Starflake (T'aafhal Legacy Book 3)

by Doug Hoffman

  “Don't know, Bubba, but I'm thinking any help killing Karf is welcome.”

  “Whatever. I think we need to contact the ship.”

  “Yeah, and then get back to our unit.”

  CIC, Peggy Sue

  “We finally got a drive signature on that bogey, Captain,” reported Lt. Hoenig from the bridge. “Looks like a close match for a standard Dark Lord messenger droid.” For reasons no one really knew, the robotic probes used by the Dark Lords and their minions were always called droids—perhaps a reference to the old Star Wars movies.

  “Thank you, Frank. Good work.” Billy Ray closed the comm channel and turned to his wife. “You heard him, sounds like we have sailed into hostile waters, Number One.”

  “Yes, Sir. It wouldn't be the first time.” She gave him a lopsided smile that she reserved only for him. “What do you think the response time will be, if there is a response?”

  “I don't know. This station doesn't seem to be of any strategic importance. Massive stars make good transfer points for ships using alter-space because transit times to and from tend to be short, but this station is way out in the boonies.”

  “I agree, it's not positioned conveniently to be a trading station or a base from which to control the nexus. It's a bit of a puzzle why it's here at all.”

  A signal came over the Marines' comm channel.

  “Peggy Sue, Peggy Sue, this is Davis. Do you read me?”

  Beth looked at the Captain and raised a single eyebrow. She keyed the comm and replied.

  “Davis, Peggy Sue, we read you. Interrogative your location and condition?”

  “Walker and I are both all right, Ma'am. We are in one of the minor spires and have encountered hostiles. I'm sending you our location and status info. Over.”

  “Roger that, Davis. Good to hear you lads are OK.”

  As the First Officer spoke a location marker for the two missing Marines appeared on the model Starflake in the main viewing tank.

  “They are quite a ways from where they disappeared,” Beth commented. “I wonder where they've been.”

  “Peggy Sue, there's something else you need to see. We are sending some recorded video.”

  “I copy, we are receiving your transmission.”

  On one of the side monitors a scene that was obviously taken by a suit camera came into view. It showed the Marine moving from a dark passage onto some form of catwalk. The scene suddenly became brighter, allowing details to be made out. There were more catwalks, a whole network of them crisscrossing the cavernous space. But what was more interesting was what was beneath the Marine's vantage point—row after row of white eggs.

  “Holy cow!” the Captain exclaimed. “Are those...”

  “It would appear so, Captain. The computer confirms those are type one antimatter containers—several thousand of them.”

  Chapter 31

  Bosco's Fireteam

  The Karf fired blindly, trying to hit the attacking Marines, though they met with little success. All they managed was to set a stand of grass ablaze. From above, sprinklers quickly doused the flames while the Marines advanced.

  Simba and Fanni flanked left while Bosco and Keti move right. Once they had the gray hostiles in a pocket between them, the Marines opened fire unleashing a torrent of 5mm flechettes. Both grass and Karf were scythed like overripe wheat.

  The Karf not struck down by the fireteam's onslaught scattered, headed for the presumed safety of the canebrake. Their presumption of safety was in error. Dropping from the bamboo wall came writhing clusters of tentacles. Multiple suckered arms coiled around the fleeing Karf, bringing them to the ground. Over their muffled shrieks could be heard crunching sounds.

  “Cease fire,” yelled Bosco. “Do not shoot the octopuses.”

  “Well I guess that answers the question of how the Orloo will react to an attack on their Karf wardens.”

  “That is for certain, Keti.” As Simba spoke, a Karf ran straight at him, evidently preferring to face the armored Earthlings than the tentacles and beaks of the spire's inhabitants. The Marine grabbed the running Karf as it tried to get by him. Lifting the gray biped by the neck, he threw the hostile back into the roiling mass of Orloo.

  “I am guessing the octopuses do not much care for the little gray men,” Fannie observed.

  “I'd say that is an understatement.”

