“Defense?” asked Blug, incredulously. “We are Raknii. We do not defend. We attack! What is all this defeatist talk of defense? Is this what we are reduced to? When is it that we will we see weapons on par with the human demons, capable of driving them back and bringing them under subjection to the Rak Empire?”
Tzal snorted. “It is easy to spout worn-out platitudes, Region-Master. Was it not our newest Imperial warships to defend your capital that you asked the supreme-master for? Should we not first strive to stop the alien’s conquest of our worlds, before we worry about going back onto the attack? As much as we might choose to deny it, for the moment at least, it is the humans who are the hunters and we, who are the prey.
“This is not a hunt like any we have experienced before. In fact, it’s not really a hunt at all. It is our first taste of real war — dominance combat between two magnificent races of predators. Dominance combat that the humans are currently winning.”
For all he might wish to deny it, Blug admitted to himself the validity of Tzal’s words. To survive, a region-master had to see the universe as it truly was, not as one might wish it to be. It was foolish to attempt shutting out reality by burying one’s head in the sand, for even if one was successful, where did that leave the tender sphincter beneath one’s tail? For a male to foolishly assume such a position voluntarily, was he not begging to be mounted by every passing male, as occasionally happened to females who foolishly went about in public while their heat was upon them?
“Advancements in our own weaponry was stagnant for hundreds of cycles and the humans hold a vast advantage in weapons technology, which cannot be spanned in a single leap,” continued Tzal. “We must learn to walk, before we can run. Newer, even more ambitious designs, based on what was observed by survivors at Golgathal are now under development, but it will take some time before any of those newer generations of weaponry find their way out of our manufacturing facilities. In the meantime, more of these new first-generation weapons are being built in vast numbers. Hopefully, they will suffice to stall the human advance long enough to gain us the time we need for our industry to produce new weaponry in increasing quality and quantity, to allow us to reassume the offensive.”
“Ten thousand?” Blug asked. “Is that truly all that we have managed to build in all this time?”
“That is all that we have fully trained crews for, but more are being completed every sub-cycle.”
Blug sighed in resignation and waved a paw towards Tzal. “All right, Ultimate-FleetMaster, place your ships into a defensive orbit around Slithin and coordinate with my OverFleet-Masters. I will have more specific orders for you later, after I have had the opportunity to study the composition and capabilities of these new warships of yours.”
Tzal stood stiffly before Blug’s throne, and staring directly at Blug’s rank-stones, he issued an unbelievable, one-word response: “No.”
Blug merely blinked in total incomprehension. No military commander in history had ever uttered that word in response to a region-master’s direct order before. “I do believe I may have misunderstood your response, Ultimate-FleetMaster. Can you repeat that again?”
Tzal complied. “I said, ‘no,’ Region-Master. I am under compulsion from Supreme-Master Xior himself that I am not to consider myself subject to your orders, or to anyone else’s other than the standing orders he has personally given me. I am ordered to use my own judgment at all times concerning the disposition and use of these new Imperial fleet assets.”
Blug was stunned, and apparently, so was everyone else in Blug’s throne room, as an urgent buzz of whispered conversations broke out in the background. Region-Masters were not at all used to hearing that word coming from the lips of anyone other than other region-master or the supreme-master himself, nor were they culturally suited for accepting such with good grace. Rage blazed in Blug’s eyes, but he held his tongue for the moment.
Xior is changing the rules!
But Blug had not been elevated to mastery of Region-4, by allowing his emotions to spew froth from his mouth like vomit. Finally, with his emotions barely in check, Blug hissed, “What other orders did the supreme-master give you then, Ultimate-FleetMaster?”
“Supreme-Master Xior ordered me to ensure that your fleet of warships currently stationed here at Slithin remain here,” replied Tzal. “He desires that no ‘misunderstandings’ occur between Region-4 and its neighbors, which might undermine stability within the Empire and Imperial efforts stop the alien advance into Rak space.”
