“What about the other two drones?” I asked.
“One of them is a Brotherhood drone for sure. The third is a mystery and we’ve no idea where it came from. So far, no one has shown up complaining about either of those two drones being shot down. It is interesting to note that the government agents that showed up at the estate wanted to take both of those drones into custody as well; but our people refused to allow it and told them they could only take the drone they claimed to be their own.”
“What can you tell me about the drones?” I asked.
“I’m sending you a report with images,” Wabussie answered. “You should have it in about an hour or two. What I can tell you now is that both the Federation drone and the one we believe to be the Brotherhood’s are of similar design and both equipped with laser weapons capable of targeting and killing someone on the ground. The third drone was equipped with cameras and was a cheap commercial model sold only on a few worlds and all of them in the general vicinity of Epsirt.”
“Thanks, Admiral,” I said, “Keep me informed of any new developments.”
“You’ll be the first to know anything I find out. By the way, congratulations on the plan you put together and sent to Leader Tonclin. I looked it over this morning and it’s brilliant. I think you may have saved us on this one. We would be in a bad situation if those worlds seceded and the Brotherhood moved in and took control of them.”
I was still feeling a bit tired after I finished talking to Wabussie and I didn’t have anything demanding my immediate attention at that moment, so I notified Marranalis that no one was to be admitted and I was taking a brief nap. With that accomplished, I adjusted my chair, which had reclining capabilities and once comfortably positioned, quickly went to sleep.
I slept for about an hour and when I awoke I felt much better. I contacted Marranalis and asked if there were any new developments while I was asleep; he said that a lawyer had called wanting to know why I had not returned his call. It took me a moment to realize that days earlier I had received a call from an attorney about Stonbersa’s estate and I had forgotten about it entirely.
“Can you call him back for me and put the call through to my office?” I asked.
“Yes, sir,” he replied.
A moment later, the image of a thin man in a gray Nehru-style suit appeared on my screen.
“Admiral Tibby, I am Attorney Faypol, executor of Admiral Stonbersa’s personal estate. You were named in his will to be the recipient of a boxed item, along with a letter. I need to get your authorization to send it to you and your acknowledgement that you have been informed of his request.”
“Thank you, Attorney Faypol. What do you need me to do?” I asked, feeling a bit confused.
“All I need is your verbal acknowledgement and a retinal scan to go with it and I will see to it the items are delivered to your estate, unless you wish it sent somewhere else.”
“No, my estate will be fine,” I said. I followed Faypol’s directions in providing my verbal approval and eye scan and disconnected from the vid screen. What could Stonbersa have left me, I wondered?
I had told Kala I would be home early and I returned to our suite earlier than usual. As soon as I entered, I knew immediately that this was not going to be an ordinary night. The only sound in the place was some soothing smooth jazz music that had been brought from Earth. I listened, but didn’t hear any sounds of Lunnie or Reidecor. The lights had been dimmed and candles were lit about the room. Strange, I thought, how in both the Federation and back on old Earth candlelight was considered as being romantic.
“I’ve been expecting you,” Kala’s voice called to me from the other room. There was a sultry tone in her voice that promised an even more interesting event to come. I walked into the next room to find Kala dressed in a stunning low-cut black dress that left very little to the imagination.
“I’ve had Piesew prepare a special dinner for us this evening. Are you hungry?” Kala purred.
“I don’t know,” I said as I eyed her beauty. “Right now I am tempted to go straight for the dessert.”
Kala laughed, “No. You have to eat dinner first. Piesew went to a lot of effort getting Anabur Korsak legs and a good Oreon wine for this meal. Dessert will wait.”
“Where, if I dare ask, are the twins?”
“On our estate with Jenira and a host of Women with Swords,” said Kala.
“How did you ever get Lunnie to agree to go? I would have thought she’d never leave the ship until her hair re-grew.”
“Oh Tib, it’s not that serious. I took her back to the med unit today and Dr. Danjuma examined her and said it would be all right to dye her hair back to its natural color. If you saw her now, you would never know what her hair looked like earlier.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I don’t think Reide will forget it any time soon.”
“Okay, enough about the kids; I think we need to proceed to the dining room. I'm starting to feel a little like dessert myself at the moment and I would hate to see this food go to waste,” Kala said as she took my hand and led me to the dining room.
The meal was superb. And the dessert…? Well, Kala and I were still feasting long past midnight on our own special desserts. I’m not sure what Piesew had prepared; we never got to his desserts.
The following morning, I sparred with Padaran in the gym again. Just as happened after my treatment a week earlier, I beat him the first two falls. I saw him looking at me strangely as we started our third bout.
“Tibby, have you been doing something different? Taking some performance enhancement drug perhaps?”
“Why would you ask something like that?”
“Well, it seems strange to me that you show such a rapid improvement and it tapers off until you’re back to your old level and then abruptly you’re unbeatable again.”
