by Frank Carey
###
Nebulon sat back and drank her coffee as she realized she was running out of journals. "They were as advanced as we are now, yet the attackers almost wiped them out in five years," she said to herself as she got a fresh cup. "I wonder how the League would fare if those forces showed up today?"
###
Five years after the start of the war…
"Mr. Montrose, ETA," Capt. Cutty said from the command chair.
"One hour, ma'am. They've started preparing the Solar Cruiser for launch."
"Mr. Montrose, you have the con. I'll be in launch bay three," she said as she got out of her chair and left the bridge.
In launch bay three the controlled chaos reached a crescendo pitch as the Solar Cruiser was being prepared for launch. The ship hovered just off the deck as technicians checked, double-checked, and triple-checked its systems. Cutty watched intently, not knowing how to feel. Part of her hoped that all would go as planned and the war would be effectively ended, but part of her was horrified by the impending death of her closest friend.
"Isn't she beautiful," Orgath said as he put his gloved hand on her shoulder.
Startled, she jerked around and fell backward as he caught her. "How the hell do you walk so quietly even when wearing a full radiation suit?"
"Years of practice. Well, it's time," he said as he smiled at her in a feeble attempt to reassure her.
She just reached over and hugged him. "Anything you need me to do?" she asked.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box, which he handed to her. She opened it and found a seed. "What's this?"
"I picked this up on the op to Erda. I would be deeply grateful if you would plant it on Rhanna. I understand it should flourish there."
"I will make sure it is planted and cared for," she said with tears in her eyes. "It's time."
Admiral Orgath boarded the Solar Cruiser and soon signaled he was ready. The Death Dealer dropped out of FTL space close to the star. "Launch," Capt. Cutty said and the small ship leapt out of the bay and into the burning light of the nearby sun.
###
Nebulon found she had run out of Journals, so she called over to the other library and requested someone bring over the last five volumes. Within a few minutes she was back to reading.
###
Capt. Salah Cutty stood on the rise and looked out over the complex of storage buildings clustered around the primary and secondary bridge terminals. The last of the ships were offloading before flying off to be dismantled. Soon, Rhanna would be their only home. She could see the technicians leaving the primary building having finished the dismantling of the generator. The secondary was still in use as the last of the depots were being emptied. Soon, the Erdexi would be gone from space, at least that's what everyone was hoping would be perceived.
"Leader, the Journals have been sealed in their crypts as have been most of the parts needed to rebuild a bridge to Erda," her assistant, Jeddah, said as he stopped next to her.
"Someday, Jeddah, we'll return to our homes. Until then we must play the part of primitives as we rebuild our lives. Have the other Leaders decided where the villages will be located?"
"Yes. They need your final approval, ma'am."
Jeddah and Salah walked back down the hill leaving behind a small mound of dirt where Salah had planted the seed that her friend had given her. Like the Erdexi race, it would grow and thrive and wait.
###
"Why do you weep?" a voice asked from the darkness at the back of the room.
Nebulon looked up from the journal while bringing up her blaster. "Who's there? Show yourself."
Lexa and Doma walked out of the shadows and stood in front of Nebulon's desk. Lexa reached into her pouch and took out a device which she placed on the table between them. She and Doma tapped their earcomm, activating them and the translator program in the scanner.
"I am Lexa and this is Doma. We're…"
"Erdexi, I know, Nebulon said as she spun the journal around so they could see the open page. It was a drawing of an Erdexi male and female standing next to a spaceship. "Have a seat. Need some water? We have a hell of a lot to talk about."
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Still bothered by Nebulon's behavior, Jason went over to the main tent to see what information he could elicit from the staff or guards.
The main tent bustled with activity as guards came and went from their postings along the fence. Jason saw the Guard Leader standing by the impromptu bar at the back of the tent, so he walked over and struck up a conversation.
"Damn busy place you have here. My name's Jason. I'm not keeping you from anything, am I?"
"No, you're not keeping me from anything, so you can buy me a drink," she said, putting her empty glass down on the worn wood top. "Name's Sheila, by the way."
Being half-human and raised by a human ship's crew, Jason was always fascinated by the different approaches the two species took to courtship. If he was dealing with a human female, he would be expected to be the aggressor, but with a Tralaskan female, he was expected to be more on the submissive side. Some of his human friends had found this out the hard way.
He motioned to the bartender to fill the glass. He put down a one hundred credit note and took the bottle. Some Tralaskan females had a very high tolerance to ethanol.
"Thank you," she said as she drained the glass in one gulp. "You came in with that Dr. Blyst woman, didn't you?"
"Yes, ma'am," he said as he refilled her glass. "I'm her assistant and occasional chauffeur."
"You drive her around?"
"No, I fly her around. I'm a pilot." Jason learned a long time ago that telling the truth was the best way to gain trust.
"Really. I hate space, and I hate being off Tralaska."
"Yet you took up the Space Merc trade."
"You can't beat the pay. I'll make enough money from this job to see my mate and kids have a good life."
"How many?" Jason asked as he changed tactics.
"Kids or mates?"
"Both, I think."
