Solbidyum Wars Saga 5: Desolation

by Dale C. Musser

  A starship could carry over ten thousand citizens in luxury. Ambassadors, diplomats, and business men often took up permanent residences on starships, as it enabled them to conduct business on the worlds the ships visited routinely. One-half of a ship’s complement was usually military personnel, but that was about to change during the war. It would not be possible for starships to maintain customary routes and still answer the call to battle where needed. Business men and other civilians expecting to make regular stops with fixed arrival and departure times would not like being diverted for weeks or possibly months while the starships engaged in battles. Diplomats, on the other hand, might be useful, but clearly changes would have to be made.

  Many of the civilian luxuries on the ships would need to be replaced with accommodations for more military people and supplies; other means of travel would be required for the civilians. New warships would have to be built that were better suited to military action and conflict. Perhaps the giant starships might return to civilian use, but at the moment military priorities took precedence. I was mulling these things over as we headed to one of the finer dining rooms on the DUSTEN when suddenly something else caught my eye.

  I realized I recognized the part of the ship we were passing through. We were in the corridor where the compartment that Lunnie and I were tortured in, and where Lunnie had died was located. As we rounded the corner facing the door to the compartment, I was startled to see the door open and the doorframe decorated in an attractive design. As we neared the opening I was able see inside and suddenly realized the space had been set up as a memorial. Captain Wanoll noticed me pause and he said, “Everyone aboard the ship felt this place needed to be set aside as a tribute to both Lt. Luinella and Captain Maxette and as well as the others who died. Would you like to go in and see it?”

  I tried to speak, but the words hung in my throat, and I simply nodded and entered the room. The manacles where Lunnie and I had been shackled to the wall still were there, small spotlights shown on them and labels identified them as the places that Lunnie and I had been restrained. A 3D hologram of Lunnie rotated beside the spot, and my eyes filled with tears seeing her there not quite solid but real enough to make my heart ache. All the memories of her death at this place came back, Lexmal slashing and stabbing her, and her defiantly biting off his little finger before he killed her. I turned looking at the spot where I had nearly died and was surprised to see a 3D hologram of myself. All around the hologram were stacks of Life Tokens, there must have been thousands of them. Wanoll saw my look and said, “The crew of the ship have been praying for you and Kalana’s rescue. It’s all come about so quickly that many of them have not yet come and retrieved their tokens now that you have been saved.”

  Nearer the door where we entered the room, another 3D hologram of Captain Maxette stood. A vid screen next to him played out the scenes that had happened in those final moments when Kala was brought in as a prisoner, and she broke free, killing her captors and Lexmal. On the screen it also played out Captain Maxette managing to free his hands and get hold of one of his captors’ weapons and shoot the traitor Thimas. As I turned, I noticed that two of the walls in the room were covered with huge plaques containing the names of the over 5000 people who had lost their lives on the DUSTEN in the battle, all in alphabetical order. I ran my finger down the columns until I found Reidecor’s name, and I sighed. “Everyone here aboard the DUSTEN stops by here at least once a week to pay their respects to those who died here,” Wanoll said, “and on the anniversary of the battle every year, a memorial service is held in their honors.

  “I didn’t know,” I said. “I had no idea.”

  “We wanted to have you and First Citizen Kalana in attendance, but every year you have been somewhere else; first you were on Alle Bamma, then at Goo Waddle, then Earth, and this past year you and Kalana were marooned on Desolation.”

  “It doesn’t seem all that long ago.”

  “I’ll leave you a moment if you like,” Wanoll said.

  “Yes,” I responded. “I’d like that.”

  Captains Wanoll and Marranalis stepped outside as I walked about the room. I stood for several minutes staring at the spot where Lunnie had died, and then I went and sat upon the floor beneath the shackles where I had been restrained. In my mind, I could see all the events playing out just as they had years earlier. Kala and I had survived and gone on to be named First Citizens; Kala, Lunnie, and Maxette were true heroes in every sense of the word and worthy of being First Citizens. However, I didn’t feel like I belonged in that list. Of them all, I was the one receiving the greater reward, but they had been the ones to pay the greatest price.