  One particularly large Orloo rose up and approached the cluster of Marines. Bosco, being in charge, took a step forward to greet it.

  “We thank you for ridding us of the despised vermin,” the creature's reedy voice said through the computer translator. “We will enjoy hunting down the rest of the scum.”

  “It looks like they are no match for you, why didn't you take them out before this?”

  “They disarmed our ancestors when they arrived many orbits ago. Unarmed we didn't stand a chance against them.”

  “Da. The first thing you do when enslaving a people is to take away their weapons. Is old Russian saying.”

  “Not just Russian,” Fannie added. The Finns had a long history resisting subjugation, by Russia and others.

  Ignoring her, Bosco addressed the Orloo again. “We will leave you to finish cleaning up the Karf situation in this spire. I have been instructed to inform you that there will be a meeting in the Shopping Mall Spire in the near future. Our leaders wish to talk with representatives of the station's inhabitants about what will happen going forward. We will let you know when.”

  The Orloo blinked and inhaled loudly. “We will send representatives and tell others we know.”

  Then the octopus like creature pivoted and floated away, gliding on a mass of moving tentacles. The Marines took in the scene as the mass of Orloo vanished back into the grass and bamboo. There was nothing left of the Karf except for some spilled blue blood. The bodies and their weapons had both been carried away.

  “I guess our work here is done,” Keti quipped. “What's next, Bosco?”

  “Let me check in with Ice Castle. I'm sure there are more objectives just waiting for us.”

  CIC, Peggy Sue

  “Well now we know why the Starflake has an occupying force. That much antimatter is a treasure beyond calculation.”

  “Indeed, Captain. I think we can be assured of a response to that outward bound messenger droid.”

  “Roger that, Number One. The only question is when—weeks, months, years?”

  “Sooner rather than later I should think. That's assuming those being notified know what's hidden in the station core. JT question some of the locals earlier, inquiring about possible antimatter for refueling, and they all said there was not a bit of it about.”

  “I'm afraid we have to assume someone knows it's here. You don't leave something that valuable—and that dangerous—setting around unguarded. The only small mercy is that we will see them coming. Unless they are willing to burn a lot of fuel to get here it will take them several weeks from emergence.”

  “I take it that means we are staying in system?”

  “Yeah, we can't let this treasure trove slip back into the hands of the Dark Lords or their minions. We have to figure out how best to defend this thing.”

  “That or stand off and blow it up.”

  “Let's hope it doesn't come to that. I never really pictured myself as a mass murderer.”

  Beth nodded slowly in agreement, knowing that rather than lose the antimatter cache they would be forced to destroy it, and all those living on the station.

  “Let's find out how the Marines' are coming with pacifying the grays and whether Mizuki and Bobby have reestablished contact with the station itself. Just once I'd like a mission to go as planned.”

  “Where's the fun in that, Dear?” Beth smiled once again and opened a channel to JT aboard the station.

  Grits & Brains

  The two errant Marines sailed along the moving roadway at close to forty kilometers per hour. After finding their way down from the spire of the Braggitt they quickly figured out wh
ich direction to head on the web of transportation pathways. After a couple of minor interchanges they approached the base of the Shopping Mall spire.

  “Inuksuk, Davis. Walker and I are approaching you from the southeast. We would greatly appreciate not being brought under fire. Over.”

  “We're all right with it, but you may need to talk to the battle bot,” came the reply. The bear spoke truly. The battle bot, watching over the interchange from a raised point near the freight elevator, came alive as it detected the two Marines' approach. A multi-barreled railgun swung menacingly toward the southeast.

  “Tell that bucket of bolts that we didn't spend a day wandering around in the guts of the station to get blasted by friendly fire,” Grits transmitted. Normally he let Brains handle communicating with the others, but he was not taking chances this time.

  “Don't worry, just make sure your IFF transponders are on. Where have you two primates been? You ducked out at the start of the fun.”