"Three kids and one mate, silly," she answered, smiling.
They talked awhile about her kids and her one mate. Jason got the impression that she was a very loving and caring person who had a very not-loving career.
"So, are all these people under your command?" he asked.
"Yep. All twenty of them. I bark and they jump," she said.
"I don't like to pry, but why so many when we've got a force fence?"
"The damn davits keep testing the fence. All day long they poke things into it."
"I thought they were savages?"
"Lord no. I'm not supposed to tell anyone this, but I was with Ms. Fiona when she first had a talk with them. They speak Standard!"
"That's incredible! All the way out here? What did they say?"
She told him about the heated conversation between the davit leader, Veak and Fiona. Ciara and Fiona could be fiery when provoked. "Oh, and they're invisible," she said in passing.
"Who's invisible?"
"The davits. Two of my men had a canteen stolen in the afternoon sun while standing in the open. We even have it on vid. Oh, look at the time. I have to make my rounds. Thanks for the drinks. Your Dr. Blyst is a very lucky woman," she said as she walked off to see to her duties.
Jason got up and walked over to a table in the corner and sat down so he could watch the crowd. He pulled out his datapad and started a series of searches through the device's copies of the League databases. First, he looked for any colonists or diasporic groups that may have taken up residence this far outside the boundaries of League space. Finding nothing, he turned to the supposed invisibility of the davits. He found one reference about an arboreal creature on Tralaska that could mimic invisibility through changes in skin pigmentation and a very weak form of telepathy. It could literally convince its prey that nothing was there. No sentient race was listed as having this capability.
"So, half-breed, what are you looking for?"
Jason looked up and saw Stark standing next to him, obviously drunk, or perhaps he had fed too much. "Stark, how nice to see you. Hope the stun blast didn't give you too much of a headache.
Stark grabbed him by the wrist and squeezed while the guards in the room stopped and watched, unsure whether they should intervene. "Very funny. Next time, make sure it's set to kill."
Jason reached over and grabbed Stark's wrist and put pressure on two places. "I used to date a Venlanten. She taught me a lot about your physiology," he said as he increased the pressure. Stark screamed while releasing his hold. "One interesting difference between your species and humans is that you have two brachial nerves which come much closer to the surface than the one humans have."
"Release me, damn you," Stark whispered.
"I've been told that if I apply enough pressure in just the right places, I can stop your heart. Should we test that out?"
"Stop!" Stark said barely breathing.
"Jason, he's not worth it," a voice said from behind him. It was the Guard Leader.
Jason released Stark and stepped back. "Stay away from me and stay away from Nebulon or, I swear, I will end your miserable existence. Capisce?" he said as he gathered his things and left the tent.
"Why didn't you shoot him?" Stark growled at Guard Leader. Around the room, guards quietly put their hands on their sidearm.
"I thought about it, but then I thought I would probably miss and hit you. We didn't sign on to be your posse, sir. We hired on to protect everyone from the threats outside. I suggest you don't put yourself in that category."
Stark glared at her before leaving the tent to seek medical aid.
Jason headed back to the ship so that he could have some privacy in his stateroom when someone grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.
"Are you insane? What happened in there with Stark?" Fiona said.
"He grabbed my arm, and I convinced him how ill advised that action was."
"What is up between you two?"
"Probably has something to do with my stunning him on Orinoco Station."
"When was he on Orinoco and why did you feel the need to stun him?"
Jason explained about Carlos and how Stark was threatening him."
"Stark threatened Carlos? Why?"
"Actually, he's Carla now. She had some work done on Cora. She and a friend of hers found your Depot and were going to tell OffSec about it."
"Carlos is now Carla. Wow, that's a mind bender! Wait a minute. What the hell would OffSec care about a penny ante operation like ours?”
"You'd better sit down," he said as he walked her over to a table under an umbrella. He proceeded to tell her about the disasters related to the orb generators.
Fiona went pale. "You must be wrong. That couldn't happen. The engineer said they were safe."
Jason pulled out his datapad and set it to holographic display. He replayed the Ascendant's cockpit tapes from the moment they took-off from Tenosh. She watched in horror as a chunk of planet flew by Nebulon's window.
"How many dead?" she asked, stunned.
"Three billion at last count," he said.
"Why are you here?"
"To stop this from ever happening again. I need to know where every artifact and orb generator is so that we can retrieve them and return them to their rightful owners, preferably defused."
"Who are we?"
"OffSec."
"Are you going to arrest us?"
"No. I'm here only to gather information on the whereabouts of the artifacts and orb generators."
"What about me?"
"I don't know, to be honest. Thorenn is the brains behind this, and Stark is the muscle. We have evidence that the devices were stolen, and we're on the trail of the perps, assuming they weren't in the stadium when the first generator lit-off. Right now, I need you to just keep this conversation between us and go about your normal business."
"What about Nebulon?"
"She's just a researcher working on solving a mystery. I'm the one who is acting nefariously."
"I've got to get back to work. You've given me a lot to think about," she said as she got up and walked back to the tent.
Jason sat and watched for a moment before gathering his stuff and returning to check on Nebulon.