  Finally, I got up off the floor and walked out of the room to find Marranalis and Wanoll waiting for me. “Thank you,” I said, “I truly appreciate it.” Captain Wanoll nodded and said. “Now let’s get something to eat, shall we?”

  After dining on an exquisite meal in a dining room surrounded by glass walls that looked out into an atrium that nearly surrounded it, Captain Wanoll led me to accommodations that were set aside for the Admiral. While the suite of rooms was not as large and luxurious as the one I had stayed in when I first was picked up by the DUSTEN, it was still extravagant and almost as large as my suite on the NEW ORLEANS. The suite didn’t have its own pool, but it did have access to a pool and gym set aside for senior officers on the ship. I was also provided with a military aide who functioned in much the same capacity as Piesew did for me on the NEW ORLEANS. He was a young man, very early 20’s, pretty close to Padaran’s age I guessed. He was a few millimeters shorter than I was and only a tad thinner, but he appeared fit. Every detail about him seemed to be perfect, from the way he stood, to the way his perfectly pressed uniform fit his body. Not a hair was out of place on his head and while his expression wasn’t sour, he never smiled either.

  “Tibby, this is Lt. Franton, he is assigned as your steward. You are free of course, to choose someone else if you wish, but for the time being, he is here to assist you in any way you need.” Wanoll said.

  “Lieutenant,” I said, acknowledging the young man.

  “First Citizen Admiral Tibby,” Lt. Franton began in a rich tenor voice, “it is my honor to serve you. I am at your beck and call 24 hours a day. My compartment joins yours, connected by that door there.” He indicated a door to my right. “It will be my duty to see to your appointments, meals, uniforms, and any communications that arrive here at your suite. Should your bond-mate and children come aboard I will see to their needs also."

  “I’ll try not to keep you too busy, Lieutenant,” I said, “I will probably not be in this suite very much, as I may be traveling between locations quite a bit.”

  Even though I had spent several weeks on the DUSTEN when I first arrived in the Federation, I really had seen very little of the ship, as my presence and that of the TRITYTE and the solbidyum were closely guarded secrets. To keep word from leaking out, I was confined to a small portion of the ship with bodyguards. Now the ship was to be my flagship, and as I strolled about with Captain Wanoll and Marranalis, as well as a small contingent of armed troopers, I could not help marveling at how large it was and how much the civilian portions of the ship reminded me of the huge shopping malls in cities like New York and Houston, back on Earth in my days there.

  Multi layered galleries surrounded vast courtyards and thousands of people milled about; shops, hotels, offices, restaurants and clubs crammed the various levels. People stopped and stared at me as we passed, and I could hear gasps and people saying; “It's First Citizen Tibby. They found him,” or “By the stars, it’s Tibby! He’s back.” As we continued with the tour, it became more apparent that removing the civilians from the starships was going to be a larger problem than I anticipated. Many of the businesses such as the restaurants and clubs would be able to remain and still function with business from the troops that would be aboard. However, those merchants who relied on doing business with the planets the starship visited regularly were go
ing to be very unhappy.

  “Captain,” I began addressing Wanoll, “does the Cantolla gate allow me to use my personal com link to communicate directly with my staff on the NEW ORLEANS?”

  “Yes sir, as long as the gate is open the signal will travel through the gate.”

  “And is that gate open now? I asked.

  “No sir,” Wanoll said, “it is not. Once you arrived here the gate was turned off at this end for protection of the ship. It was A’Lappe’s idea, sir. If the gate is left open, any terrorist or radical person could easily pass from one ship to another with an explosive device and do great damage; that is, if they manage to get past security. However, if the gates are closed it requires an understanding of how they work to get them both turned on and synchronized, and at the moment very few people know how to do that.”

  “Could you have someone on the bridge contact the NEW ORLEANS and have them get a message to A’Lappe that I wish to meet with him in about four hours in my study on the NEW ORLEANS?” I asked.

  “Certainly, sir, I’ll see to it immediately.” Wanoll said.