He was right; it was suspicious and I needed to be careful, lest I give away that I was taking treatments. I lost the next bout deliberately and the next two after that. “I guess I was lucky with the first two matches,” I said panting as though I was out of breath; I wasn’t.
“Maybe, but it seems strange to me,” Padaran answered, as he wiped the perspiration off his face with a towel. I realized I wasn’t sweating and that alone would appear suspicious. I hoped Padaran hadn’t noticed and I quickly excused myself and headed to the shower.
When I arrived back in the War Room on the MAXETTE, I found Marranalis waiting with a worried look on his face.
“I take it the news today isn’t good,” I said.
“It’s mixed. The bad news is that there were 28 Reduviid attacks last night; all of them body bombers. Nearly 3,000 citizens were killed and another 5,000 injured.”
“Where did this happen?”
“All over the Federation,” Marranalis said,” it wasn’t one planet, or place and all the attacks happened within a few moments of each other.”
“Bring up the star hologram and show me the planets where the attacks occurred.”
Twenty-eight brilliant yellow spots flared in the 3D hologram.
“They’re all over the place,” I exclaimed. “In order for the Brotherhood to have been able to coordinate this and get all the bombers in place, they would have needed to use the Cantolla Gates to situate terrorists properly – either that, or this was organized years ago.”
“I agree,” Marranalis said, “or the Brotherhood now has gates of their own. Admiral, I think you should know one of the worlds attacked was Nibaria.”
“WHAT!” I exclaimed, “How is that possible? Humans don’t go to the surface of Nibaria and the Brotherhood doesn’t recruit non-humans.”
“Maybe not, but they somehow managed to get a bomb, or two, on the surface and detonated them at the Nibarian Capitol.”
“Have we heard anything from Tonclin? That’s his home world!”
“There was a request came in right before you arrived; he wishes to meet with you and Admirals Regeny and Wabussie in two hours.”
“By the stars, what next?” I asked.
“That was the bad news. The good news is that the Senate has voted not to accept the request for secession of Syndrop and Porporat at about the same time as both worlds announced the revocation of their requests, on the conditions that the terms you proposed were implemented.”
“Well that’s good; now we need to get those actions started immediately before the Brotherhood makes some move of retaliation. Say, you don’t think that was their reason for these attacks, do you?”
“I doubt it, too much time and planning were involved,” Marranalis said.
“Yes, you’re right. Well let me review these reports of the bombings, so I can talk intelligently with Tonclin later. Check and make sure I don’t miss the meeting,” I said as I headed for my office.
“Yes, sir,” Marranalis replied.
I was early arriving at Tonclin’s office, beating them by several minutes. I expected I would need to wait until the others arrived, but I was ushered in as soon as the receptionist saw me.
“Leader Tonclin expressed that he wished you to enter as soon as you arrived,” she said.
When I entered his office, I saw him at his desk. I had never seen him like this before; his skin appeared ashen and grayer than usual and dark-brown pools of liquid formed around the edges of his eyes.
“Tibby, come in. I was hoping you would arrive early,” he said.
“I’m sorry to hear about Nibaria being bombed last night,” I said. “I hope that there were not many lives lost.” My reports hadn’t indicated the number of casualties on Nibaria.
“No, fortunately less than a dozen people were killed; the difference in atmospheric composition reduced the level of the explosive forces,” he said, as he nervously adjusted the items on his desk. However, that’s not all of it, Tibby. It’s not in the reports you received, but it was my home on Nibaria that they bombed. MY home! They knew exactly where I lived and targeted it. Tibby, I have never been so glad that my daughter works for you and lives on your yacht. If she had been home… well, I don’t want to even think about it.” I could see he was trembling as he spoke.
“Does Chanina know this?” I asked.
“No, not yet. I’m trying to decide how to tell her. She will be devastated when she learns it.
“Tibby, how did they get a bomb on my estate? How did they even get to the planet?”
“I don’t know, perhaps Admiral Wabussie can tell us, or at least have the FSO investigate it and find out,” I replied.
It was only a few minutes later that both Admirals Wabussie and Regeny arrived. Wabussie updated numbers and gave us new information. He also reported that there were two additional bombings not noted in the earlier reports. Of the thirty bombings total, five were at estates of top ranking government officials. In one case, a senator had been killed and in another a senator had been severely injured. Not all the bombings were by body bombs carried by Reduviids; in fact, none of the bombings of government officials were. Surveillance videos obtained from one of the senators’ houses showed a bomb suddenly appearing inside a building. This suggested that the perpetrator of the bombing was cloaked when they entered the building and placed the bomb. It was possible the same thing was true on Tonclin’s estate, though we could not be sure. Wabussie theorized that the Reduviids were using small cloaked ships to land the bombers and quickly departed once the bombs were in place.
“But why not simply attack the estates from the air using their ships?” Regeny asked.
