“You learned enough about humans in a few weeks to save this one from an unknown toxic reaction. My friend, you have a true talent for this. I would be honored to work with you any time you want, to teach you more. This universe does not have enough healers.” Turning to Drexler, Samuel said, “With your permission, Captain.”
It was rare for the Doctor to address Drexler formally. The man watched Drex grow up, after all.
“Of course, Doctor,” Drexler replied. To Schaal, he said, “We humans do not forget kindness like this. You have my gratitude. I owe you.”
The Alpha said nothing and kept his eye on the data screens monitoring Crewman Bao. While they spoke, the little Reptiles crept over to Bao, where their tongues tasted the air round him.
“Friend Bao,” one of smaller Reptiles said, giving the crewman a nudge with a clawed finger. “Wake? Mahjong?”
Bao moaned and lifted a finger. Drexler had the distinct impression the Crewman was trying to smile. The Alpha hissed and shooed the smaller Lizards away. He scolded them in the Reptilian language.
“Schaal,” Drexler said, “Forgive me for intruding on an internal matter, but this was an accident. Crewman Bao should know better than to eat alien food before testing it.”
“And they should know better than to offer food for the same reason,” Schaal replied, glaring at the little meat eaters.
“But we eat your food!” one of the lizards replied. “Why not same?”
“It does not always work both ways. We made sure our food was safe for you before we gave it to you,” The Doctor explained. Food poisoning was a common problem when groups of Merchant Astronauts from different species socialized. It was one of the stranger and more tragic dangers of the job.
“Let’s call it a difficult lesson, then. A mistake,” Drexler said. “Bao will live.”
“Yes,” the Doctor said. “But he will be very sick for the next few days. Maybe a week or more.”
As if to confirm this, Bao groaned.
The little reptiles left the medical bay with heads hung low. They lit cigars when they reached the hallway and chattered among themselves.
“But Schaal,” Drexler said. “I came to speak with you. Can we go somewhere to talk?”
Schaal looked down at his patient and paused.
“I will look after Bao,” Samuel said.
“I will speak with you, then,” Schaal said, and left the room. Drexler followed.
“Boljak,” Drexler said, “please excuse me, but I have private business with Schaal.”
“I understand,” Boljak said. “I stay with Doctor.”
Drexler and Schaal walked down the curved hallway and climbed a ladder up two decks. Drexler realized they were in a crew quarters section. Schaal led them to a door that opened to reveal a sizable cabin.
“Your quarters?” Drexler asked.
“Now, yes,” Schaal replied. “Alpha leader before.”
“Are you not the Alpha of this ship?”
“Others think I am because I am biggest, most aggressive. They do what I say. But I am not meat eater. Not trained officer. Not as strong or big as former Alpha.”
Drexler thought for a moment, choosing his words carefully. “What if I told you that you could be Alpha of this ship, officially.”
“Ship is damaged. No good. And if we fly it out of here, your Insectoid will destroy us. Maybe other Traders kill us too.”
“I thought we covered this weeks ago. I made an arrangement with General Fourseven that guarantees your safety.”
“General Fourseven? Is this what she calls herself now? She was the Queen Protector. Killed many of my people on border worlds. If she calls herself something else, something is wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it is not right. Queen Protector is big ruler with Insects. I heard rumors of problem on Insect world.”
“What kind of rumors? What kind of problems?”
“I saw secret reports about war between insectoid world species. Mammals against insects. Reptiles cause this.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Drexler asked.
Schaal thought for a moment, then said, “What more do I have to lose? I am already dead to my people. If Reptiles find us, they kill us for betray duty. If I give you information, you might not kill me.”
“OK,” Drexler said. He felt bad. “I do not want to kill you. I was only trying to make you think that because I want you to work for me. There. I said it. Now I have no leverage.”
Schaal laughed with that gurgling, hissing sound. “Why do you tell me this?” Schaal asked, obviously mocking Drexler’s question.
“Because I have a heart, OK? Let’s say I came to my senses. You saved my man. You did not have to do that. You’re not a bad person. We are both in a really terrible situation and I don’t see any more sense in making this nastier than it has to be.”
Drexler said this even though the crew of that Lizard ship tried to destroy his own not too long ago. He’d realized that the Reptiles didn’t have much of a choice at the time. If they did not follow orders, they were mutilated, tortured or killed. In Drexler’s world, disobeying orders merely got someone fired, or in the worst case, jailed. Drexler had a chance to show them something different. He decided to take that chance.
“I am not your friend, but I am not your enemy,” Schaal declared.
“Fair enough,” Drexler replied. “You just defined the term ‘business partner.’ So, do you want to go to work for me or not?”
“If you can keep your friends from killing us, I say yes. Other Reptiles go along. You must prove to me.”
“OK, then,” Drexler said. “Sounds fair. It’s a deal.”
Schaal sat for a moment, then declared, “I only saved your man because I do not like to see things suffer. Nothing more.”