  As we were completing the tour, Wanoll led us back through the troopers’ exercise area. I was interested to see them training in martial arts exercises and even more amazed at the skill level I was seeing. In the past, many of the troops I had been training had been sluggish and clumsy, but these troopers were fast and deadly, and I wondered just how I would stand up against one of them if challenged to do so.

  “What do you think, Admiral?” I heard a female voice ask from behind me. “Quite an improvement from a few years ago with the troopers you were training on the NEW ORLEANS isn’t it?”

  I turned to seeing a woman standing off to the side in a captain’s uniform. “Sokaia!” I said as I recognized her. “I didn’t know you were aboard the DUSTEN. It’s good to see you again.”

  “I was transferred to the DUSTEN just a few months ago,” she replied. “I’m in command of these troopers you see training here.”

  “Well then I am certain they are highly trained and tough as nickel asteroids,” I said. Captain Sokaia was one of the first troopers I had trained early on, and initially she and I had not gotten off to a good start. She had an attitude that since I wasn’t military at the time, that I was of no significance, and therefore, she had little to no respect for me. It had resulted in her getting a dressing down not only from Kala, who outranked her, but from Admiral Regeny as well. Sokaia was a good trooper, and we had become friends, and once we got to know each other better we developed a mutual respect. Sokaia had been on the mission to Goo’Waddle with me and had gone undercover as a slave in our attempt to recover stolen solbidyum.

  “They are looking pretty good,” I commented. “I see you have been training them in a lot of new and different moves as well.”

  “Yes, Captain Slater of the Mars colony taught us a lot of different martial arts moves other than just the ones you taught us. We’ve combined the two, and this is the result.”

  “I’m impressed.” I stated.

  “Captain Slater is a pretty amazing fighter. He’s taught us a lot and given us a perspective on hand-to-hand combat as well as surface combat that is new to us. Admiral Regeny is afraid though that Ming may be teaching Earth tactics to the Brotherhood as well, so it may not be that big an advantage,” Sokaia added.

  “From what I know of Ming,” Marranalis began, “I doubt he’s taught them much. He’s too lazy to actually get physically involved in training. Slater thinks Ming may be brilliant at planning battle strategies, as he was leading the successful Chinese army back on Earth. So far though, we haven’t seen any ingenious battle plans evolve in the actions of the Brotherhood. Slater thinks Ming is studying things and looking for the weakest places to attack.”

  “Ming is insane and maniacal, but he’s not a total fool. He studies people and is a good judge of character and people's weaknesses,” I said. “He managed to dominate several hundred people on the Moon with only a hand full of guards. You have to be pretty good at manipulation to do that.”

  “Oh, one thing more,” I said turning to Sokaia, “since you will be serving under my command, I hope you won’t have any problems taking orders from Marranalis. He's going to be my right hand and most orders I give will be passed through him.”

  Sokaia laughed, “No problem there, Admiral. I've learned my lesson about challenging you and your wishes. Besides, having worked with both you and Captain Marranalis in the past I have grown to admire and respect both of you and consider it an honor working under you both.

  “Oh and congratulations on the twins, I’m looking forward to seeing them and First Citizen Kalana also. It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly a year since I’ve seen her. I understand you two underwent quite an ordeal on Desolation, but if anyone was going to survive there, it would be you and Kalana.” Then in a softer and sincerer tone she added, “I really am glad to see you both safely back. We honestly need you Tibby. This thing with the Brotherhood doesn’t look good at all and it’s only a matter of time before it becomes really bad.”

  “I suspect you are right, Captain, which is why I am here.

  “I don’t mean to cut this short, but I need to be in a meeting in an hour back on the NEW ORLEANS. I’ll be wanting to meet with you and the senior members of the fleet in a day or two to discuss various battle strategies. In the meantime, carry on as you were Captain.

  “Marranalis I need you to come with me. Captain Wanoll, keep me informed of anything new that may come up.”

  As I started to head down the corridor I turned to Marranalis and asked, “Just which way is it to the Cantolla gate?” He laughed and took the lead with two troopers as two more followed.

