"Pha, would he agree with me that the Teladi had been repairing the jump-ship and furtively equipped it with a grav-pulse-radio direction finder?" When the flight engineer hesitated, he added in a reassuring tone: "He is allowed to speak frankly. "
"Many thanks, master," Pha, who had no intention of contradicting his commander, replied. In this case he agreed completely with Cho. "I agree with you, master. Apparently the Phoenix had been on the spot when Brennan emerged and had an accident with his vessel. But I'm not able to comprehend why those hapless saurian creatures didn't detain him but instead repaired his ship and equipped it with a radio direction finder."
"Well, Pha, the answer is easy. They were hoping to gain a larger profit."
Pha raised his right hand, lowered it, raised it again and then hesitantly made the sign for 'cautious doubts'.
Cho waved them aside. "Never mind, Pha. He may challenge my views in a discussion but anyway he has to fulfil my orders. And this is my order for now, he will return to his rooms and continue his phase of rest."
"Yes, master." The flight engineer bowed and then withdrew as ordered. As always, he secretly congratulated himself for serving under the command of an officer like Cho t'Nnt.
Cho sat in his command throne mulling over what he had learned from the Teladi data banks. It was utterly fascinating. The Phoenix brain contained an exact record of the path Brennan took since appearing in the Teladi sector of Seizewell. That the Teladi were quick enough to seize the opportunity to bug Brennan's ship was cause for him to at least partially revise his contemptuously low opinion of them. Especially as their action presented him, the Patriarch and all the Split with a great gift!
The record clearly indicated the strange ship had not been destroyed.
Following the alleged "accident" at Priest Rings it had travelled at a leisurely speed to Cloudbase South West – to the temple of these religious Argons, that called themselves "Goner." Probably, Cho judged, inside a bigger ship's cargo bay. A crosscheck with the Bone Scout's own data showed only two ships were in the right time and place to pick up the earth vessel.
While the whole Commonwealth believed the strange space ship had been destroyed, Brennan had spent, according to the grav-pulser, two tazuras with the Goner and then had left, heading for Argon Prime. And from there… Cho became suspicious, it didn't make any sense. The last recordings from the grav-pulser's log file proved that the jump-ship left Argon Prime half a tazura later. What did Brennan have in mind – what did the government of Argon Prime hope to gain with this move, which looked like the subtle sleight of hand of a match game of Namira?
Well – he would find it out! As soon as his rest period ended Cho ordered Pha t'Phnn to build a gadget to triangulate the bug signal. It was a task he accomplished in an admirably short time and now the Bone Scout was on her way to an unannounced meeting with Brennan. Cho assumed that the Argon planned to keep up the fiction and so were transporting the alien vessel in a cargo ship.
Two stazuras later the Bone Scout had tracked the alien ship to a dreary little sector. Just two barren planets, little more than the size of moons, and an asteroid field devoid of commercial resources, all clustered round the brown dwarf remnant of the supernova that had seared away the rest of the system in an unimaginable blast, millions of years previously. The system was now nothing but a little-used crossing point and the gravidar showed just a single blip, halfway to the other gate.
The gravidar signal matched that of the grav-pulse locator, apparently aboard an Argon Transporter. It stood no chance of out-running his ship and Cho made the sign for 'Triumph'. He would have it in under two stazuras. Cho looked forward to meeting Brennan again, the creature had been courageous enough to stand up to a Paranid and he was looking forward to seeing if the earth pilot would demonstrate a similar resilience in the face of a long Split interrogation. Cho's lips formed a thin, cynical line.
Soon the Argon Transporter was clearly visible in the video enhancer. Cho watched the drives brighten from blue through red to a shining white light as the crew became aware of the Bone Scout and attempted to flee. It was an effort doomed to futility and the chief pilot, Uchan t'Scct, needed no instruction from Cho to adjust their own course and speed. He brought the Bone Scout onto a parallel heading, to bring it alongside the fleeing cargo ship for a thorough scan. Even at this distance the gravidar could deliver useful information and Cho focused the scanner. He didn't like what he read and reinitialised the scan.
