All the teams had finally been assigned, and the officers got to work. I stood from my seat and also watched the attack on the big screen with my cousin. I turned to the android and asked:
"Bionica, be a mensch and take all this stuff away from my station. I can barely see the monitors at this point. It's like I'm blind. And after that, I'll read all your wishes. And thank you for the gift! Excellent wine!"
"I'm glad you liked it!" The android walked up to my seat, picked up a couple flowery leaves and suddenly froze in indecision. I had left the gold medallion sitting on the table under some papers, hoping she’d see it.
Meeting my gaze, the synthetic girl took the piece of jewelry and put it back on her own wrist. She turned the paper the chain was under, read what I'd written on it and gave a happy laugh.
"Astra trusts you. You shouldn't take advantage of that," it read.
"Ten seconds!" Nicole Savoia was in charge of the countdown. "Three. Two. One. Attack!"
The stealth bombers appeared for just a moment. You just barely even see them on the backdrop of all the Alien ships. The aftermath of their attack, on the other hand, was a bit harder to miss. Inside the fast-moving ball, a great many fiery sparks began shooting out, swallowing up a large proportion of the armada's forces. It combined into one huge ball of plasma, and the thirty explosions scattered the Alien ships. After that, the Aysar Cluster station also gave way to a pretty burst of flame. The ten megaton bomb was enough to break the space fortification into pieces. And then... an unplanned explosion followed, much more powerful than the earlier ones. A bright white wave reached Ghost-6 within a second, after which the recording ended.
"Ghost-6 is no more," Admiral Kiro Sabuto said, upset, looking at the extinguished marker indicating a former allied ship on the screen.
"Distance to epicenter: twelve hundred miles," Nicole said in the silence that had descended.
I took the microphone and said, trying to keep my cool:
"All ships warp to the Lobj system!" The Aliens are not concerned with us anymore. We simply couldn't choose a better moment to get away from the armada."
* * *
In the dining room, I was eating breakfast with Admiral Kiro Sabuto and the staff officers, who were discussing recent events at a lively din. The bombing of the Alien fleet and the death of Ghost-6. On the one hand, the energy shields installed on cloaked frigates were just a formality, just ticking a box. But on the other hand... even being twelve hundred miles from the epicenter couldn't save our scout! Engineers were arguing with Admiral Kiro Sabuto over the true force of the blast, having the radar signature area, frigate shield capacity and size, but they came up with some huge numbers beyond possibility, measured in hundreds of gigatons or even teratons in TNT-equivalent. Our thermonuclear reserves looked like nothing more than firecrackers compared with whatever was behind that blast.
Did we destroy the enemy armada? I would like to believe that we did, of course. But those engineers' calculations, based on the assumed relationship between the size and shield power of Alien ships, have shown the exact opposite. The Queen definitely survived. There could be no doubt of that. The Mammoths, which is what the officers had started calling the small Alien carriers, didn’t get wiped out either. But when it came to Behemoths' ability to survive that plasma inferno, there were doubts, though there was also a serious lack of data. We had never once shot through an Alien battleship's shield, so we had no idea how strong it was. The good news was, the calculations gave the Alien Sledgehammers, Chainsaws (the previously unnamed cruisers discussed earlier) and other small ships, absolutely no chance of having made it out of the fiery whirlwind.
Bionica affirmed that she had counted seven thousand, three hundred starships in the Alien armada, and according to our calculations, no more than three hundred of the largest ships could have survived, not including the approximately five hundred frigates and destroyers that were on their way to the Aysar system at the time of the explosion in search of our fleet. We still didn't know how many of our stealth bombers had survived the attack, but in any case it looked like an acceptable trade-off.
And the last question, which was causing the officers to argue at an even more fevered pitch was what exactly that blast was. An antimatter explosion from one or several Behemoths? It was definitely the answer that first came to mind, but certainly not the only possibility. The main engineer of Joan the Fatty told us his alternate theory: the warp beacon itself had exploded, causing energy from another dimension to slip through a hole in the fabric of space. No one could say one way or another when it came to that theory. There were no other times in human history when an operating warp beacon was observed to have been destroyed. As such, no one had any idea what such a risky move could lead to.
