Running aft along the port side, the two sisters made a ninety degree turn just in front of the tangle of pipes that were part of the heavy water processor. Dorri was ahead of her sister and goading her on.
“Come on, slow poke! Your legs are longer than mine!”
“Keep talking, little star,” Shadi panted. “I'm going to pass you on the straight!”
Just as Dorri was about to make the turn forward, onto the starboard straightaway, two large figures in dark green stepped from the cover of the deuterium refinery. Dorri collided with the nearest and bounced off with an involuntary shriek.
The young woman fell as she had been taught, rolling and slapping the deck with her arm to absorb energy. Ending her roll back on her feet, she assumed a defensive stance. Shadi managed to avoid Dorri's tumble and struck a similar pose next to her sister.
“Oh! Hey sorry,” the other participant in the collision sputtered.
“Yeah, we didn't mean to run into you,” said his companion, holding up his open hands in a sign of surrender.
“Who the hell are you! And why are you lurking around in the hold?” shouted Shadi, adrenalin bringing her to the edge of fight or flight. Next to her, Dorri seemed to be in favor of fight.
“Whoa, whoa there!” said the first man in green. “We weren't lurking, we were just taking a walk around the hold to make sure everything was ready for emergence.”
“Yeah,” said the other, “we're assigned to damage control with the engineers.”
“And there is nothing to do,” said the first.
“So we got bored and took a walk,” the second man finished.
Shadi looked from one to the other.
“Do you always finish each other's sentences?”
The two men looked at each other sheepishly.
“Yeah, we do that a lot.”
“Hey,” said Dorri, relaxing her stance, “I know you, you're the Jumbo Twins.”
Both men winced.
“Yeah, that's what they call us.”
“That, or Frick and Frack.”
“Or Tweedledee and Tweedledum.”
“Or Mutt and Jeff, or...”
“OK, OK! We get the point.” Shadi lowered her arms and straightened up. “I'm Shadi, and she's my sister Dorri.”
Dorri chimed in, “Hi!”
“I'm Malachi.”
“And I'm Hezekiah, but you can call me Zeke.”
“And me Mal.”
The two Marines stood shyly in front of the sisters. Not used to talking to female crew members, and certainly not used to conversing with two beautiful young women close to their own ages, they were at a loss. Not so the irrepressible Dorri.
“You are the other two survivors. The only other people to have lived on the surface of Paradise and escaped with their lives.”
“Yes,” Shadi added. “Dorri and I were colonists, like you.”
“Yeah,” said Mal, “we know who you are.”
“Everybody on board knows who you two are,” finished Zeke.
“Why haven't you ever said hello before?”
“We were sort of told not to bother you, Dorri,” Zeke said sheepishly.
“Besides, we had a lot of stuff to learn to become Marines.”
“We've been on board together for over a year, and you never once said Hi?”
Both men blushed.
“You're embarrassing them, little sister,” Shadi said in Farsi.
Not to be deterred, Dorri continued. “We've seen you around on occasion. You're both very big, are you brothers?”
Eagerly seizing a verbal way out of their embarrassment Mal forged ahead.
“We're twins—dizygotic not monozygotic.”
“Fraternal not identical,” Zeke clarified.
“I can see that,” said Dorri, placing her hands on her hips and looking the twins up and down.
Zeke grinned. “I'm the oldest. Mal is my little brother.”
“Yeah, by about fifteen minutes.”
“He's been late for everything since.” He smiled at his brother.
“He doesn't look so little,” quipped Dorri.
“So how old are you?” Shadi asked, her interest piqued.
“Nineteen,” they answer in unison.
“Shadi is seventeen, and I'm almost fifteen. You are the youngest people on board, next to us.”
The twins nodded in agreement.
“We are all lucky to have gotten this old, after Paradise,” Mal replied. “You were in one of the other settlements. We would have remembered you if you were in Brother Abraham's flock.”