The mass was not correct, could not be correct.
Gesticulating curses Cho rechecked the readings. They merely confirmed what he had first rejected – the Transport ship was empty, there was no jump-ship in its cargo bays. Cho clenched his claws into the arms of the command throne to avoid battering the instrument panel with his fists. The Argon had found the grav-pulser and fooled him. Him! Someone would have to pay.
Almost of its own volition the weapons control panel extended and a hornet missile shot towards the Argon ship. The shields collapsed under the raging firestorm as the Bone Scout entered energy weapon range. Slashing beams scored the hull of the lumbering freighter, slicing gashes that showered molten metallic droplets into space.
The communications display lit up. "Captain Brant of the Aladna Hill speaking. Cease fire at once or we will be forced to shoot back!" Cho didn't even bother making a sign for sarcasm. Instead he cut the channel and blocked the incoming transmission.
The laughably weak guns of the Aladna Hill fired back but their shots fizzled uselessly against his ship's massive shields. Cho destroyed the offending gun towers with a single salvo. A second salvo destroyed the drive system. He had expected to rip the freighter apart with secondary explosions but the Aladna Hill held together, despite its damaged hull. He armed two more missiles and as the Bone Scout pulled around for a second pass he targeted them. "For the Patriarch!" He fired. The high-energy plasma throwers joined in the attack; not a single shot was lost.
The freighter was astonishingly tough but it finally died in a bright flash that left a cooling red fireball spitting out white-hot shards of debris. It rapidly cooled to a cloud of tiny fragments. No – not all tiny – within the diffuse cloud was a larger gravidar return – the mass of a small ship.
A lifeboat! The crew of the freighter, or possibly just a handful of survivors had managed to reach it as the Bone Scout was making its second, killing attack run. He almost targeted and destroyed the small ship but hesitated. He had a better idea.
"Computer, he will establish a connection to the Argon lifeboat."
Moments later the woman who had tried to threaten Cho appeared on screen. She said nothing, there really wasn't much to say, and waited. A Teladi would not have realised that but the Split always said the Argon were brighter than the saurians. Captain Brant just looked at Cho expectantly instead of bartering for her life.
"The creature has to surrender and deactivate the drive."
In the cockpit of the tiny lifeboat a large number of individuals crowded behind the Argon woman. She turned and looked at a thin, tall man, who shook his head. "No!" Cho heard.
"As we do not have any choice and the life of my crew is top priority I will comply with your demand. Hal, you heard that."
The nervous cacophony of voices grew louder but in a couple of sezuras the drives shut down.
"Very reasonable. And now the creatures will wait for the boarding party. The creatures will be brought on board of the Bone Scout and transported to the residence of the Patriarch of Chin."
And undergo painful inquiries that would last many mazuras, Cho almost added, but he wasn't going to reveal that until they were on board. No point in provoking a suicidal last attack.
CHAPTER 41
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed!
Dwight D. Eisenhower
It was a lovely summer day, a blue cloudl
ess sky and a soft, pleasant breeze from the east, carrying the quiet background whisper of nearby Argonia City. Airport B covered a huge area and traffic was so widely dispersed that silence could reign for several mizuras, between landings or launches. Elena and Kyle stood together with Gunnar and his adjutant Sobert in the glass control tower, absently watching two traffic controllers guide incoming spacecraft.
"Target ship entering atmosphere. Landing corridor clear. Approach in 3:19 Mizuras," the computer confirmed.
Kyle and Gunnar looked tensely up at the sky but saw nothing. Sobert mimicked Elena, shading his eyes with a hand to watch through the glass roof of the tower.
"I think I see it," he said after some sezuras.
"Where?" Elena couldn't see anything at all. Sobert pointed diagonally upwards. "There!"
After some moments, Elena found the tiny point of light. "Yes! Now I see it too. Sobert, you're damned keen-eyed!"
"I know," he answered taciturnly.
