This inability to come to grasp with the motivations that drove his leader now put him in a curious position. This situation could bring down all the carefully crafted plots and plans the Prime Minister had worked so long to establish. The very fate of the Empire he worked so diligently to mold and expand was now in danger because of one man’s need to prove something that was proved each day just by the existence and expansion of the Empire. Yet the Provost was blind to this.
The Prime Minister was initially confused and confounded by this line of thinking on the part of the Provost. How could he risk everything in a futile act of defiance against their former masters?
After successfully capturing and containing the Y’lem, the Prime Minister spent long hours watching his machine do its work. Then he finally understood. Understood ambition.
The Universal Securitat swooper was on the long-range scans now. While Restive Pro knew she would be seen as well, until she made her move there was little chance that she would be identified. There was too much traffic whizzing around, with stringers in various stages of being loaded and unloaded, as well as all manner of local short-range traffic.
She considered her plan again. It was risky, but she had little choice. Attacking a Securitat vehicle so close to Sevres Prime would require a speedy exit and only one chance to get this right. If she failed, it could take a long time to find them again. And it might be too late by then. She armed the weapons system on her swooper.
“Jet?” she address her F.R.B. “Is the secondary launcher primed and ready?”
“Yes, mistress,” the F.R.B. replied.
“I want you to target the port engine. Fire on my command, then release all weapons control to me.”
“Confirmed, mistress.”
Releasing the controls, Restive Pro blew on her as they began to sweat. She checked her instruments one more time then took the controls again and increased her speed. Her swooper jumped forward faster and faster. Then at the moment she judged best, she pulled hard on the controls and swung her swooper onto an intercept course with her prey.
:Target acquired,” Jet informed.
“On my mark...”
“So that’s what you mean when you were talking to that local patrol guy about the secret special agent,” Kirk said, sitting back in his chair, a smile spread across his face.
“Does that bother you?”
“Does what bother me?” Kirk asked.
“Anything I have told you,” Lu said. “About my history?”
“You mean do I still trust you?”
Lu nodded. “I supposed that’s what I’m asking, yes.”
“I take people as I find them. You’ve done nothing but show me I can trust you. Until you do otherwise, I don’t really care about what kind of grudge you have with Restive Pro, or what your people did before you joined the Universal Securitat. All I know is, since I left Earth, you’ve watched my back better than I could have hoped for. I see no reason for that to change because of what you told me.”
Lu still looked slightly uneasy, but more reassured than when she had begun revealing her history to Kirk.
“What’s the state of that escort, Sarge?” Lu asked, turning her attention back to the swooper.
“They are two minutes from the rendezvous and we are seven minutes from docking with the U.S.S.
N’Tur’Pryz,” Sage informed.
Lu nodded and stared out at the stars. Kirk began to think through what Lu had just told him. It did explain several things. Why she was so much faster than him, why she was so much stronger than she appeared, why the local patrol officer back at the apartment complex was so nervous when she told him Kirk was the agent that in reality she was. Even knowing the little he did of the history of this region, he could understand why she felt it so important to keep her true identity a secret. He had a feeling that no matter what she did personally, there would be many that judged her by her race, rather than by her actions. He realized, with a grim smile to himself, that he had found another universal constant.
“ALERT!” sounded Sarge. “Vehicle on intercept course. It was a weapons lock on us!”
Both Kirk and Lu spun around and quickly examined the readouts. Lu took the controls.
“Release to manual control,” she ordered.
“Charge shields. Charge weapons. Send distress call to our escorts.”
There was a small ping sound from outside to their let, followed by a series of explosions jarring the ship violently behind and to their right.
“Minimal damage,” Sarge reported as another series of explosions hammered into the ship from behind. “Shields are absorbing most of the damage. Starboard engine in now at 80 per cent efficiency.”
Lu was wrestling the controls now. She had increased speed and was swinging the swooper around in a random pattern, attempting to make them a more difficult target.
“The attacking vehicle has altered course. It has broken off its attack and seems to be retreating,”
Sarge said.
“This is Escort One, do you copy transit Swooper?” the com system cracked. The escorts were in sight now and heading towards them. They carried the same styling as the swooper, Kirk noticed, though they seemed to be greatly slimmed down, and if anything, more heavily armed.
“We’re fine, Escort One. Can you catch our assailant?” Lu replied through the com system.
“Negative, transit swooper. We have strict orders to escort you. We have relayed information about the attack to Sevres Prime control and other vessels have been dispatched to intercept.”
“Confirmed, Escort One,” Lu switched off the comm system. “Maybe if you guys had been ready for us when we broke atmosphere this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Do you think it was Pro?” Kirk asked.
Lu considered this for a moment. “Could have been, but if it was, that would make two attacks she’s made that have failed. Not her style at all.”
“She could have been desperate. Tried to make a quick hit, then got scared off by the escorts,” Kirk offered.
“I don’t think she’s capable of feeling fear,” Lu said grimly. “It could have been some pirate, chancing an attack without knowing what he’d gotten into.”
“Do pirates often attack Securitat vessels?” Kirk asked doubtfully.
“No,” Lu said quietly.
Outside, the three escorts swung around and surrounded their swooper in formation, guiding it towards the U.S.S. N’Tur’Pryz.
Restive Pro checked her scans and saw she had easily outdistanced the pursuing vessels. She smiled, then allowed her F.R.B. to take control of the swooper.