“We were in Imam Mustafa's group.” Dorri's eyes narrowed a bit. “So you are Christians?”
“Sort of,” replied Zeke. “Brother Abraham had his own take on religion.”
“You mean he was a total nutcase,” Mal snorted.
“So you are Muslims?” asked Zeke, ignoring his brother.
“Technically, but our family was not overly religious.”
“Shadi means our real family, our original family, not the Imam's band of fanatics.”
An awkward silence ensued.
“I wonder what would have happened if things hadn't gone the way they did on Paradise?” Zeke said, breaking the silence. “With three groups of settlers with different religious beliefs.”
“Probably would have made a mess of that planet, like we messed up Earth.”
“Shadi is sometimes a bit of a pessimist. I think we would have eventually learned to get along. Most people don't agree with fanatics.”
“Dorri is sometimes overly optimistic.”
Dorri looked at the two young men with a thoughtful expression on her face. Before she could speak a tone sounded throughout the hold, followed by the First Officer's clipped, British accented voice.
“Attention, all hands. Emergence in fifteen minutes. Report to your duty stations. I repeat, emergence in fifteen minutes.”
“We have to go back to engineering,” said Zeke, looking at his brother.
“We have to run as well,” added Shadi. “We need to shower and get to the forward lounge. Now!”
The sisters began running forward. Dorri looked over her shoulder and yelled, “Talk to you later, don't be strangers!”
As the two young women disappeared down the track the two young men watched then go.
“They are so pretty,” said Mal.
“That they are, they're beautiful.”
“You're drooling, Brother.”
“What? I am not. Come on let's go or the Gunny will bust our balls for not being at our duty station.”
“At least you were smart enough to not talk like a Marine in front of those women.”
The pair headed aft at a run.
Bridge, Peggy Sue
“Emergence in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...”
At the end of the computer's countdown the Peggy Sue's viewports changed from pearlescent gray to transparent and a new star system shimmered into existence before the crew's eyes. After a dozen such transitions from alter-space to normal 3-space, the crew knew the arrival drill by heart.
“Any contacts on the gravitonic alter-space sensors, Mr. Umky?”
“Negative, Captain. Just the expected stars and planets.”
“Very good. Any signals activity, Number One?”
“I'm detecting some EM traffic from the super-Earth orbiting the primary, but nothing else. A positive indication of some form of civilization.”
“Interesting. Dr. Ogawa, please deploy the large optical telescope and start a survey of the system.”
“Hai, Captain.”
“We have a forty minute window before anyone knows we are here, let's make the most of it.”
As the crew bent to their tasks a cone shaped wavefront of X-rays and gamma rays spread out from the emergence point. This was followed by a slightly slower spray of highly energetic particles, the result of the ship materializing in normal spacetime, disrupting the fabric of the Universe at the quantum level. Caused by in
terfering with the mutual annihilation of particle-antiparticle pairs, the burst of energy was the unmistakable calling card of a ship arriving from alter-space.
Chapter 9
Alpha Phoenicis
Because of the relative masses of the departure star and Alpha Phoenicis, the Peggy Sue's emergence point was over half a billion kilometers from the system's central orange star. It was also twenty degrees north of the plane of the ecliptic. The planet of the Fakkaa was half that distance from its sun, but on the far side from the new arrival. At nearly a right angle to the vector from the Peggy Sue to Alpha Phoenicis A, 3.2 billion kilometers from is partner, orbited Alpha Phoenicis B, a baleful red ember that held the system's other habitable planet in thrall.
Radiation from Peggy Sue's arrival passed by the Fakkaa world first, though no notice was taken of it by the planet's inhabitants. The next collection of sentient beings to receive the arrival signal was the Fakkaa invasion fleet, more than half way through their journey. They too lacked the equipment to detect the now faint emanations, but 10,000 kilometers beyond the Fakkaa's primitive fleet lay the ship of the Dark Lords.