By now the dot falling from the zenith was large enough for Kyle and Gunnar to pick it up, bright as a star and falling as fast as a meteor. As it came closer, the luminosity varied as the drive flared in pitch and power. It quickly swelled to the dimension of a pea and a loud roar spread across the landing field. It wasn't often one of the big spaceships came down at this speed. Normally they came in on a gentle arc, decelerating constantly, but the pilot of this ship either didn't care about fuel consumption or he was in one hell of a hurry.
As it fell closer more details could be seen. It seemed to have a strange oval or circular shape but the glare of the drive flames obscured the hull from a direct view.
"My god… goodness!" Senator Gunnar cried out. "That's a crash not a touch-down!"
Kyle glanced at him briefly. "Every landing is a controlled crash Senator."
"Especially if you're flying, Kyle," Elena interjected.
"Hey, look who's talking!" Kyle retorted, with mock outrage.
"Quiet...it's him!" Elena said.
The ship was barely a hundred meters up now, and really was an oval, a huge emerald-coloured egg, etched with silver. A large, transparent dome sat atop the hull.
"Only the Teladi can dream up something like that!" Sobert murmured.
"Indeed. What an ugly ship!" Gunnar agreed. Kyle allowed his thoughts to remain in the background and didn't say anything.
"No - it's not ugly. On the contrary, it's marvellous, like an egg!" Elena said, laughing.
The ship made an astonishingly soft landing, the roar of the drives falling to a soft whisper before dying down completely. It sat, looking to her like an oversized Easter Egg on Landing Stage 2B, just a couple of hundred metres from the tower. Elena hastened out, the three men trailing behind her. They were about half way to the egg when a tube extended from one of the five huge drives arching from the lower hull. It touched the ground and remained motionless for some moments, then a hatch opened in the lower end. A young Teladi stepped from the ruddy twilight and unusually for his species, walked towards the group at a brisk pace.
"Nopileos!" Elena shouted and broke into a gentle jog. The Teladi increased his gait, becoming unintentionally comic in the process.
"Tshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!" he hissed loudly. "Elenaaaa! Sssstar warriorrr!"
They're going to embrace any moment, it went through Kyle's head. He had already heard a lot about the young Teladi who apparently followed his own unique path. Elena almost did embrace the much smaller saurian, but stopped herself in the last instant. Although Teladi tended to scorn greeting rituals Nopileos extended a claw and attempted a slight bow.
"Good heavens, gosh, Nopi, you're a sight for sore eyes. Are you okay?"
"You're asking me?" the Teladi countered, his scale fin flexing. "When I last saw you it was you who was in mighty trouble!" Elena laughed and threw a quick glance at the bulk of the Nyana's Fortune, looming above them. Only now could she see just how big the yacht really was.
"Nopileos, I want to introduce you to Senator Nan Gunnar and his adjutant Sobert."
"My pleasure, Mr. Isemados Sibasomos Nopileos IV. As your grandfather, the Ceo, told me, you are not only very popular with your people but you're also some kind of hero with the Boron."
Nopileos was silent for a sezura. "You must be mistaken, sister senator," he responded. "Possibly the CEO was referring to my egg brother Sissandras."
"Well, I don't actually believe so…" Gunnar said, irritated.
"Nopileos," Elena said, stepping in quickly. "May I introduce Captain Kyle William Brennan? My comrade, my friend and egg brother."
The young Teladi viewed him with great curiosity and then extended his claw in human fashion. "We considered you to be dead, Captain Brennan."
"I did too," Kyle laughed. "More than once. And it could still happen."
"I do not wish to hope so." Nopileos answered seriously.
"Ladies and gentlemen, let us return to Argonia – the General Staff awaits us in less than a stazura - and there will be important things to discuss," the Senator cut in, calling everyone to duty. As they returned to the tower to board a military shuttle the tunnel slipped back into the hull of the Nyana's Fortune behind them with a soft buzz.
The prime minister of the Argon Federation leant back in his armchair and listened attentively to Steen-Hilmarson, his Minister of Defence. He had not yet apprised the two Earth visitors of the decision he'd come to concerning the upcoming military operations, but she had inadvertently made up for it.