  Even once we returned to the NEW ORLEANS, the guards stayed with me, and I had a sinking feeling as I realized that they were pretty much going to be with me everywhere I went regardless of what ship I was on from this day forwards. We were joined by Padaran and two more guards from my own security forces aboard the NEW ORLEANS. “Welcome back, Admiral,” he said, “I would suggest that you allow two of our security forces here on the NEW ORLEANS to replace two of the Federation troopers while you are here. They are more familiar with this ship if something should go wrong, and it also allows the Federation troopers a chance to rest and eat; this way they can rotate on and off duty; otherwise, they may never get to until others arrive from a Federation ship to relieve them.” This caught me off guard, as I hadn’t had time to give the matter any thought.

  “What do you think, Marranalis, from a Federation point of view?” I asked.

  “I think it’s a damned good idea,” he replied.

  “Very well then. You two,” I said, indicating two of the troopers, “you’re relieved. Padaran, I suspect you have someplace set up where these two may take some R&R until they are needed back on duty again.”

  “Yes sir, I do. If you men will kindly follow me, I’ll take you to your temporary quarters,” he said as he started down a side corridor.

  “Marranalis, you’ll need to notify their commanding officer of this situation,” I said.

  “Already done, Admiral; I’m their commanding officer,” he said with a grin.

  When we arrived at the laboratory shared by A’Lappe and Cantolla, we found their assistants rushing about engaged in all sorts of activities. Cantolla was atop a ladder while A’Lappe stood at the base of it trying to steady it and yell up to her at the same time. “No, no, you just need to attach it there! We can adjust and fine-tune it from down here remotely!”

  Cantolla performed some action on the top of the frame she was working on, then turned her head and noticed me, causing her to nearly lose her balance and fall.

  “Admiral, is it that time already? We’re just finishing up. I’ll be right down,” she said. In the meantime, A’Lappe hearing her say Admiral, had released his standing grip on the ladder and had turned and was walking toward me with a big grin on his face. This resulted in the ladder suddenly beco
ming unstable, causing Cantolla to let out a scream, and she grasped it firmly in both hands. Fortunately, neither the ladder nor Cantolla fell as Marranalis moved quickly and grabbed the ladder while the oblivious A’Lappe continued toward me.

  “Ah, Tibby. We were just putting together a new gate large enough to bring some larger pieces of equipment through,” he said.

  “I noticed,” I said, and then added, “You nearly transported Cantolla to a place of no return.”

  A’Lappe turned just in time to see Marranalis helping Cantolla off the ladder. “Oh my, I’m sorry, Cantolla. Please forgive me.” Cantolla was a bit red-faced and irritated, but she said, “It’s all right, A’Lappe, I know how excited you get whenever you have the opportunity to talk with Tibby." Just then there was a loud crash and some colorful language from the other side of the lab, and some assistants were seen picking up pieces of fallen equipment.

  “By the stars, A’Lappe,” Cantolla began, “I think we should just give up today and start all over again tomorrow. Nothing is going right today, and everything seems to be falling apart.” As she said it, a large strand of hair shifted and fell across her face. “Admiral if you don’t mind, I suggest we move into the conference room to talk. It’s far too chaotic out here.”

  “That will be fine,” I answered, just as there was a bright flash of light and a zapping sound of high-voltage discharge from the other end of the lab, followed by more cursing. A’Lappe tensed up and shrugged his shoulders, as though he anticipated something worse, but there was nothing. Other than for a blue cloud of smoke that was dispersing from the other end of the room, all was still.

  “Let’s get in there quickly,” I added, “I don’t think it’s safe out here.”

  We entered the conference room which had windows that looked out into the lab. I stared through it as A’Lappe, Cantolla and Marranalis entered, only to see flames erupting at the far end of the lab and two assistants rushing with fire extinguishers to put it out. Cantolla looked through the window at the scene and muttered, “By a freckled Beerspog’s gonads,” and she quickly activated a control on the wall that darkened the glass, shutting off the views of the lab. Then she breathed a sigh and pushed the still wayward strand of hair out of her vision.