Blug leaped from his seat upon his throne and bellowed, “Xior wishes to prevent me from defending my own borders from assaults by Glan’s treacherous blues?”
Tzal never flinched under the assault of Blug’s tirade, answering calmly, “You evidently thought that you still have sufficient forces along your border systems to discourage such incursions, or you wouldn’t have brought so many of your warships here to Slithin, so far from your borders. The supreme-master has not overlooked Region-4’s recent withholding of its assigned portion of military vessels and crews for the imperial war effort, nor has he disregarded the growing imbalance of power between Region-4 and its neighbors, who are still meeting their imperial obligations faithfully. As long as these 35,000 warships of yours remain here at Slithin, a semblance of parity is restored to the border areas and stability is enhanced, if not restored.”
“I assembled those warships here as a strategic reserve to be used as necessary to discourage treachery demonstrated by my neighbors!” Blug thundered. “The security and government of the individual regions has always been an internal matter, and not subject to Imperial approval or interference.”
Remaining calm in the face of Blug’s furious outburst, Tzal replied, “The supreme-master is well aware of exactly why it is that you assembled so many of your warships here at Slithin, Region-Master, and he offers you his sincerest personal congratulations on your cunning insight and the consummate forethought of your prompt request for imperial reinforcements.”
What? Blug was momentarily taken aback by this abrupt shift in Tzal’s course of thought. Xior, congratulating me? What sort of duplicitous chicanery is this?
“While I greatly appreciate the supreme-master’s high regard, of course — what exactly do you mean by your last comment, Ultimate-FleetMaster?”
“What you obviously already know, Region-Master,” said Tzal incredulously. “It’s why you requested Imperial reinforcements in the first place, and why Supreme-Master Xior sent me here with our entire stockpile of new weaponry, with such urgency.”
Blug felt the fur on the back of his neck rising at the chilling implications of Tzal’s statement. “Please expound further, Ultimate-FleetMaster.”
“Imperial Intelligence is in complete agreement with your assessment of alien intentions, Region-Master.”
“Which is…”
“That the humans are coming here, of course.”
* * * *
Chapter-16
If you are planning on doing business with someone again, don’t be too tough in the negotiations. If you’re going to skin a cat, don’t keep it as a house cat. -- Marvin S. Levin
En Route to the Trakaan Planet Troxia
April, 3868
Raan resisted repeated efforts by his advisors trying to convince him to simply ignore the Trakaan offer to mediate “peace talks” between himself, as the primary Raknii representative, and the Supreme Allied Commander of the Combined Fleets of Humanity, who was also Commander-in-Chief of the entire military of the Confederate Stellar Accord, one of the major human entities in their war against the Raknii Empire. Raan, and the Raknii in general, had great difficulty in understanding the concept of the multiple nation-states, that comprised a divided humanity.
How can they not be in a constant state of dominance combat between themselves, until the supremacy of one is clearly established?
Raan knew that his people had bitten off more than they could swallow, when they attacked these humans.
From Varq’s dark prophecy, he’d known it since before they’d even launched that first assault against the human planet Minnos, almost five cycles earlier. But knowing the consequences of something intellectually, and actually seeing the details of those consequences manifested in reality, were two entirely different animals.
Raan also knew from the moment that he first received Fraznal’s message that the humans had located the Trakaan world of Troxia, and brought an entire battlefleet there, that it wouldn’t be long before they also discovered his headquarters located here on Klista. In fact, despite the human’s assurances to Fraznal they would not track the Trakaan ship he dispatched to bring the diplomatic message, he was sure the moment Fraznal’s message ship made its transition into Klista space, an undetectable human ship had surely followed. The humans undoubtedly possessed some magical device that allowed them to scout Raknii systems without detection. Their surprise attack on the Raknii fleet massed at Golgathal could not have been so utterly successful, were it not so.