“Oh,” Drexler said, “So you did it for your own selfish purpose. No other reason. I get it.” Drexler didn’t believe it. Schaal had higher motives that he feared revealing, Drexler was sure of it. Any thinking creature would understand this after watching him work so hard to save another being. Drexler was not sure in that moment whether it was better to earn Schaal’s trust or simply secure his compliance at any cost.
“This is bullshit,” Drexler muttered in Ancient English. In Tradespeak, he said, “Come with me.”
Schaal considered for a moment. His tongue tasted the air between himself and the human. The flavor he found was somewhere between fear and anger. He decided to comply with the request that was not a request. Drexler marched Schaal to the bridge of Fleetfoot I .
“Take a good look,” Drexler said, pointing through the transparent bulkhead to the cloud of refugee ships. Schaal looked.
“What is this?” the Alpha Reptile asked. He had not left his ship since it was captured.
“Suffering. This is the handiwork of the people who once ordered you to be a soldier instead of a healer and treated you like rubbish. This is more than fifty-million Sentient beings who are starving and growing sick. This is a mass of people who are confused and scared and worried for their families that are about to be slaughtered and enslaved by your leaders unless somebody does something about it.”
“What can I do about it?” Schaal asked. Some of the crew hardened and took aggressive half-steps toward the lizard. They were turned back by a baleful look from First Officer Mumlo. Schaal’s response seemed callous to the crew, but Drexler heard the question differently.
“That,” Drexler said. “is an excellent question. I told you what you can do about it. I endorse you to the Insectoids, make sure they leave you alone. In return, you work for me, and you serve those people out there. You take care of them. You run supplies with your ship. You fix their problems. We get trade going again. You do whatever you can to help.”
The speed with which Schaal agreed surprised everyone, even Drexler. “Yes,” the Alpha said. “I will help them. I will help you.” He turned to Drexler, tore the rank insignia from his uniform and
threw it to the deck. For good measure, he stomped on it with his foot claw.
Drexler removed two cigars from his jacket, handed one to Schaal, and put the other in his mouth. “Let’s go smoke these things,” he said.
9
Abhay stood over the table in the conference room of the Forest Child transport. Six linked display scrolls covering every square inch of the table showed all the information he had about the war. It was not much. With the Reptilians in control of the Central Trade Union worlds, the quantum communication relays that allowed information to ignore space were down. Nobody knew what the Reptilians did with the relays. Some were proved destroyed while others were taken over and used by the Reptilians themselves. The quality of intelligence reports was suspect, but it was all the Taskforce had.
He arranged and rearranged the information over and again to make certain he understood what he saw. One report simply did not make sense. His contacts aboard the Fleetfoot I supplied him with the ship counts and movements of a refugee armada that headed out from New Detroit and straight for the trade lanes.
“What are they doing?” Abhay asked the empty room. “This is either too good to be true, or it is completely insane. What do they hope to accomplish?”
For an unknown reason, the report from Abhay’s stowaway team included only the coordinates of New Detroit and detailed information about this makeshift Armada. Not even the coordinates made sense. The report indicated that New Detroit was just 20 light years from Polaris. The last known position of the City Ship was hundreds of light years from that star. Abhay could not understand how the Detroit could have gotten to the vicinity of Polaris from its last coordinates so quickly.
He rose out of his obsessive analysis when Margaret entered the conference room. “This is driving you into talking to yourself now,” she said, partly accusing, partly observing.
Abhay stared back at her with bloodshot eyes, admitted, “Yes, it is. Your brother is up to something very strange.”
“That goes without saying,” Margaret responded, coming around to stand beside her husband. She roped her arm around his waist and pulled him close. She noted he was much thinner than he was a few weeks ago. People on the ship had trouble eating. Worry starved them all.
Abhay said nothing, grateful for the affection from the strained relationship with his wife. Her warmth calmed his mind.
“What is that,” Margaret asked, “coming out of Polaris?”
“That’s what I’m talking about. My team sent this report with no summary. It is only a list of ships with coordinates and headings. Fleetfoot I is in the lead. They appear to be moving straight toward the center of the Trades, where the first wave invasion fleet is increasing in number.”
The realization slowly dawned on Margaret. “Abhay,” she whispered, too soft for her husband to hear. “Abhay!” Margaret hollered. She grabbed his forearms in her small, hard hands and shook him. “This is the message! Don’t you get it? Polaris! The North Star! This is not their true position. This means something.”
“But what?”
“These ships, did you confirm their names?”
“Yes. They are all real ships, all of them freighters. None of them were reported destroyed or captured.”
“Are any of them covert fighters?”
“Well, yes. I count two others, but they are useless unless activated.”
“That means they have the same AI capability as Reggie.”
It took Abhay a moment to figure out who “Reggie” was. He was still not accustomed to thinking of an AI by a given name.
“Yes. That is how the plan was supposed to work.”
“What if it is working?” Margaret asked.
“But we don’t have the seed ship necessary to activate the hidden combat protocols.”
“Come on,” Margaret said, hands on hips. “You know it has to be Reggie, right? Be real.”
“We only suspect. If it is your AI, it has been heavily tampered with and is unreliable. Your father saw to that. There is no useful strategic value in assuming we have the seed ship.”
