"Tell me, Hoffen." Alderson held out his hand in greeting. "Is the little guy really sentient or are we looking at a monkey which resembles a frog?"
"Gregor, ask Jester Ripples a ridiculously hard physics, spatial, or mathematics question," I said.
Gregor raised his eyebrows and rattled off a navigational question related to the pull of Sol's sun on Earth's moon and how a ship could utilize the associated gravitational fields. Jester Ripples giggled his high-pitched trill and easily answered the question.
"This is fun, do another," he said, pushing off, suddenly more interested in Gregor.
Before I let him go, I warned Gregor, "He's going to want to hold on to you. Don't be alarmed; he's harmless."
"Very well. We saw this interaction on the flight deck," he said.
"You will find your ability to measure spatial and mathematical capability to be un-equal to Jester Ripple's understanding. Only your software systems have the level of understanding common to the Norigan race," Jonathan explained.
"You are an expert on this?" Alderson asked.
"We are," Jonathan replied.
"Are you carrying a frog in your pocket too, son? What's with the royal we?"
"Admiral, in the interest of expediency." I echoed his phrase. "Let's just think of Jonathan and Jester Ripples as very special guests. They aren’t the primary point of our visit, but both have agreed to meet with you so that you would take seriously the information we're relaying," I said.
"Jonathan here is an alien too?" Alderson asked, edging toward belligerent.
"We are, Admiral Alderson," Jonathan replied. "We have assumed human form so that we might interact with humanity more efficiently."
"You'd have me believe that not one, but two alien species chose to interact with these yahoos instead of making contact with any of the myriad of representative governments in the system?" Alderson asked, looking first at Sterra and then Munay when he failed to receive any acknowledgement.
An awkward silence fell over the room as Munay closed the door after ushering out his two subordinates.
While I hadn't been expecting a warm welcome, Alderson's derisiveness was unexpected. I'd yet to feel settled around the man and his attitude pushed me back on my heels.
"It would seem that those representative governments have spent the better part of the last three centuries ignoring crimes against humanity," I said. It was risky to verbally dual with the Admiral. He could easily have me locked up, but I refused to allow him to run roughshod over the conversation. "I can't fathom why any self-respecting alien would care to even bother contacting any of you. If the lives of thousands of people didn't rely on my ability to convince you of a moral obligation, I wouldn't be here either."
Alderson grunted out a chuckle. "You have some huevos on you, don't you, Hoffen? Tell me, what makes you think we have any idea about what you think you've seen?"
"I know for a fact you can track any ship in Mars territory," I said. "If you don't believe me, you can ask Mr. Belcose about how the Kuznetsov tracked four ships closing on Ceres from halfway across the solar system back when Red Houzi was trying to put us out of the game."
"Explain how that's relevant?" he asked.
"Belirand has been jumping ships in and out of Sol," I said. "There's no way that's escaped your notice. Commander Munay might have been startled by our appearance with Hotspur, but he certainly wasn't surprised. Let's not pretend here. You already know about fold-space generators and contact with aliens. We're just gambling that you're too decent to actually be complicit. There are too many lives at stake. And for the record, the reason Jester Ripples trusts us is because we risked our lives to save him."
Alderson sighed. "Show us what you have."
HARD BALL
"What do you think of all this, LaVonne?" Alderson turned to Commander Sterra who'd remained still throughout Nick's forty-minute presentation.
"We must tread carefully," she answered. "The implications of what we've learned today could very well send us to war with the North Americans. If not us, the Chinese have a valid complaint."
"Commander Munay?"
"Commander Sterra is right, of course, but I am more concerned about the enemy we don't know than the one we do," he answered. "Specifically these Kroerak and what they represent."
"And yet we saw but a single ship," Alderson replied.
"A battleship class ship guarding a farm," Munay said. "That's the equivalent of stationing this Battle Cruiser to watch over Jeratorn or Colony-40." He nodded in my direction.