Even should he decide to abandon his people on Klista in their hundreds of millions and flee to another Raknii world within Region-6, there was no guarantee that a stealthy human vessel wouldn’t be tracking those movements as well. Raan immediately halted all outgoing ships destined anywhere other than Troxia, in the hopes that the humans hadn’t already followed any earlier departures to anywhere else in Region-6, but he certainly couldn’t wager the lives of so many of his people on it being successful. Either way, Fraznal had sealed Raan’s fate, and possibly the fate of billions upon billions of Raknii citizens, when he dispatched that message.
Perhaps some deep-seated desire for revenge, for earlier Raknii indignities committed against his people?
Plausible deniability might stay Raknii claws and fangs in retaliation for underhanded Trakaan treachery, but with an entire human fleet protecting Troxia, what could he do about it, even if that were really the case? Raan wondered if Fraznal had fully considered all of this, or if the little gray alien could possibly be that naïve? Despite what his shortsighted advisors thought, Raan had absolutely no other choice, but to go and speak with these ultimate predators personally.
Fraznal’s message promised that the humans, under what they called “diplomatic immunity,” had guaranteed his personal safety, supposedly including the freedom to leave again and return to Raknii space whenever he wished… another strange human concept, of which he had little understanding.
Of course they’d let me go, so they could follow and discover the locations of even more Raknii targets.
The human’s words were just that… words. What could Fraznal possibly do if the humans reneged on their previous agreement with him? Raan considered himself dead from the moment that Trakaan ship transited into the Klista system. If that’s the way the humans wanted him and Klista and any other world they’d be able to track outbound traffic to, they would all be… very, very dead. In their teeming billions, they’d be dead, unless Raan could somehow talk these implacable humans out of destroying the worlds of his region.
What might they ask for, to make such a concession?
What could he offer them besides exposing his throat in total submission? According to the human prisoner that Drix held on Vnayrk, this same elderly human commander accepted Planet-Master Mraz’s submission of the planet Golgathal and offered amazingly lenient terms. If this human was to be believed, except for trading with humans for equipment and supplies that previously had been imported from the empire, life for the Raknii remaining on Golgathal varied little from before, and for the most part, the humans left them alone.
Perhaps I can “negotiate” with this human, as I once did with Fraznal. We shall see.
Raan also resisted the advice of his military commanders, who insisted that his spaceplane be escorted to the Troxia system by several thousand of their old-style warships, because that might inadvertently spark off a conflict in which his ships could provide the humans with nothing more daunting than target practice. Besides, there was no sense in getting all those Rak warriors stranded in Trakaan space, too.
So Raan decided. He would go to Troxia unescorted, and place himself totally at the mercy of whatever the humans wished to do to him. It really didn’t matter, as he expected the best he could accomplish with the rest of his life was to suffer the shame of being the first region-master in history to expose belly and throat, in submission to aliens.
* * * *
The Trakaan Planet Troxia
April, 3868
Unbeknownst to Fleet-Admiral Kalis, Admiral Thorn sent orders back to Kitty Litter to have Kalis’ personal GulfMaster II executive spaceliner forwarded to Troxia, so he wouldn’t have any excuses for crawling into the back of a training Raptor again, any time soon.
Damned old fool, traipsing around the galaxy in the back seat of a hotshot fighter, like he was some kind of rough, tough old cowboy!
Some said that the only difference between men and boys was the price of their toys, and she had to admit, a Raptor made a hell of a great toy for a boy of any age. Thorn felt she had to protect Kalis from his own foolishness as much as she could, as she had developed quite a fondness for that rough, tough old cowboy over the years. Not that she would ever call it “love” — they were both much too old for that kind of romantic nonsense, but Kalis was the one and only man who had ever made her feel like a woman, rather than just a piece of dried-up old boot leather.