  The two men swooped down an on ramp, crossed the main roadway, and stepped off onto the central area before they could be swept around the main roundabout. They were becoming quite adept at riding the station transport system. The robot gun platform, evidently satisfied that Grits and Brains were friendlies, placed its weaponry back in standby position.

  Walking up to the others, Brains said, “What are you up to? Why aren't you out clearing spires?”

  “We are the rapid response force, at least that is what Vinny says.” The polar bear motioned to one of his armored companions.

  “What I've been doing,” Vinny added, “is listen to these two bitch and moan about not being in on the Karf hunt.”

  “Putz,” Zippy said. “Where did you two meat-heads go to hide?”

  “Let me tell you, darlin', we been to places deep inside this station that no human or ursine was ever meant to see. Huge whirling garbage disposals, giant vats of acid filled with dissolving bodies, pipes and machinery that makes no Earthly sense.”

  “Not only that,” his partner chimed in, “while you moaning Minnies have been here mucking about, we found something that will make your eyes pop out of your heads.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like a vault filled with enough antimatter to make us all richer than Croesus, that's what.” As usual, things the officers thought were being kept quiet spread through the ranks like wildfire.

  “Your shitting me,” Vinny exclaimed.

  “Get over, mate. While you were here whacking off we were doing important things.”

  “You tell 'em, Brains. The XO said we did real good, finding that AM.”

  Zippy sniffed. “Just like you two to fall into a pile of shit and come up with roses in your teeth.”

  “How much AM did you find?” Inuksuk's voice had a skeptical edge to it.

  “From what we could see, several hundred big containers, maybe a thousand. They disappeared out of sight so there's no telling how many total.”

  Vinny whistled. “AM is the most valuable substance in the galaxy. That much must be worth about a fortune.”

  Zippy did a quick calculation on her suit computer. “Worse than that. A thousand type one eggs hold more energy than four million one megaton bombs. We are standing on the biggest bomb ever seen.”

  “Yeah, and we've been running around shooting the crap out of anything that moves.”

  For a while, the five Marines were very quiet.

  Shopping Mall, Starflake

  While JT was occupied keeping tabs on the Marine raiding parties, Mizuki and Bobby were left standing around the Tcist pond, awaiting renewed contact. The room they were in had a lovely view of the Starflake's nearby spires, both large and small. Sending the other sailors back to patrolling, Chief Jacobs took it upon himself to guard the Danners and their pool full of flatworms. In reality, he was hoping to find out what was really going on aboard the station.

  “So these little fellas spoke to you earlier?” Matt asked the officers in what he hoped was an innocent, conversational tone. Both Matt and his friend Steve Hitch had been crew since the first voyage of the original Peggy Sue, back when it was known only as Parker's Folly. They had been in many tough scrapes and battles along side Bobby and Mizuki, who counted them as close friends, the gap between officers and crew not withstanding.

  “It is not the flatworms that are intelligent, Matt,” Mizuki corrected. “The intelligence resides in the moss on the worms backs. And yes, they have spoken to us, back before we took them from the Karf.”

  Bobby was kneeling by the newly constructed pool, fiddling with a device attached to the crystal material lining the pond. “The Tcist, as it called itself, claims to run the stations machinery—air, power, gravity, whatever. If we could communicate with it we might be able to isolate the grays more rapidly.”

  “You think this Tcist creature controls those yellow trolls and the big pink cleaning Frisbees?”

  “Hai. That would explain why the whooboo built this new pool for the Gloam even before we brought the creatures to this spire. We told the Tcist where we were headed before moving them.”

  Bobby stood up.

  “As far as I can tell the transmitter/translator is working fine, our friends in the pond are just not saying anything.”

  “At least we have gotten everybody who went missing back: you and Dr. Ogawa, and those two Marines.”

  “Yeah, we've been lucky Chief. Let's hope our luck holds.”

  Unnoticed, the creatures in the pond began to align. A synthesized voice intruded on their conversation.