"As our reconnaissance discovered," the plump minister with the pink hair-bun said. "The Xenon have manufacturing facilities in at least three and as many as ten systems. We estimate that the destruction of half to two thirds of these installations will impose a crippling energy and material shortage on the machine's fleet, leaving it vulnerable to a massive strike by the combined forces of the Commonwealth. With this strategy we hope to keep civilian casualties to a minimum. As each Xenon sector is cleared it will become a Commonwealth Protectorate pending final disposition to one of the members."
"And as we now know, it's not very difficult to invade the Xenon sectors."
The Minister of Defence shook her head. "Not exactly correct Captain Brennan – the Xenon have begun picketing each jump-gate with a complete squadron and have garrisoned their sectors with huge numbers of fast fighter craft."
"Then we'll take a lot of casualties," Elena said.
"Captain Brennan," the Prime Minister turned to the pilot. "I realise I do not have the authority to send you on a mission so let me put this as a request if I may?"
Kyle nodded for him to continue.
"The Xenon will know for certain your ship was not destroyed and they'll be as interested as ever in getting their hands on it intact. As you know - at this moment a pair of 125 MW shields and energy weapons are being installed in your X."
"What you're driving at is that I might succeed fighting my way through to one of those manufacturing facilities without being intercepted first?"
"Quite." The Defence Minister said. "With that over-powered M/AM propulsion powering your ship you stand a good chance of escaping unharmed." He added: "It's your decision."
Kyle didn't hesitate for a second. "Count me in. But how often can we pull the lone ship trick before the Xenon cotton on and meet me with overwhelming firepower?"
"We assume it will only work once but this will be enough to severely cut potential casualties when the counter-strike is launched. It's a big potential gain at low risk and…"
"The low risk is just my neck?" Kyle completed the thought.
"That's right."
"But what about the other production plants?"
The Prime Minister lowered his eyes. "Those will cost many lives but they have to be destroyed."
The prospect of mass casualties appalled Kyle but he didn't know enough about the situation to assess the alternatives and the politicians seemed to know what they were doing. In the end, what choice did the Argon have?
"We are
sending delegations to all the other races to organise support and plan our actions." The Prime Minister continued. "The Split and the Teladi are particularly important as they share borders with the machines. Major Kho, as you bear important knowledge of the Xenon, or the Terraformers from Earth's perspective, I would like you to accompany and assist the delegation to Nif-Nakh, the residence of the Patriarch of Chin, led by Agent Ban Danna."
Elena and Kyle exchanged short glances. Informing Earth High Command of the situation was their prime duty and sending them both out on risky missions jeopardised that. On the other hand there was no way back at the moment and when there was the Argon would open contact with Earth. As the mission to the Split did not seem immediately dangerous she said, "I agree."
"Captain Brennan, Major Kho - we are grateful to you and appreciate your efforts," the Minister of Defence said. "Now let's discuss the details."
The Mission Briefing took up the rest of the day and extended long into the night. The plan designed by the General Staff was both audacious and enormously risky. And it hinged on a terrible new weapon based on the Matter/Anti-Matter technology introduced into the Commonwealth by Kyle, in the form of the X-Shuttle Drive system.
"They can't make you do it Elena," Nopileos protested when stazuras later she and Kyle emerged from the briefing to greet the nervous, rattled and excluded Saurian.
"You gotta do what you gotta do," joked Elena. On the roof of the tall administration building behind her a shuttle glittered in the sun, waiting to whisk them to the landing field once Ban Danna and his delegation arrived.
"Nopileos, don't worry, the Split are just a bunch of uncivilised macho types. I learned how to handle that sort years ago so what could possibly go wrong!"
The Teladi looked at her doubtfully. "Let us together fly to Nif-Nakh, Elena!"
"No Nopileos. It's important you take the Ancient's words to the Boron."
The Teladi scraped his claws on the black asphalt.
Farnham's Legend: The beginning of the X-Universe saga (X Games Book 1) Page 32