"Mr. Belcose? Have you been able to get a read on the veracity of the data-streams?" Alderson asked.
"They've been cut down and put back together. Nothing that can't be explained by a desire to shorten the presentation," he said. "Mr. James has already provided access to the source data. It will take a few hours for full validation."
"Lieutenant Buhari." Alderson turned to Sendrei. "What's your part in this, beyond being rescued."
Sendrei cleared his throat. I'd seen the man strike down a charging Kroerak and yet I could read his nervousness from here. "I was a gunnery officer aboard the Destroyer McCain. This was twelve stans back, I'm sure you recall this was toward the end of the Amazonian War."
"I do," Alderson acknowledged. "Yet you were on a patrol in space."
"You're aware of the involvement by the Chinese and their attacks on our mining colonies?" Buhari asked.
"I am," Alderson answered. "Please continue."
"We received a mayday from a Belirand vessel, eight days out. By the time we got there, the ship was dead, not a single crew left alive. The ship had been breached in multiple locations. I don't know if you're familiar with the Earth creature called a porcupine, but this ship looked like it had tangled with one and lost. There were hundreds of what looked like giant quills sticking into the ship and in some cases it looked like those quills had just gone completely through the ship’s hull. At first, we thought it was some sort of new pirate weapon."
"Do you remember the designation of the Belirand ship?" Belcose asked.
"Hold on, Gregor," Sterra interrupted, "Mr. Buhari, what happened to the crew?"
"The ship's name was Prosperity and we didn't find out right away what happened to the crew," he said. "I have an advanced degree in engineering and so I was part of the crew sent over to try to get the ship's systems back online. To answer your question, Commander Sterra, the crew had been eaten. There were Kroerak onboard and they'd killed the crew while in fold-space."
"How'd you escape?" I asked, unable to hold back.
"I ran," he said, tears running down his face. "The Kroerak attacked my crewmates and I didn't do anything to help them. I ran away. I just let them die."
"How did you end up on the Kroerak world?" Munay asked after Sendrei recovered enough to speak.
"It was just me and another officer who survived," he said. "Once back on the McCain, we were taken into custody by my commanding officer and eventually handed over to Belirand, who in turn, transported us to Cradle and turned us over to the Kroerak." Sendrei took a deep breath, looked down and then back up. "Just so we're clear, Cradle is not their home-world. Every year or two, we'd get visitors who would come and look over the farms where we grew our crops and prepared for the upcoming harvest. They were more like the Overlord."
"Explain harvest," Alderson pushed.
"You need me to say it?" Sendrei asked. "Fine. The Kroerak harvested the people of our village. They were clear about the fact they were using us as food."
"How is that?" Munay asked. "And what do you mean by more like the Overlord?"
"Smaller and smart. The average Kroerak warrior doesn't have a lot going on upstairs, but these others, you can tell they're smart. They talked about bringing us home."
"In your language?" Alderson asked.
"Yes. They liked to taunt us, letting us know how inferior we were," he said.
"You served your time, son," Alderson said. "You need to let go of
the guilt. I'm not saying what you did was right, running that is, but you weren't on a combat assignment and someone dropped the ball if you didn't have Marines on that ship."
"It was dead," Sendrei replied. "There were no signs of life, movement or anything."
"We found the same on the moon over Thren's Rest," I said. "The Kroerak appear to be able to evade our sensors, especially when they're at rest."
"Can you corroborate any of this beyond these data-streams?" Alderson asked.
"We captured crew from Justice Bringer," I said. "Thought you might like to interrogate them. To be honest, we don't have any capacity to hold prisoners and were hoping you'd take them off our hands."
"You don't say," Alderson said. "Commander Belcose, would you send a squad to gather the prisoners?"
"Aye, aye, Admiral," Belcose answered stiffly.
"We also have a Kroerak corpse," I said.
Alderson and Belcose exchanged a look. "Take it to Dr. Mensching's lab?" Belcose asked. Alderson just nodded his head affirmatively.