“OK. We’re getting off track. It doesn’t matter. My brother is up to something for sure. Let’s assume the Armada is real, but the coordinates are not. Where would he be going?” Margaret asked.
“Could he be crazy enough to try an attack?”
“At this point, anything is possible. You don’t know what my brother is like when he is pushed too far,” Margaret said.
Abhay considered this, said, “I do want to know, so tell me. Think.”
“He is probably not the only person to think of heading for New Detroit. What if he rallied the other freighter Captains and figured out a way to hit the Lizards.” Margaret said.
“Now would be the time to do it. Best intel says their main battle fleet is still a month or more away. Hitting them now is the only chance we have.”
“If my brother didn’t realize this, you can be damn sure somebody did. I think that is what they are doing. Look at the distances between the ships,” Margaret said, pulling the display scroll closer. “This is not a true picture. It’s a schematic. Spacecraft can’t travel at near light speed this close. Their particle fields would interfere, and they’d lose artificial gravity.” Margaret pinched her chin with thumb and forefinger. Abhay leaned over the map and tilted his head from one side to another.
“It’s an arrow,” Abhay said. He pointed and ran his finger across the display. “It’s an arrow with one leg at its point.”
“And it’s pointing right at Medina 3,” Margaret said, understanding the pattern.
“That makes sense,” Abhay replied. He squinted and bent down further. “The end of the shaft is pointing in the direction of Chennai 5, and this part of the arrow shaft that is bent ― it goes in the direction of Kerala 2.”
“They are telling us that they’re going to spread out along the worlds the Reptiles have not yet blockaded.”
“They don’t know the Lizards are massing just twenty light years from Kerala 2, and just a few light years from Medina 3,” Margaret said as a pit of ice formed in her belly. “We can’t tell them that without revealing their true position.”
“How do we help them?” Abhay asked.
“I don’t think we can. I think they are helping us.” Margaret said, then something occurred to her. “How did you get this information?”
Abhay paused, and Margaret took a half step back with a reddening face. She was about to leave the room when Abhay blurted, “I have a portable tangler. My team is still active on Fleetfoot I. I also have operatives on New Detroit.”
Margaret squinted at him as if trying to dissect him for the truth with her eyes. “Is that all?” she asked.
“Yes,” Abhay replied. Revealing operational secrets, even to his wife, still felt like treason. The fact that he and his team were no longer officially part of the BJP military did not matter. In fact, these circumstances made things worse. Even under BJP law, the covert operation to find the seed ship was illegal. Now, Abhay controlled an armed group of private citizens who aimed to further the goals of the government without any official ties to it. Should the operation be found out, he would certainly lose his Senate seat and face prison time.
Margaret was bad enough. The diminutive woman stood before him as a one-woman justice system. He feared her decision to prosecute. He gave an audible sigh of relief when she relaxed and turned back to the scrolls.
“These operatives on New Detroit,” Margaret said, “what is their goal?”
“Infiltrate the criminal element there to rebuild my intelligence network.”
“You were trying to get back your job?”
Abhay stared at his feet. Margaret continued. “Are you in touch with them?”
“No. New Detroit is tangler silent. They can’t reach the relays any more than we. They are smart enough not to try as not to give away their true position.”
Margaret thought for a moment. A spark of suspicion prompted her to ask, “W
ho are your operatives?”
Abhay answered without hesitation, though it pained him to do so. “Madhuk and a private intelligence agent known as Dario.”
“After everything that happened, you trust Madhuk?”
“He is the only one from my former life that I do trust.”
“You forget that I met Dario. I thought he was a slime then. No reason to think he has changed.”
“He is a creature that looks out for his own interests above all else. I’ve made sure his interests are still bound to mine. As long as that remains true…”
Margaret nodded her head and said, “Well, you and I have work to do.”
“Margaret, does this mean―”
“It means we have work to do, not much more,” Margaret interrupted.
***
“This war changes everything,” Dario said, massaging the olive skin of his round face with both hands is if it was focaccia dough.
“The war changes nothing,” Madhuk replied as he stared through the window of the most expensive hotel tower in New Detroit.
“How do you figure?” Dario asked, rising from the bed. He pulled the robe around his shoulders and sidled up to Madhuk, who subtly moved away an equal distance.
“The result is simply here sooner than we anticipated. Our mission has failed in that we were supposed to prevent this. Now we have another mandate,” Madhuk said.
“My only mandate is getting paid,” Dario replied. He crossed the room to pour himself a glass of Old Earth style bourbon and light a cigar.
Madhuk replied still facing the window. Outside, New Detroit busied itself with endless streams of traffic. Abhay always wondered where everyone went. More than eight billion people who always seemed to be on the move. “You are still being paid," Madhuk said. "Take note that we enjoy the finest accommodations New Detroit can offer." He swept his hand across the hotel room where every surface gleamed with polished exotic metals and blood-red asteroid marble with silvery veins and iridescent whorls of deepest blue. "All of this from your expense account alone.”
Rogue Messiah: Fleetfoot Interstellar Series, Book 2 Page 8