“Because it doesn’t have the same element of terror and fear as knowing that at any time they can enter your home and do as they wish and you won’t know they are there until it's too late,” I said. “That’s how terrorism works.”
“I don’t understand it. Why my estate? Surely they must have known that I’m not there, nor is my daughter. My wife has been dead for years and only servants occupied and maintained it,” Tonclin said.
“It’s the message it sends that they are interested in,” I replied.
“What message?” Tonclin asked.
“That no one is immune to their attacks, from the common man or woman on the street to the Leaders of the Federation. That the Reduviids can attack anyone at any time and any place. That’s the message they are sending. But there is one thing that bothers me.”
“What?” Regeny asked.
“Up until this point, we have seen evidence of Sisopan directing or activating the bombers. This event is different. She could not have been in all the locations at the same time, nor could she have traveled to them all in anything less than a few days.”
“So what is so significant about that?” Regeny asked.
“It means that she now has a bigger and more organized operation going and that is scary,” I said.
Leader Tonclin, naturally was unnerved by the situation and wanted to know what we were going to do about it. Wabussie and I tried to explain that we were doing all we could to fight the terrorists, as well as the attacking Brotherhood fleets, but that there was little beyond what we currently were doing. Tonclin said he was going to ask the Senate to vote on making in a mandatory death sentence for anyone found to be a member of the Brotherhood or helping and aiding the Brotherhood. I reminded him that many of those fighting for the Brotherhood were doing so under duress because of drug addiction, slave collars, or blackmail and it would be unjust to execute them for something outside their control. Tonclin agreed, but said he still wanted mandatory death sentences for top Brotherhood officers and officials. The discussion went well into the late afternoon before Tonclin finally called an end to the meeting and we all went back to our other duties.
That night I had a dream that I was on one of the gate transfer stations and that the station was under attack from outside. Dozens of asteroid-ships, starships and fighters were bombarding the shielded station; and at the same time the several gates were under attack from their planetary links as well. In my dream, a team of Reduviids managed to get through a gate and made their way to the RMFF shield room and had blown up the equipment there. The station was about to fall when I awoke. The dream was so real, I was trembling and could not shake the feeling of imminent danger. I glanced at my com link to see the time. It was early in the morning. Acting on instinct, I called Marranalis, waking him from a sound sleep.
“Marranalis, when was the last time the Cantolla Transfer hub stations were relocated?” I asked.
“Ah, let me check, sir.” There was a pause and his sleepy voice came back. “Sir, it looks like it was 18 months ago.”
“Eighteen months! They were supposed to relocate every three months so their position would never be known,” I said. “Why weren’t they moved?”
“Let me check, sir. Ah, here it is, Admiral Pynice rescinded the order several months ago. He says in his notes that it was a waste of time and resources and that, with the station both shielded and cloaked, there was no chance of them being discovered or harmed.”
“Pynice, that son of a –. Look, I’m sorry to wake you up right now, but meet me in the War Room in twenty minutes and get Pynice and tell him I want to see him in my office in thirty minutes. As soon as you know he is on his way, issue orders in my name telling the gate station to move immediately. Oh and get the exact current coordinates of the station. I want sixty ships from each fleet sent to that location now and to wait cloaked. I have a feeling the Brotherhood will be showing up there soon and I want to be there waiting when they arrive.”
“Yes, sir,” Marranalis replied and I could tell by his tone he was not fully awake.
Thirty minutes later, I was sitting in my office when, Admiral Pynice arrived. I could tell by his looks that he was both confused and unhappy about being called away from his sleep so early in the morning.
“You wished to see me, Admiral?” he said as he entered.
“Yes, Admiral, have a seat. Would you care from some foccee?” I asked politely.
“Ah yes, sir, I may need it. I'm still a bit sleepy
. I was deep in sleep when Captain Marranalis called me.”
“Yes, we all have had our sleep interrupted tonight,” I said as I handed him a cup of foccee from the dispenser in my office. “Now tell me, Admiral, why do you believe that it is unnecessary for us to relocate the Cantolla Gate Hub stations according to protocol?”
“Oh come now, Admiral,” Pynice began. “surely you didn’t get me out of bed over the station not being moved. What harm is it? It can’t be seen and it’s shielded. No one knows where it is. I’ll bet even you don’t know where it is.”
I turned and walked behind my desk and glanced at my vid pad. “It’s outside Sector 4 in quadrant 29. Four parsecs on an arc from Gammatrie and at… let me see... and at an intersecting arc 2.9 parsecs from Alba-Cordie. Or at least it was. It's being moved to a new location.”
“What?! By whose order?” Pynice fumed.
“By mine,” I said. “I outrank you and technically you answer to me. I don’t know how your order rescinding the command to move the stations every three months slipped by me, but it is now reinstated and I expect it rigidly followed.”
Solbidyum Wars Saga 7: Hunt for the Reduviids Page 23