“I simply don’t know if we can risk a direct landing with that unavoidable pop sound. That might force us to use a slow Normal Space drive approach, which could make us an incoming blip on a mass detector. Sneaking in might not be as practical as we hoped. Too bad. Maggi really wants to give the top brass, particularly the Emperor, the dribbley never-get-overs from parasites. That would affect his decision making when she fabricates conspiracy theories about coups, and stokes general paranoia about revolts within the empire. We want them too worried at home to engage in adventures outside the empire.”
Sarge asked, “Do the Thandol like fireworks shows, or other noisy ceremonies? They have that Marching Army of the Emperor, with that phony army that stomps their feet as they march. I see what looks exactly like a wide reviewing stand not too far from his quarters, looking out over a long wide avenue, with a parade ground on the other side, or at least an area where a big crowd can gather, to admire the high mucky mucks.
“I mean, why have a parade route and a flashy display army if it never marches to impress the ego driven nobles and Emperor? Find out from their servants if they conduct noisy scheduled events. Plan your infiltration then, if they do.”
“Good idea, Sarge.” Maggi offered him a rare complement. Rare, to keep him from figuring out she valued his input.
Mirikami shifted attention back to their plan to find where the Thandol were gathering their naval forces for attacking Tanner’s World. “Maggi will try to contact the Hothor with the Prada com set here on Wendal, to see what he learned. She can also ask about local celebrations. To protect our contact, she can only flag the device to show him we called when he checks. When he feels safe and is alone, she’ll receive a Comtap link.
“While she does that, I’ve decided where we’ll set up the atmospheric bulges. The five of us will string out along the equatorial orbit of the Crusher segments, just on the dayside of the terminator. The atmosphere of any world expands when the sun heats it after the night’s cooling caused it to contract. We’ll make certain the expansion today is greater than normal, so it might not be noticed, or at least not detected as quickly as it would be on the night side.
“I want your AI’s to time the projected gentle gradient gravity fields, and center them a hundred fifty miles above the planet, to start to draw atmosphere up above that hundred thirty-mile orbit. My own AI has calculated how far ahead in minutes and in distance that should be, to allow time for each atmosphere bulge to get at least to that altitude before the corner sections reach there in their orbit. We want them to spend five minutes passing through the slightly denser air of each of our five bulges. Kill your projector’s field five minutes before the first section passes below your focal point. We don’t want to raise the Crusher segment’s orbits, which they would notice, and the atmosphere will then be gently descending under Wendal’s gravity when they pass through. It needs to be a subtle effect.
“Noreen gets to go first, next Carson, Thad, Carol, and then my ship. We start just as the leading segment crosses the dayside terminator into the warming side. They take eighty-six minutes per orbit, so we have plenty of time. Noreen will start forming her bulge ten minutes ahead of them, measured from when they will cross the terminator line. We have forty-four minutes of dayside orbit time to work with.
“If we keep a string of five bulges forming in front of them, one after another, that should represent about twenty-five minutes of slightly increased drag. It’s more than the twenty minutes Noreen’s main AI calculated would be enough. I’m a bit uncertain if what we’re doing here will cause a steady enough drag effect as needed, using the minimum time Karl calculated. I want to reduce how much time they have to correct the slow orbital decay when it’s noticed. We likely can’t stick around two days to watch what happens, but our Hothor contact will eventually mention the Thandol misfortune if it happens. We’re not telling him or the Hothor government that we were involved, or were ever near Wendal. We want to be somewhere else causing mayhem that we do get credit for, when it happens here.”
The five Scouts moved into their positions, which didn’t need to be close to the planet for their projectors to influence such a broad target zone, so they moved out several thousand miles. An hour after they were in position, they caused a string of what seemed to be unusual natural events, which soon would have dire consequences for some of the equatorial industries of Wendal. They would only have a day and a half, at most, to start evacuations, once they determined the three likely impact zones for tens of thousands of tons of metal. They would add three new planetary scars, to match the one left a year earlier.
Two days prior to the disaster, a humble Hothor servant, in his own quarters, spoke to a mysterious alien using a small paw held device. He knew the device could instantly communicate with similar devices at home, and using a different address, it could reach someone he was told had been an alien visitor to his home world a year ago.
He had no idea who or where this creature was, and wasn’t even shown pictures of one of them from their previous visit to Canji Mot, which was not publicized. What he didn’t know, he couldn’t reveal.
However, he’d heard the rumor at home that it was from another galactic civilization, which was opposed to the Thandol Empire, and was allied with the Olt’kitapi. Therefore, he and his government wanted to help them. He told mystery contact of the kitchen rumors heard at Thandol noble dinners, about where a fleet was being gradually assembled, and kept secret from even their own three security forces. This Hothor had never heard of the place, but he provided the name to the mysterious contact, and some numbers he didn’t understand, which supposedly indicated where it was located. He was thanked, and told to hide his device again, and to check it once a day. There would be requests for information from the alien, or instructions from his own government. It was an exciting time for a subservient species, and for a humble servant. Gimtha Pradwal hated those he was compelled to serve.
