by Don Koch
"That will be interesting to explore. We are interested in having your presence in our system when you can arrange that. I think it would be prudent to have the protection you can provide to supplement our own capabilities."
"I will be happy to relay that request to my commander."
Ossar then addressed the two young officers, "Gentlemen, the next time you are in port, please visit me so we can trade tall tales and inventive lies. It will be informal so you need not dress up too fancy. Just present these cards at the gate to the palace and you will be brought to me if I am not involved in some state function."
Janie, who had been watching, instructed the two officers,
"Commander, I am afraid I must get back to my office before someone starts to worry. Thank you for a most enlightening day."
Ossar was returned to his palace. The Admiral was returned to his station by Ed and Janie. Before they departed, the Admiral said
Sider immediately ordered a full scan of himself and those in contact with the monarch and the Admiral. He also ordered a shift in orbit positions. "Move the two ships previously displayed to new orbit, 250 miles above the old orbits offset by 100 miles."
The scans were clean. He ordered a similar scan of Ed and Janie and of the two crewmen who met with Ossar. Ed and Janie were clear but the cards given to the two crewmen were not. The cards were isolated in a special chamber where the type of information being transmitted was determined. Get those things off the ship now, put them in the space we just vacated.
Diden and Juna arrived and were met by Sider and Fema. Sider brought them all up to date on their meeting with Ossar and the Admiral. "I want you to stay here for a few months and keep an eye on things. I do not want them to know you are here. While you are here have your crews complete repairs, installation of the upgraded drives and cloaking devices and get those ships out where we can start using then to gather intel. The sooner we have more eyes on what is going on the region, the better I will feel. I do not want any external persons to know where you are. This may all be nothing but something feels just enough off to have me take precautions. I am going to ask Andy and Aston to send out an Aston ship so we can get a better read on what is going on here. Everyone is already tagged with armor and communications activated."
"Got it. I have a sense of the precautions and I am inclined to agree with all of that in the absence of a truth detector until we know a lot more. We will be quite cautious."
"Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean nobody is out to get me." They all laughed at the old joke. “I am also going to ask Andy and Aston to dispatch an Aston ship out here."
Ed and Janie related the Admiral's closing message. Curiouser and curiouser.
Sider dispatched a message to Andy, Collum and Aston describing the visit and the discomfort he had experienced and their findings. He requested the assignment of an Aston ship with 100 teams of Solarans. Collum advised Andy that he had always trusted Sider's instincts and they almost always had a solid basis. Andy asked Aston to dispatch an Aston ship to get to the bottom of whatever was stirring Sider’s concerns.
Back on board Sider's ship, a highly agitated crew member who was trying to get Sider's attention and was finally successful. Sider asked him what was so urgent. The crewmember produced a pair of scans and gave them to Sider. "I was practicing with the DNA scanner when you came by with the Samar Admiral Mintz and the Monarch. So I did a scan. Didn't think too much of it because I didn't have a baseline for comparison. When I was looking at the scans the Admiral's scans did not jump out at me but the Monarch's scans fairly screamed at me. He is enhanced in the same way as the three scans we took of those individuals on the Sorzan ship. He is one of the 20 prisoners that escaped from the maximum security prison at Delt about 40 years ago. His name is Ossa Card."
Chapter 29 - Another Takedown
# Task Force B Flagship – in Samar Orbit #
# Monday, August 22 #
# Later that day #
"Duty officer, have there been any strange superlight transmissions from Samar since we arrived?"
"No Sir."
"There will be. Do everything you can to block it. It is important that no message get through. Actually critical."
"On it sir. Blocks are up full. The other battleships are likewise blocking." "Wow, sir, how did you know?"
"Know what?"
"There is a signal coming out seconds after you asked us to block and we have it blocked easily."
"Outstanding. Order battle stations all ships."
They teleported to the Admiral's quarters aboard the station invisibly. Sider asked the Admiral to respond only mentally.
They returned to the ship.
The explosive devices turned out to be very unsophisticated. They did each however have an under skin capsule with a fatal toxin that could be released for a variety of reasons. This was the real problem they faced. Janie suggested that they had a sufficient number of Solarans adept in creating miniforce fields around the capsules that could then be teleported out of the bodies. This was all done in three minutes and the hostages were moved to a location 100 miles distant for scanning and evacuation. The three escapees were captured and taken to a concrete structure 300 miles from the palace. The structure was severe and had automated facilities for food and other needs. The building was circular with a 60 foot radius. In the center of the room, sitting in a jar of alcohol were the nine capsules removed from the hostages.