"So, what's your end-game here?" Alderson asked as Belcose walked to the end of the room and spoke quietly into his comm. "You've known about this for months. Why tell us all this now?"
I couldn't fathom a man with his military mind hadn't already figured out the obvious, but I indulged him just the same. "Look, I don't know if we can trust you. It's hard for us to believe you don't know what's going on here. I'd like to say we came to you out of a sense of duty, but that's not really true either."
"You understand it's within my purview to take your ship and dump you all in a big dark hole, never to be seen again," he said. "Your lives aren't worth diddly squat when compared to the people who are going to die because of this big pile of shite you just laid at my feet."
"It's not our pile of shite and it's too much for us," I said. "We're not in any position to make those decisions."
"Yet you have been," he said.
"You need me to admit we need help? No problem. We need your help. We can't possibly save all those people."
"What do you want us to do? It's not like we can jump to another system," he said.
"It's not a jump," Nick muttered between clenched teeth.
"I'm proposing a trade," I said.
"Ahh, here it is," Alderson said. "This ought to be good."
"It's not what you think."
"Yeah. I'll bet."
"How would you like to catch up on four hundred years of technology?" I asked.
"Be more specific." Alderson licked his lips in anticipation, a tell I'd never seen from him before.
"There are three components to fold-space travel." Unexpectedly, Jonathan had jumped in.
He was diverting from the plan. Something had changed.
Jonathan continued, "The first, the design for TransLoc engines, is widely shared and available to most ship manufacturers. In fact, the very ship on which we reside today is equipped with the modifications required to travel within a fold-space bubble."
"Tell me something I don't already know," Alderson said.
"The second component is the process and technology of generating a fold-space bubble. This information is a shared secret between the Anino Corporation and the Belirand Corporation. It’s widely believed that this is only possible through the use of the Trans Location gates as are installed in each of the solar systems within humanity's known universe," he continued.
"Brilliant," Belcose muttered.
"Pardon?" Alderson asked, annoyed.
"It's brilliant. Anino Corporation maintained control over the process by keeping the key. What is the third component? A crystal? Some kind of fuel? It would have to be unique, unbreakable to have remained secret this long," Belcose asked.
"Thank you, Mr. Belcose, for that assessment," Jonathan replied. "And in fact, you're right, the third component, Aninonium, is the crucial ingredient for the fuel required to generate a fold-space bubble. The recipe is so closely guarded that it has remained unwritten and can only be produced by its inventor."
"Thomas Anino?" Alderson asked.
"But he's dead!" I exclaimed. What Alderson didn't know was that we were in possession of the only remaining Aninonium based fuel, as Anino's factory had been destroyed.
"What are you trying to pull here, Hoffen?" Alderson asked.
"I'm afraid that Captain Hoffen is quiet unaware of this particular wrinkle," Jonathan replied.
"Jonathan? What's going on?" I asked.
"A necessary ruse," he replied. I suddenly realized his speech pattern had changed.
"Would someone explain to me why we're talking about a man who's been dead for three hundred fifty stans?" Alderson demanded.
"I'm not dead, Buckshot," Jonathan replied.
"Phillipe?" I asked.
"Always the quickest in the group," Jonathan replied. "Yes."
"But" I felt myself trying not to stammer. "how?"
"He didn't die on Mastodon," Nick said. "That's why they built that ship with paper-thin armor. It didn't make sense until now. He figured out how to transfer his consciousness to Jonathan. What I don’t understand is why he decided to let his body be destroyed."
"Tullas," Jonathan/Anino replied. "She'd infiltrated every level of my company and I'd been on the run for too long. I needed a way out."
"We were your way out?" I said. "You played us?"
"But that happened only a few months ago and it was Phillipe Anino who died.” Belcose said with confusion.
"Phillipe was Thomas Anino. They are one and the same," explained Nick.
"How'd he stay alive that long?" Belcose asked.