  “You have caused great destruction... why are you doing this?”

  “Hot damn, the Tcist are talking again!” Bobby opened the translator channel. “It is good to talk with you again, we were afraid that we had damaged you when we escaped from the Karf.”

  “We are fine. Why are others of your kind destroying parts of the station?”

  “We are sorry about the damage, but it could not be helped. We are in the process of forcibly removing the grays from their position of control over the station's other residents.”

  There was a noticeable pause.

  “Why?”

  “Because they have enslaved the other species present, they even imprisoned part of you. Did you not expect us to remove the Karf after we freed you?”

  “We appreciate having been removed from the Karf's control. We are not responsible for the relationships among the various inhabitants, or damage to their own constructs. We are responsible for damage to the station's infrastructure—it distresses us.”

  “We have neutralized most of the Karf's heavy weapons and are in the process of confining them to their primary habitat. There should be no other major damage to the station, but I can make no promises.”

  “Some of your warriors wandered deep inside the station core, this is not permitted.”

  “Oh?” Bobby paused. The Captain had informed them of the antimatter hidden deep within the station. He could not believe that the Tcist were unaware of the AM cache. “Why? Are you trying to keep the cache of antimatter containers stored there secret?”

  There was another, much longer pause by the Tcist. The Earthlings waited patiently and eventually the voice of the station spoke again.

  “The station's primary function is to collect and concentration antimatter. We have been doing this for over a million years—since the builders abandoned us. We have let other species live in the habitable spaces, as long as they did not interfere with our primary purpose. This poses a quandary for us.”

  “What? That we know you have enough AM in your core to power a fleet of starships? Are you saying that no one knows about the antimatter store?”

  “The Builders knew, but not any of the subsequent inhabitants. At least none that we know of... though there is one race we suspect of knowing.”

  “Which one? Which spire do they live in?”

  “They are not residents of the station. They visited here over 10,000 years ago. Many of the residents wer
e killed and it was they who infected the station with the accursed vermin.”

  Bobby muted the translator and said to Mizuki, “Oh this just keeps getting better and better.”

  “We had best tell Billy Ray and Beth.”

  “They are not going to like finding out that the Starflake is a secret fuel dump for some long gone aliens. Or that the species who last conquered it—and left the gray bastards in charge—might know what the station really is.”

  “That is precisely what we need to tell them. We should return to the ship so we can talk face to face. Besides, I'm dying to get out of this suit.”

  “Yeah, and I'll bet your butterflies are going crazy. We can take the pinnace.”

  Standing in the background, Matt was doing what enlisted personnel do when officers are working a problem—play invisible and hope not to catch any crap. As the Danners left the room Bobby turned to him.

  “Chief, keep a guard on this room. I don't want anyone in or out except on Lt. Taylor's orders.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir.” Matt came to attention as the officers exited, thinking, Man, wait until Stevie hears this! This furball has only just begun.

  Part Three

  Blessed Are The Peacemakers

  Chapter 32

  Shopping Mall Plaza, The Starflake

  A month had passed since the Peggy Sue's Marines finished securing the Starflake. After some convincing, the Tcist helped by sealing off access to the spire containing the Karf habitat. Now the vicious gray bipeds were safely sealed inside their own spire, with robotic guards keeping an eye out for any attempt to escape confinement.

  After isolating the Karf, restoring the Tcist, and securing a quartet of full type one antimatter storage containers for the ship, Billy Ray figured the next step was to settle the natives down. To begin the process, he called a meeting in the main plaza of the Shopping Mall. A number of resident species were represented.

  The Orloo were present, several bearing appropriated Karf plasma rifles, as were the frog like Braggitt. The Kieshnar-rak-kat-tra were there wearing jewels and daggers at their waists. Their pungent scent ensured they had a space of their own. Hiding timidly around the edges of the crowd were the Hoon. Even a pair of Hisstow, the cat-lizard bully-boys used by the Karf, could be seen in the shadows.