They all nodded in agreement.
"You are all enhanced but the toxins in these thing are more than enough to overcome even those enhancements." They then proceeded to implant the capsules in areas of the body that could not be readily reached for extraction. "This of course means that you can never leave this cell unless you w
ish to die. Also the tracking devices and communicator circuits that you had in your bodies have been disabled and key components actually removed. The walls of this building are as far as you can go without activating the capsules. The capsules have been reprogrammed for this location. If you leave the building you will activate the capsules and die. Consider this a continuation of your sentence to Delt with insurance."
Twenty five minutes later, Sider, Ed and Janie again appeared in the Admirals quarters and said, "Please come with us, we have something to show you."
They teleported to a picnic area where a veritable feast was spread out. There present were the real Ossar, the Admirals wife and children, his sister, her husband and her child and the Admirals parents. Ossar rose to greet the Admiral. "The Solarans have told me how you kept us alive and put what roadblocks you could in the path of the Sorzans. I am honored to have you as my friend. The Solorans have also agreed to do a complete scan of our system to see if there are any other Sorzan remnants. Come let us relax and rejoice. The universe has just grown a bit more for us." At that his wife and children and family smothered him with attention and there were tears of joy in his eyes.
Sider returned to the palace and proceeded to study and remove Sorzan materials. Of particular interest was the communications station. From that they were able to establish the approximate location of the Sorzan base. The equipment was all powered down, dismantled, shielded and prepared for shipment to the Lunar base where it would be studied. All equipment was scanned tor trackers and where found, they were removed.
# Task Force B Flagship – in Samar Orbit #
# Wednesday, August 24 #
In the mountains west of the palace, they found an intact Sorzan vessel of the large type. There were no Sorzans aboard. This too was prepared for shipment to Luna after cleansing of tracers and beacons. The ship itself was fairly primitive with low top end speed but with particularly powerful energy weapons. This ship was capable of inflicting substantial damage. When the ship was ready it was teleported up to one of the carriers.
While all of these preparations were under way, Andy advised Sider that a relief task force would be on its way by the end of the month to give him and his crew some well deserved down time. Similar units were being prepared for Lota and Fair. All would be configured for higher speed and cloaking. The Lota Task Force would also include a reconstruction unit to start working on clean up and repairs to the damage from the Sorza.
Sider was surprised at the number of ships becoming available and asked what was going on. Andy noted that this was due to several innovations that had occurred since their departure. The first of these was the agreement to utilize the Grell shipyards. He explained the significant changes coming their way via that agreement. Since the Grell would be providing new ships, upgrades to old ships and the like, the transfer from that location to Luna was now reversed. Also there had been a restructuring of the make up of the various kinds of task forces that would be routinely used. Since their area of responsibility was rapidly expanding, they had to be ready to capably accept those responsibilities. Recruitment of Solarans was over 63,000 and with the awakening of those Lotans in Stasis and those interested at Fair, meeting needs did not appear to be a major concern.
# Wednesday, August 31 #
The arrival of the relief task force was a welcome event. Everyone was ready to get back to Sol. After the exchange formalities and the introductions to Ossar and Admiral Mintz, Sider's fleet took off for Sol.
Research on the data collected by Sider and his crew had pretty much convinced Andy and his advisors that the remainder of the Florin Dael and his Sorzans would likely be found in the system 36 light years from Samar and 31 light years from Aquarii. Two of the new battleships had been dispatched that morning to gather intelligence so that planning for the final takedown of the Sorza could begin. Separate ships had been dispatched to relieve the ships in the Aquarii system. Two days later Sider was back at Luna.
Luna bases had been expanded and were now capable of handling 20 million persons. The 8 million sleepers that came with the 71 Lotan ships were gradually being awakened. Since they were expecting to be the only survivors, they were overjoyed that there were another 200 million Lotans out there but still dismayed at their loss of so many people. Testing for Soloran candidates was continuing and a surprising number of those eligible wanted to take part in the reconstruction of their planet.
Meanwhile the original 10 type 1's took some time off to take care of some personal matters. Nikolay and Anya were able to take the 6 hour trip from Grell using one of the 4 man gun ships. They landed at the moon base and joined their friends at the Whale Point Lodge.