****
Maggi, looking for fresh ideas, linked to the other nine Kobani. “Our Hothor contact, Pradwal, called the star system a term in the subservient Thandol grammar that my new data base translated into a meaning that matches either with outcast two or outlaw two, which may not be good matches, but we don’t navigate by star names anyway. There also was a general location using Thandol coordinates, of where the star is in the galaxy.
“My problem is that when I look at that location on our navigation computers, which all use a recent copy of maps that an automated Olt’kitapi system on our clanships update, I found no stars within six light years of that location. That spot does fall within a twenty light year wide void in the Sagittarius Arm, within a region where the Finth perform Imperial security. They number their security sectors, and the Finth sector is number two.”
To head off questions, for which she’d already found answers, she added, “It shouldn’t be a case of our maps being incomplete, because clanships have advanced quantum computers that use a method, which the Torki and Raspani just told me they can’t duplicate yet, to update the galaxy map on a regular basis. The Olt’kitapi used the vast amount of information gleaned from large-scale tachyon background flows, which is somehow related to mass distribution in our nearby Universe, which for us is the Milky Way. What I mean, is that I believe our map is accurate, and I got fresh confirmation of that from our experts on Haven.”
Having framed the problem, she posed her question, “How can we find this damn place, without a week of searching stars at the edges of that void?”
Maggi had been determined to solve this on her own, because it involved, she thought, her translation of the Thandol dialect used by the Hothor’s personal translation device, which involved her Mind Taps of the Thandol officers.
On his first hearing of the problem, which she’d kept private while the other nine screwed with the atmosphere of Wendal; her husband inadvertently pissed her off, even as he impressed her. It was the simple tap of his lower lip, and not a long drawn out tug
indicating deep thought, that accomplished the irritation, and also provoking admiration.
“Why not accept the coordinates as correct? It would be a secret base if concealed from their three security forces, and who says it has to be around a star? Perhaps outlaw two or outcast two actually translates into something like rogue two, which is a relatively minor difference. That might mean there’s no star involved, if it’s a rogue planet.”
For a change, Sarge seemed to be defending his usual verbal antagonist. Perhaps it was payback for the earlier complement. “What difference would the translation make, Tet? Like Maggi said, we don't navigate by star names anyway, and a planet stuck out in a void? How would the Thandol move one there?”
He had an answer. “If the base is on a planet, slung out of some stellar system millions or even billions of years ago, those could be found anywhere. In Standard we call them rogue planets, but they are like an outcast. The more isolated the better, for a hidden base.”
“Then it’s kinda hard for the Thandol to find one then, isn’t it?”
Tet shrugged. “I think there are several thousand reported in PU astronomical records, from my younger days in the academy, becoming a Spacer. As new solar systems form, they evolve from chaotic disks, with collisions and near misses until the orbits settle down for the giant planets. Smaller planets can be completely thrown out by interactions with the giant planets. In fact…,” he paused a couple of seconds as he pulled a reference from a Comtap storage library.
“They’re called a rogue planet, nomad planet, free floating planet, and interstellar and starless planets. I think most of those we know about are a tiny fraction of the billions expected to reside in the galaxy. Most of those in Human Space seem to have been found via gravitational lensing, when the planet happened to pass in front of some distant star when a telescope was pointed that way.”
“Then how do we ever find this one? Wait for gravitational lensing?” It sounded like a challenge to do the impossible.
His attempted rescue of Maggi was properly rewarded, in her traditional manner. “We Jump there and look for a nearby mass, you twit. I hadn’t considered a lone planet as a possibility. Let’s get a move on. Rogue 2,” as she decided to name it, “is located in security sector two. I’ll bet there are Rogue 1 and Rogue 3 counterparts in the other two security zones.”
****
Delthab Trindal, of the Farlol nobility line, was the current High Commander and cousin to the Emperor. He was angrily addressing other assembled nobles, members of his High Command staff. “How did the Wendal Weather Bureau or the Imperial Stellar Observatory fail to predict the heating and expansion of the upper atmosphere this morning?
“If we had a stellar flare, why wasn’t there the usual radiation alert before the ejected coronal material reached us almost a cycle later? Those take a half cycle or more to travel this far. There should have been enough warning to send all of our orbital tugs aloft, to start moving unpowered structures out of danger. Why have we not experienced this effect in the past?”
There was a complete lack of response, because Trindal was speaking to nobles that had military training, but had no more knowledge concerning atmospheric dynamics than did Trindal.
“Get your assistants off all four foot pads, and lifting them quickly as they run, to find my answers. I’ll have to take what I know to the Emperor, and explain to him what is happening, well before the first streak of fire crosses the skies tomorrow morning, and he sees them for himself.”
The hours and alibis flowed steadily, without any firm answers. The experts said there had been no coronal mass ejection from the home star, and even if there had been, it might have damaged the ozone layer, and perhaps heated the highest layer, the thermosphere, but that was where low orbit objects routinely operated, and was essentially considered part of orbital space. What appeared to have happened was that part of the lower, and denser mesosphere, had briefly risen into the thermosphere as high as the Crusher remnants were orbiting.