"A simple medical process if you have sufficient funds," Jonathan/Anino replied. "It’s illegal on Earth and Mars, but that certainly wouldn’t stop someone of my means. Belirand introduced me to the possibility. They didn't like the idea of their supply of Aninonium running out, so I didn't even have to foot the bill."
"We know of the procedure," Alderson said. "So you pretended to be your own descendants to explain your regenerations. That doesn't explain how you're in another man's body."
"This body is a simulacrum," Jonathan/Anino replied. "A golem, if you will. I manufactured it to play host for the fourteen hundred thirty-nine sentients you refer to as Jonathan."
"That's not possible," Alderson answered. "The regeneration process doesn’t put you in a new body."
"You know an awful lot about this process, have you been out shopping?" Jonathan/Anino quipped.
"You've always been an ass." Alderson’s face was red, but he looked under control.
"I've missed you too," Anino replied.
I looked at Jonathan/Anino. "Are you changing the deal?"
"Not at all. The floor is yours," he replied. My mind reeled with the implications and I struggled to find a firm footing. I looked to Nick, lost.
"Cradle, Liam. Nothing has changed," he said.
I blew out a hot breath, momentarily calming the fire in my belly, and tried to recall the details of what we'd discussed.
"We'll share the technology of TransLoc," I said. "Everything but the recipe for Aninonium."
"The technology is useless without fuel," Alderson shot back.
"It's a deal that's worked for Belirand for centuries," Jonathan/Anino replied. "It's also not negotiable. As long as I have the recipe, my friends and I are less likely to come to premature ends."
"The deal worked until it didn’t," Alderson answered. "From where I'm sitting, it looks like Belirand wasn't interested anymore."
"I recently discovered Belirand had traded my technology to the Kroerak," he said.
"Without fuel, the Kroerak had nothing," Alderson said. "Just like what you're offering us."
"What you might not know is that the TransLoc gates operate with an extremely small amount of Aninonium. Once the fold-space lane is established, with sufficient power, the gates can remain active almost indefinitely."
"Even Belirand wouldn't be stupid enough to help the Kroerak c
ome back to Sol," Alderson said.
"But there were Kroerak on Prosperity twelve years ago," Sterra said. "Could an invading force take control of the TransLoc gate in Sol and pair with it?"
"Yes," Anino answered. "This is the information Belirand didn't want anyone knowing and why they'd been willing to cut off their only supply of the fuel."
"You've leveled some serious accusations," Alderson said. "You'll understand if I don't just take this at face value."
"It changes nothing," I said. "We're here to talk about the rescue of ten thousand people on Cradle."
"It's like I'm talking to children, here," Alderson said. "First you tell me there's a possibility of a Kroerak invasion and then you tell me you want my help lifting ten thousand colonists from an alien planet."
"They're not colonists," Sendrei said, standing. "They're prisoners who've been sold out by the people entrusted to protect them."
I stood up in support of Sendrei and placed my hand on his shoulder. "The information we've provided is free, Admiral. It's information your intelligence service would have paid millions of credits for and would also have risked their lives to obtain. We brought it to you and I won't have you throwing in our faces.
I turned to the rest of the room. "Maybe this isn't as easy of a decision as I originally thought for you, but let me lay it out, just so we're clear. You will mount a mission to Cradle that includes the rescue of the human, Norigan and whatever non-indigenous species we run into who need rescuing. You will deliver these people to Ophir and provide sufficient support to house and feed them for at least a year as they become independent. You will also clear our names with the Nuage government in Tipperary. And finally, you will defend us legally from Belirand and ensure our safe travel within the Mars Protectorate."
"What do we get out of this?" he asked, shaking his head with his eyes closed.
"We'll equip whatever ships you specify for the mission and in the process, train your scientists and engineers on how to replicate the technology," I said.
"What about fuel?"
"I've already begun work on a new manufacturing plant," Jonathan/Anino replied. "I'll supply your first year free. After that, I'm sure we can come up with an arrangement that is mutually beneficial."
Give No Quarter (Privateer Tales Book 10) Page 28