Due to their course and the geometry of the star system the Dark Lords saw the burst of radiation two and a half hours after the Earthlings arrived. Unlike their innocent dupes, the manipulative cold life creatures possessed the necessary detectors and knew what the radiation pattern meant.
“Most Wise, we have detected signs indicating the arrival of a ship from the small dimensions.”
“Yes, Senior Functionary, I have noted the signal myself. Have we identified its type?”
“We are still analyzing the combined electromagnetic and particle radiation, though the craft is unmistakably moving under gravitonic power. Perhaps it is a vessel from the Dark Lord Council or another servant race.”
“Fool! Never wish away the danger hidden within the unknown. We were sent on this mission by the Dark Lord Council themselves—there is no reason for them to dispatch more servants and certainly no reason for one of the most high to personally travel to this benighted system.”
This statement was accompanied by a reflexive twitch of the Wise One's stinging tentacles. The underling edged farther away from its overlord.
“Forgive me, Wise One! I should not have presumed to offer advice before you completed your analysis. You are of course correct, the drive signature does not match that of any known cold life species or servant race.”
“As I intuited, it is more parasitic warm life scum coming to complicate our mission. Does the drive signature match any know warm life species?”
“No exact match, Most Wise. However, there are similarities to some old entries in the database... it is a 60% probable match for ancient T'aafhal drives!”
“Impossible! The T'aafhal passed into entropy several million years ago. It must be some other warm life refuse who adopted the forever accursed Paladins' technology. This shows why warm life is like an infectious disease, we stamp it out in one place only to have it rear its malignant tentacles someplace else.”
“Frozen God's of the void, will we never be free of these foul life forms?” Cursing warm life seemed a safe response to the Senior Functionary.
“No matter. Their presence may be a blessing in disguise.”
“Yes, Wise One?”
“Our kind are cold life, but we do not rank high among the other Dark Lords. It has long been our race's aspiration to join the high council. In part that is why we are here on the mission to retrieve the T'aafhal artifact. When we return with the artifact and report the extermination of two races of warm life parasites our prestige will be enhanced. But to add to that success the destruction of an obviously advanced ship sent by an unknown race of vermin, well that will be even better.”
“Truly, your ability to chart a successful course in the face of uncertainty is exemplary, Wise One.”
Shrugging off its sycophantic lackey's attempt to curry favor, the alien Commander continued its analysis.
“Have they detected us or the primitives' fleet?”
“No, Most Wise, at least there has been no indication from the ship's motion that they are aware of our presence.”
“That is as it should be. The impulse drives we gave to the primitives are virtually undetectable and the fusion generators well shielded. Still, contact the Admiral with a low power signal and reemphasize the need to maintain radio silence.”
“As you command.”
“It is probable that these new creatures have never encountered a ship propelled by a dark matter, space warping drive before. Even underway we will hardly register on a scan for gravitonic drives. We cannot move between star systems with their speed but we are not limited to alter-space transfer lines between massive objects, we can go anywhere in 3-space. That gives me the greatest weapon a commander can posses—surprise!”
What the alien commander did not realize was that there was another entity in the star system that could detect the newly arrived ship. An entity that had at its disposal the full technology of the T'aafhal.
Bridge, Fakkaa Flagship
Admiral Raqqee sat strapped in his chair on the flag bridge, a raised section above the flagship's actual bridge from which he could observe operations. He was strapped down to prevent him from floating out of his chair under the fraction of a G thrust the impulse drives provided. From the bridge below Captain Tikkoo called to report an incoming communique.
“Admiral, we have just received a signal from the commander of our troops on the target planet. It says that the native queen is on her last legs and is expected to die at any time.”
“Fagh! The timing is too soon. We should have been in orbit and ready to land our forces before the old bug queen dies.”
“Perhaps she will cling to life a bit longer as a favor to us all,” Tikkoo said in a deadpan voice. There were few on board who could get away with teasing the Admiral that way.