With the three broad flat sides of those corner sections meeting the suddenly denser air, their orbits started to significantly decay. Once they lost ten miles of altitude, they were continuously traveling through slightly denser atmosphere every orbit. Even though called atmosphere, it was essentially a vacuum to any unprotected Thandol. Regardless, the panicked first reaction was to try to use the quickly available tugs to raise the orbits of all three objects. That rash decision divided the effort, so that none of the sections could be boosted high enough quickly enough. Their descents were merely slowed, and by the time more tugs were launched from the surface, and brought in from other planets and remote facilities in the system, none of the debris sections could be saved. It wasn’t certain if even one piece could have been saved from reentry from the very start.
Instead of answers being found, blame was being spread widely. Some tentacles pointed at a low-level governmental department, which was recovering the valuable scrap, using low orbits for speed and economy. It was claimed the low level provided fast and efficient movement of scrap from orbit to the ground. That governmental division in turn blamed Planetary Space Traffic Control, who had wanted the next higher orbits reserved for revenue producing satellites and space docks. The rationale was that the low orbit objects would be completely dismantled long before their orbits would encounter significant drag.
The Emperor was still furious that his personal ship, the Emperor’s Pride, was destroyed in the first place. Now these pieces, associated with his title and Imperial pride, were about to smash to the ground, reminding citizens of why they were called Crushers in the first place. They were expected to generate considerable destruction, and cause an unpredictable death toll, because evacuations were proceeding in a hectic and disorderly fashion, with more tentacles directing blame between various Imperial departments.
The combination of effects added to his previous sense of humiliation, and reminded his detractors that his personal ship was destroyed by a new enemy, one that he had created, practically over his head at the Empire’s heart. It made him suspicious of how this could happen again. It seemed like a convenient way to increase damage to his previous favorability with his alliance of imperial supporters. Typical coups seldom involved serious damage to the capitol world, or touched the population that kept the wheels turning, few of which would be of the Emperor’s herd. Only the most violent coups, in the early history of the empire had been like that.
Nevertheless, such an unlikely disaster smacked of a wide conspiracy to the Emperor. Why hadn’t his family nobles appointed to the High Command prevented this, or at least discover how it had happened? They hadn’t even offered a scapegoat to present to the public, as a sacrificial recipient of the blame. He needed a distraction from this fiasco to present to his supporters. Just not the one he received.
You tended not to notice a scratch on your tentacle, when your gonads got crushed.
****
“Holy crap!” Thad was awed. “We could make a bigger dent in their navy if we’d brought more Scouts, or just carried more reloads. These will be sitting ducks.”
He was referring to the collect of two orbiting Crushers, and a total of nearly six thousand Smashers, Stranglers, and a smaller class of pyramid design ships, parked on airless plains of the rogue planet. All of the Thandol large ship designs went beyond what was needed to simply accommodate the larger bodies of their crews. It apparently scaled with their large egos and self-esteem.
One ship class was underrepresented, with only five examples of Stompers, which could carry ceremonial ground troops. They were often used to put the conquerors on display, for a beaten species to see exactly to whom they owed subservience.
The coordinates that Pradwal had relayed, were obtained from other servant’s accumulated information, had been too approximate for exact navigation. They were likely rounded off versions the nobles used for conversational brevity, overheard from casual conversations. This put the Scouts only within a few bill
ion miles of a Mars scale rocky world, detected by it being the only nearby mass.
Its former atmosphere, apparently thin to begin with, was now frozen out as mounds of carbon dioxide deposits at what would have once been the original poles. There was a layer of water ice under the CO2, which appeared to be eroding away along the sides. The ancient poles were evidence now of how long this planet had been sunless. The axial drift of its rotation had long ago shifted the two masses of the polar icecaps to what was now the world’s equator. The frozen ball must have been drifting for billions of years, without the warmth of a star to sublimate or melt and redeposit the once polar deposits at the new axial poles. The water ice also stayed where it was, under the protective layer of CO2, but had found users for its treasure, which accounted for the eroded appearance of the sides of the ancient ice caps. It was being mined as a useful resource.
The Thandol had constructed four huge domes, two close to and on either equatorial side of the two ice bulges. Aside from the Thandol admiration of the number four, the dome placement was evidence of either their longevity here, or anticipated longevity. As they used the water ice, and perhaps some of the CO2, they didn’t want to disturb the dynamic balance of the planet’s rotation, so they kept the mass distribution along the current equatorial region, as they shifted material away from the two icecap bulges. Even so, it would take a very long time to redistribute enough mass to cause the present axis of rotation to shift again, perhaps causing crustal instability and quakes as that happened.
The domes were colored differently, one being white, another a golden color, one yellow, and one was tan. These were frequent colors seen on buildings on Wendal, with the golden shade found on the outside of many structures in the Emperor’s compound. White appeared where there seemed to be a bit less opulent luxury, yellow less still, and tan evidently was reserved for nobility of the lowest status, but still higher than the browns, grays, greens and deep blues of the commoner’s residences.
Koban 6: Conflict and Empire Page 39