###
"Nebulon, it's Jason. You decent?" he said when he returned to the office.
"Come on in," she said, so he went inside only to find himself facing two beings, one male, one female, and both over two meters tall.
"Jason, this is Lexa," Nebulon said, pointing to the female, "and Doma," she said, pointing to the male. "They're Erdexi."
Jason just stared at them.
"Is he having a seizure?" Doma asked as he stepped away from the transfixed Jason.
"You okay?" Nebulon asked, concerned.
Without taking his eyes off the two Erdexi, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled photograph which he carefully handed to Nebulon.
"By the gods, who is that?" she said as she handed it to Lexa who showed it to Doma.
"My mother, Lady Laya, Countess of House Jurta."
"Your mother is Erdexi?" Lexa asked.
"She looks Erdexi. Kind of cute, too," Doma said.
Lexa swatted him. "Behave," she said as she handed the picture back to Nebulon.
"No, she is one hundred percent Tralaskan. She has an extremely rare condition that came to a head when I was conceived.”
"Retractile claws and canines. The skeleton in the lab! Your mother is a Tyen?" Nebulon said as she rubbed her ear.
"I guess. She says the condition goes back hundreds of centuries. The question is, though, why does she look like she could be Lexa's sister?"
"The answer could lie in the journals in the other library I only read the last five of them."
While Nebulon spoke, Jason walked to a packing box and found a small mirror. He brought it over to Nebulon and held it up while he pulled back her hair.
"Excuse me?" she said. She stopped when she looked in the mirror and saw her ear. It was elongated and pointed. She looked at her eyes and saw they were turning deep blue. She dropped the mirror and looked at her fingernails while she tried to extend them. Instead of a millimeter, they grew to at least three centimeters. "What's happening to me?"
"I would guess you have the gene, and it isn't recessive anymore. Something activated it, and you're becoming a Tyen," Jason said as he tried to calm her. "Hey, my mother's been one for forty years and, hell, Doma thinks she's sexy."
"Very funny. Any idea what I should expect?"
"You’ll' be faster, stronger, and think faster than you could ever imagine. Oh, you'll be able to smell a hamburger from a mile away."
"You have a bigger problem," Lexa said.
"Really? And that would be?"
Doma, who had been peering out the door, opened it wide so they could see a massive storm forming to the west. "A scour," he said.
"A scour is the mother of all storms. It will literally scour the land in its path. My father has assembled an army of thousands of warriors which is advancing on this compound just in front of the storm. He will use it to mask his army and short out your fence. He plans to take all of you prisoner."
"Lexa, what if we just leave and send back emissaries to negotiate the return of your artifacts?" Nebulon asked.
"He would listen, if you were out of here when he arrives. Anyone still here would be taken prisoner. After that, I just don't know."
"Ok, then. You two get out of here, and tell Lexa's father we're leaving. Jason, find Fiona and get her to evacuate everyone. I'll pack my notes and hardware. Lexa, you have my word that I will not take your journals. Jason, call me when we're ready to get out of here."
"By the way, the boys are right. That's a really good look on you," Lexa said as she and Doma left out the door at the rear of the room.
"I told you," Jason said as he opened the front room to leave.
Nebulon threw a coffee cup at him. "G
o and get us out of here," she said as she saw the approaching storm.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The Protector sat on the edge of the Elspeth expanse and listened to the ether as its powerful radio receivers tracked the small devices inside Nebulon and Jason. Waiting inside Protector’s forward lounge, Natalie and Carla spoke of days long past as they attempted the impossible task of not worrying about their two friends.
"Ange will tell us if something happens, right?" Carla said as she nursed her beer.
"Of course, either that or the sound of alert klaxons will give us a clue."
"I hate waiting."
"They also serve who stand and wait."
"Who said that?"
"John Milton, Earth poet. It's from his 'On His Blindness' sonnet."
"Damn, you are a learned woman."
"I get around. I can also toast bread. Why are you slowing down? You're still on your first beer."
"I want to be sober in case, you know, something happens," she said. She reached into a pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, which she handed to Nat."
"I know, what you mean. What's this?"
"Official League Pilot's Certificate. I forgot to tell you all that I finally got one. In a pinch, I can fly Ascendant."
"Who are you and what did you do with Carla?"
"I got smart and went straight, and this was before I got all girled-up. Jason finally got through to me. By the way, I'm truly sorry about all the bullshit I put you through. It was uncalled for."
"You're for real, aren't you? Would you have pulled that crap if you knew I was an Orta and this was only a survival suit?"
Carla looked at her. "Don't go there. The answer would only disgust and dismay you. Now that my brain has had time to adjust to this new form, I can honestly say no. Back then? We should just not go there."
Nat looked at Carla and was speechless. It was like she was suddenly talking to a grownup. She reached over and gently poked Carla's arm. "Why all the crap when we first met?"
"I thought that you would more readily believe it was me if I acted like the old me. Jason is my only friend in this galaxy, and I didn't want to overwhelm him the first time we met after my change. Kinda wanted to ease him into it, but then all this happened. Nat, is something wrong with your ocular sensors? I see leakage."