemed to her that the fear in having a leaderless culture would be enough to scare many away from such an idea. If she could capture that belief and feed upon it, she just might bring herself back into the powerful and respected leader her people expected of her. It had to be done right, though. Her lesson with Nage proved that to her.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “What do you think could have happened to all of them?” Linda asked.

  “It’s really hard to say,” Peggy answered. “There are so many variations of what could have happened to them. They may not tolerate the cold to where they shut everything down and migrate to warmer climates until the season changes. They could go underground even. They could have relocated to another planet more to their liking. They may have contracted a disease they couldn’t control, and it wiped them out. The way their material absorbs matter, they could have died, and we would see no sign of them. Since we have no idea how long the Brontum was buried in that soil, we have no way of knowing how much time has passed for these aliens.”

  “Maybe we scared them, and they all went into hiding,” Linda added.

  “Perhaps.”

  By the time they had completed searching several of the buildings, the TR17 reported finding no signs of the Kuracks. They returned to where they started to find the Brontum sitting exactly where they had left it. In frustration, they returned to it while Linda fretted over the wasted trip.

  “If we could have found where they kept their archives, we could have learned so much,” Peggy said with sadness in her tone.

  “With their technology, we could have stood right on top of it without ever knowing it’s there,” Linda responded.

  “That’s true.”

  “Well, Peggy, there goes your hope for making the scientific discovery of the century.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” Peggy said. “We can always come back and try again.

  “That’s true.”

  “TR17, did you detect any other ships during your scans?” Peggy asked.

  “No.”

  “I’m suspecting they may have migrated off planet,” Peggy said. “Maybe they will be back someday.”

  “You know I just thought of something,” Linda said. “Maybe they didn’t migrate as much as fled. Maybe there is another race of beings out there that the Kuracks fear and left to get away from them.”

  “It is just one of many theories. Unfortunately, we will never know for sure.”

  “It’s a shame we can’t let them know we were here looking for them.”

  “Maybe we can,” Peggy said while perking up. “TR17, is it possible to leave a message for when the Kuracks return?”

  “Yes.”

  “TR17, leave this message in the Kuracks language: Human visitors came to your planet in a Brontum found abandoned at VO12. We would very much like to learn more about you and establish a dialogue between our peoples. If this has some interest to you, you can contact us through the TR17 unit leaving this message.”

  “TR17 will comply. Message is complete.”

  “I guess our mission here is over,” Linda said, and when Peggy nodded, she added, “TR17, take us back to Earth.”

  “TR17 will comply.”

  ◆◆◆

  “All we need now is for Linda to bring that alien ship back, and we can pull the trigger on this mission,” Philip said as he studied the mock-up of where the Supreme Blossom Celebration was held.

  “That assumes the event hasn’t been held yet. Muni said he had lost track of the Curanian seasons already,” Ron said. He sat back in his office chair with his hands behind his head looking pleased over their joint plan.

  “If it’s too late, we will find another way to get at her, even if we have to wait until the following celebration.”

  “That’s true. Muni said she is young and would not likely select her successor for many years yet. If this Kold is like any other young adult, she will believe there is always time tomorrow. This is her weakness that we will exploit.”

  Philip turned away from the mock-up sitting on a corner table and looked over at Ron. It seemed that both of them were taking this Supreme lightly, and he wondered if they were guilty of underestimating their rival. Taking the few steps needed to reach Ron’s desk, he pulled out a chair and sat heavily.

  “Waiting an additional year might not be a bad idea anyway,” Philip said. “Even though the research folks say that the CRAP round is ready for use, it would give us more time to put it through some rigorous testing.”

  “Whoever came up with that acronym anyway?” Ron said while scrunching up his face and shaking his head.

  “I thought it was pretty clever. Counter-Rotating Assault Projectile has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah.” The skepticism in Ron’s voice came over loud and clear.

  “Look Ron, they can call it anything they want as long as it works. The counter-rotation is to offset the natural rotation of the planet, and the small propellant that ignites when it leaves the barrel keeps it on target to limit gravitational pull. The counter-rotation sounds iffy but giving the bullet some extra boost as it crosses the field of fire definitely makes a whole lot of sense to me. Since we can’t replicate the gravity on their planet with any sense of accuracy, we need something to take it out of the equation. This new round is just what we need.”

  Ron raised his arm and gave Philip a dismissive motion with his hand. “Untested technology has been the vain of the military even since man first sharpened sticks. I would hate to send someone millions of miles from here only to have their one shot at success fail because this CRAP round goes sailing off into space or something. We’d be better off to break into a museum, steal an old reliable fifty-cal and dust the damn thing off. Nothing says lights-out better than a fifty-caliber slug blowing a hole in your victim the size of a frying pan.”

  “You know as well as I do that this person will be making an impossible shot at an impossible distance,” Philip said while tapping a finger on Ron’s desk for emphasis. “I would love nothing more than to drag one of our reliable plasma cannons over to that planet to take her out, but that isn’t feasible. The M108 is our next best option, and this new projectile round will give it the boost we need to put their Supreme into an early grave.”

  “I know all that, Philip. It just bugs me when we have to add the additional risk of a round that is untested in battle. F
or all we know that round could loop back and blow a hole in the backside of our shooter. It wouldn’t be the first-time military folks were killed with their own technology.”

  Philip rubbed his tired eyes as he responded, “It is what it is. He has been taking practice shots with it, so that should help. The M108 recycles fast enough that he could possible take a second shot if he misses with the first and has to adjust his aim.”

  “Maybe we should include a backup plan like affixing a plasma cannon to that Brontum and drop a plasma bolt on top of her. Once that thing went off,” Ron put his hands together and flared his fingers out as his hands separated in a dramatic fashion. “They wouldn’t even have to worry about burying her.”

  “For Christ's sakes, Ron, that bomb would wipe out the entire area. We want to get their people working with us, not hating us. It’s bad enough killing their leader without wiping out thousands of innocent people. Besides, from what I understand, you can’t affix anything to that alien ship without it eating whatever you try to attach.”

  Ron’s eyes shifted to look over Philip’s shoulder to where the mock-up of the Supreme Complex and the outdoor observation area sat. Philip knew that Ron was only griping about the risk behind the mission. Since Ron was ultimately responsible for the success of the plan, he had the most to lose if it failed. Philip could understand the frustration the man felt. If their sniper missed, it could unite the Curanian people around their Supreme going forward. Good leaders knew how to take such failures and turn them into their favor. He highly doubted Kold would not try to do the same.

  Ron’s focus turned back on Philip, and he said, “Let’s pray that the Curanians don’t find Earth before we can take her out.”

  “Amen to that.”

  ◆◆◆

  Linda and Peggy walked into Admiral Ackerman’s office to find him and Julian Nelson already sitting there chatting. When they saw the two enter, both men rose and came forward to shake their hands.