"Tuki-tuka-de-sa, I ask you to come to Florianna's room. Your assistance is required in the interrogation of the traitors," Popori de Cacha hunted me down just as I was coming out of the dining area.
I was quite surprised, as I had earlier told the Chameleon that I did not intend to personally carry out such an unpleasant procedure. Nevertheless, the head of my guard was stubborn and affirmed that the situation with the arrested was not simple, and would need my personal intervention. I sighed heavily, banished the thoughts of Astra waiting for me, and followed after the head of my bodyguard.
The three arrested were sitting in handcuffs squatting on the floor. Surrounded by the four silent insects, Florianna was in her already familiar flying armchair. It was hard to tell whether the paralyzed girl was working hard or sleeping behind her closed eyes.
"How could I sleep here...?" The voice ringing out in my head confirmed the first of the two theories. "Prince, we are now dealing with the second assistant from Bride of Chaos, this is the simpler case. I'll tune in to the conversation in a bit."
"We'll start with this one," Popori de Cacha also pointed to the strong man with the second captain's assistant's patches on an Orange House uniform.
Undigo ton Mesfelle, major of the Orange House of the Empire, second captain's assistant on the battleship Bride of Chaos in the Perimeter Sector Eight Fleet
Age: 48
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Class: Military/Aristocrat
Achievements: None
Fame: +2
Standing: 0
Presumed personal relationship: Unknown
Empire Military faction opinion of you: (information unavailable at present)
We were the same age and even related, though perhaps not very closely. I sat on the edge of Florianna's magical seat and turned to the arrestee:
"Undigo, you have already sworn an oath to me as fleet commander and passed a Truth Seeker check in the Himora system. How can this be?"
"It's just how it turned out, Crown Prince Georg," the major made no attempt to argue or find an excuse for his actions, instead just telling me the story. "My family is quite close to the main branch of the Mesfelle line and is in close contact with Duke Paolo royl Anjer ton Mesfelle and his close family. My sister even lives on the Orange House Capital in Duke Paolo's summer palace. My wife on Nessi is Peres royl Paolo ton Mesfelle's wife's closest friend... to be more accurate, she's even closer friends with Peres ton Mesfelle," Undigo corrected himself quickly. "It was after I took the oath that Duke Paolo found a way to hook me in. To keep someone very close to me out of harm, I agreed to deliver a small sealed package to Swarm coordinator Triasss Zess. I suspected that there was something in the package that the Duke was planning to use to harm your Highness, but I still do not know what exactly it was."
"So this is the traitor that delivered the message from the head of the Orange House to Triasss Zess, after which Triasss Zess sent our fleet into a trap," Popori de Cacha was clearly not inclined to forgive the betrayal, however, he submitted to the Crown Prince's right to judge this aristocrat and relative.
I stayed in thought for one minute. I'm not sure how they broke the major, nor what exactly he gave the Alpha
Iseyek, but Undigo ton Mesfelle's indirect accusation at Duke Paolo could turn out useful. I needed this person around as a witness.
"I'll leave you among the living, but only if you back up your words with a sworn statement."
Undigo nodded and I ordered him removed and placed under arrest in one of the cabins on Joan the Fatty until we returned to the Empire. There were two more: a middle-aged, and frankly not very beautiful woman with Orange House Fleet space captain patches and a young chubby corporal half her age. Both characters were NPC's with no additional information available. Popori de Cacha explained the details:
"This woman says that she hears voices that whisper to her that humanity is doomed. But these voices supposedly are directly promising to let her live, and even make her practically immortal if she helps them destroy the Sector Eight Fleet. She was able to convince her first assistant, who was also her lover that they had been chosen to become the Adam and Eve of a new human race, but first they would need to help the Aliens kill the people that were already around. They were planning to begin with the ships of the Sector Eight Fleet. They really were placing radio beacons at the spots in the Aysar system and were preparing to leave some more to make extra sure."