“If I knew the old queen's frequency I'd give her a call,” Raqqee replied with a short laugh. “As I understand the situation on the ground, the instant the old queen dies the race is on.”
“Yes, Admiral. On the old queen's death her royal offspring will immediately head for the capital. The plan is to back one of the princesses in the fight for the throne.”
“Yes, yes, and once she is on the throne we will use her to search for and excavate the artifact. I know the plan as well as you do, Tikkoo. We must not delay when the old queen dies or we risk a different princess ascending the throne. That would greatly complicate our task.”
“Agreed.”
“Signal the commander to proceed with the plan using the troops he has. The natives are primitives, their weapons should be no match for our own. It is imperative that our princess wins the fight to succeed the old queen.”
“Admiral, the aliens have told us to maintain strict radio silence.”
“So, use a tight directional signal, and tell the local commander not to reply. I doubt even the wise ones can change the laws of physics and read such a signal.”
“As you command, Admiral. I do not know why they care, the natives haven't the technology to receive radio transmissions, who are they afraid will hear us?”
“I don't know, Captain. Who can know the reasons behind anything these 'Wise Ones' do?”
As the Captain instructed his signals officer to send the message, the Admiral lapsed back into silence, worrying about what was to come—and what the aliens would do once they had their precocious artifact.
Bridge, Peggy Sue
“Captain, I have just detected a neutrino message burst,” the voice of the ship's computer said in Billy Ray's ear.
“Like the one we got from the M'tak Ka'fek at the end of the battle off Sirius? I though that only the T'aafhal had the tech to do that?”
“Precisely, Captain. It seems to have originated from the planet orbiting the secondary M type star.”
Clearing his voice the Captain spoke to the bridge crew.
&nb
sp; “People, I have just been informed that we have received a message from the planet orbiting Alpha Phoenicis B. A directional neutrino burst.”
Beth merely raised one eyebrow, a Spock like gesture she had mastered because it amused the crew and mildly annoyed her husband. Mizuki's response was even more appropriate for the fictitious Vulcan.
“Captain, that would imply that the sender of the message was aware of our existence, which is highly improbable.”
“Why do you say that, Dr. Ogawa?”
“We have been in this system just under three hours. The propagation of a signal through 3-space is limited to the speed of light. Neutrinos have mass and are therefore even slower.”
“And yer point, Doctor?”
“By necessity, the message must have been sent shortly after we emerged in this system, well before radiation from our arrival could have reached the planet of origin.”
“Which means, whoever sent it must have detected our presence almost instantaneously,” Billy Ray said.
“Hai.”
“And that would imply gravitonic detectors that work in alter-space,” the Captain continued.
“And the only species we know of who have such technology are the T'aafhal,” finished Beth.
“This mission has just become significantly more important. Finding a functioning T'aafhal ship or outpost has repercussions for all humanity, not just the company. Bridge, alter course for the source of the message.”
“All ready laid in, Captain.” Bobby grinned at his friend from the helm. “All ahead full?”
“Aye, Mister Danner. Let's burn some D2.”
“Aye, aye, Captain. ETA at Alpha Phoenicis B roughly 85 hours.” In just over three and a half days the Peggy Sue would be in orbit around Alpha Phoenicis B's only habitable planet.
Part Two
Cast Upon A Hostile Shore
Chapter 10
Throne Room, Kingdom of Formicidae
The Lord Chamberlain walked slowly from behind the tall, cloth-of-gold screens hiding the Queen on her throne. Her gait was uneven, and she staggered despite having all four legs planted firmly on the floor. The throne room was nearly empty, only servants and close advisers to the Queen were present where usually masses of officials and supplicants thronged. The true sun had set and darkness was seeping into the far corners of the great hall, cloaking the high galleries in gloom. The emptiness gave the room a sad, hollow feeling.
The Queen's Daemon (T'aafhal Legacy Book 2) Page 9