The two senior admirals spent much of Kalis’ first night aboard the Connie, “consulting” in the big bed in the admiral’s stateroom, which had recently been hers until Kalis came aboard. For appearance’s sake, she bumped her flag-captain out of his stateroom, and then further bumping continued on down the line like dominoes toppling one against another, until finally at the bottom of the ladder, some poor junior ensign found himself sleeping in a hose-locker, somewhere deep in the bowels of the ship.
Kalis spent the better part of two weeks consulting with Fraznal, the Trakaan planetary administrator, and he too felt a strange something, when confronted by flying saucers and small, thin, gray-skinned aliens with bug-like black eyes. Discussions finally revealed that the Trakaan had possessed interstellar space travel for many thousands of years and Fraznal’s ancestors had indeed visited Old Earth many times over the past several thousand years. There was no scientific evidence supporting the idea of “racial memory,” but damned if the Trakaan’s appearance didn’t give most humans the creeps, just looking at them.
Kalis and Fraznal became acquainted with each other’s priorities and concerns regarding the Raknii, and Fraznal gave him many insights into the cat’s psychology, from an entirely different point of view than that which mankind had developed to date. Fraznal also introduced Kalis and Thorn to a popular local Trakaan drink, a purplish juice from the Jla fruit, which had a peculiar sweet, yet sour flavor, which Thorn enjoyed as is, but Kalis preferred with a splash of vodka in it. Fraznal was an inquisitive creature and naturally wished to taste this curious Jla/vodka concoction that Kalis seemed to prefer, but he squealed in disgust at the noxious flavor… at least, noxious by Trakaan standards.
There’s just no accounting for taste, is there?
* * * *
The Raknii Imperial Planet of Raku
April, 3868
Drix no longer wore the bright light-orange silks that he’d chosen as his colors for Region-7, but again donned the Imperial white silks of Region-1. The supreme-master himself was, by default, the master of Imperial Region-1, so it looked very odd to others within the Imperial Palace to see anyone wearing white silks and the rank-stones of a region-master at the same time. It was an extremely rare occurrence, only seen just prior to the ascension of a new supreme-master.
Drix had initially been horrified by the appearance of his formerly robust sire, now looking so thin and worn. He had seen the videos, of course, but even that hadn’t prepared him for the stark realities of his sire’s illness. Xior looked like death itself, searching for a h
ole to lie down in.
But Xior rallied notably at seeing his heir again, and took particular delight in holding and roughhousing with his heir’s heir — the tiny white male cub, Eryx. Even the supreme-master had heard tales of the legendary N’raal, so Xior was astounded that this unnaturally beautiful female, so regal in bearing and yet demure and unassuming in presence, could possibly be the same female that he’d heard such horrendous stories about.
Drix has done well, very well indeed, in choosing and taming this one as mate.
Hal spent yet another uncomfortable trip on the long flight to Raku, aboard Drix’ personal spaceliner. It just wasn’t designed to accommodate someone of his incredible height, and Hal had been forced to literally crawl into the plane and sit on the floor for the entire journey. But Hal went, uncomplaining, as was his usual demeanor.
Drix found it odd that such a highly educated High-Human could be so incredibly superior to the majority of his race, yet remain so incredibly humble in his attitudes toward others. Indeed, it was Hal’s ability to maintain such extraordinary dignity, without acting in the least bit haughty, that Drix tried to incorporate into his new code of ethics and morals. He wanted to show his people that they could still retain their honor and noble stature, while recognizing and respecting the inherent value of those same traits in creatures other than themselves.
Xior, Drix, Hal and Varq spent many hours going over Drix’ new manifesto, which was to serve as a moral compass for the Raknii people in the future. Line-by-line and word-by-word, the document was tweaked, adjusted and clarified, until at last, it was as perfect as they could possibly get it. It was thick, but copies were made and sent to the printers to be mass-produced by the billions, so that every Raknii citizen might have personal access to what Hal had begun referring to as the new Raknii Bible.
* * * *
Wrath of an Angry God: A Military Space Opera Page 18