"But that is true!" the woman screamed out. "The voices do speak to me! The old humanity is doomed. It will fall under the Alien onslaught. And only I will retain the right to remain alive and give a new hope to humanity! And as the voices say, I do, to make sure our species will not go extinct! You can call my actions treason, betrayal, whatever you want. But, in the end, it will be I who saves humanity!!!"
I frowned squeamishly at the arrestee's screams, and because of the rapture and awe that her young assistant was looking on her with. How could I make sure the rest of my subjects wouldn't begin heeding this dangerous lunatic's words?
"So what is the problem with sentencing her, then?" I couldn't understand why my subjects treated these two traitors with such regard.
"The problem is that she really does hear voices, or at least believes so honestly that she does that there is no difference," the Truth Seeker explained to me. "I see two options: either she is mentally ill, and so should be treated, and not punished. Or the voices are real and then the fact that Aliens can control people’s minds would be a serious problem."
I opted not to draw anyone's attention to the second possibility. There were no reliable facts, so it was hard to predict all fleet members', both peoples' and unpeoples', reaction to the news that Aliens have the ability to influence the mind. That was why I asked in a blatantly negligent tone:
"So, the Truth Seeker says that the captain simply lost her mind from fear? Yes, when our fleet landed in the trap, it is possible that the weak of spirit may have grown desperate, and that even could have led some to become less clear on the line between fantasy and reality. So, my decision is that the woman is to be placed in the infirmary under Nicosid Brandt's observation, and to let the military court deal with her assistant. The boy never heard any voices. He decided to betray his own kind consciously and intentionally."
The man jumped up to his feet and tried to burst out of the room, but he couldn't open the locked door with his hands bound behind his back.
"No! So that was all a lie about restarting the species?! You're such a bitch! I hate yo..." one of Popori de Cacha's assistant didn't allow the traitor to finish his sentence, sticking the paralyzer to his neck in a tried-and-true motion and grabbing his body as it fell to the ground.
"And now, the most important thing, Crown Prince," not paying attention to the motionless body on the floor, Popori de Cacha walked up to the wall and turned on the screen. "That is footage from the observation cameras in the hangar of Joan the Fatty. You can see the shuttles full of captains arriving one after another, as Admiral Kiro Sabuto requested. Note that the second to last to dock is the shuttle from Umoyge-7. In this clip, you can watch the captains all exiting their ships."
A small scuffle was shown on the screen. My bodyguards suddenly seized three of the people from the list, and the Chameleons that showed up helped, while also keeping the other captains and officers from interfering in the conflict.
"I'll wind it back a bit and show exactly what you should be looking at," the Chameleon wound the clip back for thirty seconds, then played it again at a slower rate. "Everyone was busy with the arrest, and didn't see the main thing: no one came out of the shuttle from Umoyge-7. We checked the shuttle later and it was empty. There was no pilot inside. But someone had been piloting the shuttle, and clearly manually. And now look here!"
A human figure appeared from behind the Iseyek shuttle. It stood for a few seconds, watched the traitors get detained, but did not interfere, and set off at a quick pace to one of the side doors."
"Who is that? Why did they arrive on a Swarm ship?" I had no idea what was going on.
"That is not all, Prince Georg. Here is the security footage from the hallway he went down. Watch it in synch with the video from the hall.
The screen split in two: one half was showing the shuttle hangar, and the other was showing video from another camera. First the stranger pulled at the door handle and pulled the door toward himself. At the same time, the door to the hallway also opened. But... no one went through!!!
"I have no idea what's going on," I admitted. "Who was that, and where did he go?"
"On Umoyge-7, they confirmed that the shuttle they sent to the flagship had only their captain on it. Here is a hologram of him. And we already have data from our tactics officers showing that the shuttle's route from Umoyge-7 to Joan the Fatty never deviated from the assigned path, nor did it attach to any other ships."
I looked at the three-dimensional image of the captain of Umoyge-7. The centipede was approximately ten feet tall, a typical Gamma Iseyek. There was no doubt about it. But why then did another species arrive?