Chapter 30 - Wedding Bells
# Juneau – Whale Point Lodge#
# Friday, September 2 #
It was quite a gathering. Somehow the entire original group had managed to get back, all of them, even those who were out of system. Paulo, Rosa and Estella were there, having come in the night before on one of the new super fast shuttles from Fair. They brought with them Vill, Ora and Reia Tomas along with a couple of the first Solarans from Fair. Paulo's parents were also there and they were treating Vill, Ora and Reia like long lost kin. Paulo's cousin Raul Ortega from Portland was there. He had moved to Juneau and was working for Paulo's parents. Others came and went courtesy of Aston.
Aston now had his clones at Fair, Grell, Lota, Samar and Earth. Several more were at Luna. One was with the huge vessel discovered in the Aquarii Oort cloud with 200 million stasis units. That vessel was currently on its way to earth along with the battleship that remained with it and the three additional battleships that had been sent out to retrieve them. One of these battleships was a Lotan vessel that had been converted to one of the new class of super heavy movers. It would arrive in the Sol system late that evening.
Collum and his crews noted that they were happy to provide backup while the ceremonies took place. At some point during the day, every Solaran on Earth made an appearance at the lodge. Janie had brought in Sergeant Lee Adams and his wife from London. The Sergeant was a bit surprised to learn where they were and the mix of Solarans in "civvies". He and Sean hit things off handsomely. The Sergeant would be able to stay for a few additional days so he and his wife were occupying one of the "guest rooms" at the Whale Point Condos. Since the tourist season was still underway, in spite of the Fall-like weather that Juneau was experiencing, the locals paid little attention to the fanfare thinking it was a tourist function of some sort.
Nikolay and Anya were to be married at the Russian Orthodox church in downtown Juneau on Saturday Morning while Andy and Pat; Gus and Barb, Jeff and Judy, and Ed and Janie would have a single ceremony at St. Paul's in the Mendenhall Valley at noon. The newly designated National Shrine, the Shrine of St. Therese was the preferred choice of the couples but was too small for a quadruple wedding.
In spite of the numbers, it was to be a small wedding. Sean and Jeanne agreed to be best man and matron of honor for each of the couples and that reduced the numbers at the altar infinitesimally. With the exceptions of Raul, Sergeant Adams and his wife, all the attendees were Solarans.
Josè Gomez surprised everyone by introducing his new wife who was also a new Solaran. He was obviously happy and his new bride was a delight. They had met while he was walking a beach close to his second home near Zihuatanejo. She was a high school mathematics teacher in Zihuatanejo. During one date after they had become enamored with each other she pulled out a newspaper article where his picture was shown talking with El Presidente and said, "That man in the picture looks so much like you that he could be your brother and his last name is Gomez. Is he your brother?"
His response surprised her, "No, that is not my brother, that is me." He quickly explained that he was not supposed to be in this location and his whereabouts was a secret to prevent assassins from finding him.
She told him that they would have to be a bit more careful about his disguise and accepted him as he was. Aston
had done a personality scan on her and was convinced she was genuinely in love with Josè. He asked Andy for permission to recruit her for the Solarans. Andy agreed. A few nights later, Josè carrying a heavy coat over his arm, selected an appropriate site and proposed to her. "There is something else you need to know before you say yes, and it is best that I show you. Now do not be shocked by what happens next.” He teleported with her to the scene overlooking the Taku Glacier. He draped the warm coat about her and told her he was a Solaran and wanted her to become one as well. After an explanation, she agreed. They were married the following day.
At one point, Sergeant Adams and his wife went over to meet Ed, Janie's husband to be. Ed was delighted and said, "Sir I am delighted to meet you. You know of course the business we are in and the people we deal with are pretty bad at times. It is nice to know that there are good people in the world and Janie and I know you are one of them. In that sense you and people like you are the props for us to continue on our path. For that we sincerely thank you. We have this little gift for you that we thought you might like to have." Ed handed him a small box. Inside the box was a small framed photograph of a younger Janie and her Uncle Lee. Written in the lower right corner of the photo were the words, "To my other favorite Uncle Lee, Janie." The other original Solarans had gathered around the couple and were softly applauding. Sergeant Adams had tears in his eyes. Janie went to him and gave him a big hug. "Lad, you have there a treasure. I will cherish this always." With that the rest started cheering and whooping. The party was back on.