"It's an Arite!" A bizarre creaking voice rang out over my ear. I even shook in surprise and turned to the huge, normally quiet Alpha Iseyek security guard.
"Deimos, what do you know about the Arites? I need all the information you have!
The ten-foot-tall praying mantis wriggled his mandibles, carefully speaking the following words:
"I to fight with Arites on Arite-V, Arite-VIII, the moons of the eighth planet and on Swarm shshships. That is just how Arite to look. To be different always. Never to understand. If to kill, Arite die like Iseyek. But is Arite. Very hard to fight Arites. Very many losss. Is always Swarm confuse and to fight to Swarm."
"My Prince, look at me, but turn slowly and naturally."
Florianna's words were so strange and intriguing that I did as she said. What's wrong? Everything looked normal. The paralyzed girl was sitting in a black robe in the armchair and her minions were around her. Wait a second! Since when did Flora have five Beta Iseyeks? There were only four!
"The fake is standing behind me to the left," the Truth Seeker said.
As if nothing had happened, I continued to discuss the footage of the Iseyek shuttle's arrival, and then, without changing intonation, in a tranquil voice, told the room what the paralyzed girl had said. Phobos and Deimos reacted even faster than the Chameleons. In the space of a second, they closed the gap to the enemy, attacked it with their terrifying upper appendages and stuck it through with all of their four razor-sharp chitin blades.
There was no blood. The Beta Iseyek's figure suddenly dissolved and an off-white cloud escaped into the ventilation grate on the wall.
"It's gone!" Deimos stated with vexation. "He to can to become any being on Joan the Fatty, and systems not to understand different. Any passs, any marking to copy, to trick sssensors. Tricky beassst."
"How did the Swarm deal with Arites if one made it on a starship?" I wondered to Deimos, leaning on the Iseyek's two-hundred-year experience in the issue.
"Swarm to explode all these ship to know Arite is to dead. To let air out of all section right away is mean less victim in end. Arite is not to live in ssspace vacuum."
"No, that won't work in our situation," I laughed nervously. "People, and Chameleons are also quite bad at living in a vacuum. All the same, how impudent of him to come listen to us talk about him!"
"My Prince, that is not true! I felt his emotions and fragments of thoughts. The Arite is very scared and desperate. He was used to hiding among the Iseyek and has learned to do a fairly good job of copying them, but the Arite hasn't come close with people before, and is not sure of its abilities to obtain legal status in our society. But suddenly, at complete random, the Arite detected a room with a few Iseyek in it. He took advantage of the circumstances when you were looking in the other direction. He was trying to find a legal position to occupy in society, but was found out. Now the Arite is trying to hide in the ventilation shafts and is seriously afraid that us humans will try to flush him out with flamethrowers."
"Flamethrowers? Wait, would that work? We won't singe the whole cruiser up that way?"
"The Arite is used to the Swarm's categorical way of thinking. One ship going down would not stop the Iseyek. But I don't see why we should catch it if it isn't a threat to us. In fact, I would say it is the other way around. My Truth Seeker's instinct is just yelling that we simply must establish contact with the Arite."
"Alright, Flora. Everyone else, listen to the Truth Seeker's advice, and mine as well: there is no reason to capture the Arite. It has no desire to harm us. If it appears and tries to contact you, engage it in conversation and send it to me. And also, not a word is to leave this room about the Arite being on Joan the Fatty or any other ship for that matter. The Iseyek will be much too afraid of it, and the insects' method of fighting these beings is too radical. They would have my flagship destroyed just in case."
The Arite was seen at least another three times over the following few hours. First, it came to Bionica in the body of... Bionica herself, but realized by the android's reaction that it's attempt at masking hadn't worked and hurried to retreat. After that, it came as a bearded mechanic in a greasy jumpsuit who strolled into the women's bathroom, which clearly significantly lowered its faith in its own ability to blend in in human society. And, finally, the Arite came right to me. I had returned to my cabin and noticed that Princess Astra was sleeping peacefully in my bed... for some reason in duplicate.
Beyond Death (Perimeter Defense Book #2) Page 19