“Swing us around the dead planet, and then bring us back to Sevres Prime from the night side,” she commanded.
“Very well, mistress,” Jet said.
“Do you have the signal?” Restive asked
“Confirmed, mistress. I have it on short-range, long-range, and the tachyon carrier signal is also clear.”
“Excellent,” said restive Pro, allowing herself a thin smile of satisfaction.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
For Kirk, the rest of the journey was pretty uneventful. They encountered no more attacks on the way to the U.S.S. N’Tur’Pryz, and as soon as their swooper and the three escort vessels were safely on board, the Securitat Stringer opened a breach in space and dropped through.
Despite knowing, in frightening detail, what it was like to hurtle through a wormhole, the fabric of space crumpling in with terrifying force behind you as inertia alone propels you to safety, Kirk felt more comfortable this time. For one, the N’Tur’Pryz was in a lot better condition than Dexter Sitee’s stringer had been. And he also studiously avoided looking outside until the ship popped back into real space.
All of this went a great way towards making K
irk’s second journey through a wormhole a much more pleasant experience.
Then they first boarded the N’Tur’Pryz, Kirk met the captain, and was slightly disappointed to find he was another Aweddi. A different variety he assumed, but still much like a giant prawn. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, and he knew that the chances of this alien looking like something from a television show back on Earth were ridiculous, but still. After the Captain departed to ensure that things were running smoothly, Kirk and Lu were escorted to the gallery.
Kirk considered his expectations of the captain. And for the first time wondered if in addition to bending light to make images conform more to his own field of reference, perhaps the things he heard were not straight translations, but rather molded to conform to his experiences and preconceptions.
The odds of a television character having a name bore such a resemblance to a real alien, hundreds of light years away, were extreme, to say the least. Yet the sound was familiar, even reassuring to him. He briefly considered asking Casio about this, but decided that given the temperament of his F.R.B., he might as well ask his plate, to get a more useful and certainly more friendly response.
As they finished eating, Lu suggested he get some rest. When he asked if she was going to rest as well, she told him she would go check on the repairs to their swooper before going to her bunk.
Kirk found his cabin on the N’Tur’Pryz was a great deal more comfortable than the hospitality he had been shown by Captain Sitee. Laying down on the bunk, he was surprised at how soft the bed felt.
The one thing that was exactly the same, though, was the way in which he fell into an immediate deep sleep, as he had done the first time he took a ride down a wormhole.
When he woke, he felt so rested he assumed he must have slept for a long time. He was mildly surprised to find he had only been asleep for a couple of hours. What woke him was the voice of Lu, and it took a couple of minutes of disorientation before he realized that she was speaking via their F.R.B.’s and was not actually in his cabin.
“What’s up?” he asked, fresh from sleep.
“I think you better come down to the hanger deck. I found something.”
“Related to the attack?” Kirk asked, more awake now.
“Yeah.”
“Was it her? Restive Pro?” he was now wide awake.
“That would be my guess.”
“I’ll be right there,” said Kirk, already heading down the corridor outside his cabin.
Once down on the hanger deck he saw Lu under the port engine housing, studying something on the underside of the engine casing. As he approached, she looked around and she smiled a brief greeting, then pointed to the place she had been examining.
Kirk looked up and saw nothing out of the ordinary, though he did have to concede that his knowledge of swoopers was only slightly greater than his knowledge of stringers. He turned back to Lu.
“What?”
Lu didn’t respond, but looked down at Sarge, on her belt.
“OK, Sarge, cut all power to the swooper’s bubble generator.”
“Done,” replied the F.R.B.
Kirk watched as the area where Lu had pointed seemed to shimmer and swell before settling down. Where there had been previously smooth engine casing now appeared a small piece of electronic circuitry. Several small lights blinked in their own sequences, but the thing made no sound.
“What is it?” he asked.
“A tracking device would be my guess,” Lu said, still studying the flashing lights. “But I can’t be 100 per cent sure.”
“Why? Can’t you scan it or something?”
Lu turned to him. “The way I found this was by thinking how I would try and stop us from doing what we need to.”
“Okay,” said Kirk, eager to learn more.
“There was no way that Pro could have successfully attacked us when she did. A Securitat Swooper is much more heavily armed and shielded than almost anything else out in space that’s legal and Pro had to know this. The only thing she could have really hurt us with would have been missiles and she used energy weapons. She had to know that would be a waste of time. Even allowing for the fact that her swooper is probably customized well beyond legal specs, she must have known that even if she could successfully attack us that way it would have taken too long and there was far too much traffic around for her to do it unnoticed. As well as the likely possibility that we’d have an escort, at least part of the way.”
“So the attack wasn’t real?”
“Given the burn marks on the starboard engine casing, I’d guess that the attack was real. But she knew that her chances of success were pretty remote. So she did the smart thing. She tagged us first, then attacked the opposite side of the swooper. She might have got lucky and snagged us, but in reality, it was a diversion, allowing her to plant this and pick us off at a better time for her.”
“Okay,” said Kirk. “I follow all that, but why can’t we scan it to make sure?”
“If I’d done this, I’d have made sure that the tracking device hooked directly into the swoopers inbuilt F.R.B. system so it basically cloaked itself immediately, which is what I checked as soon as the tech guys finished their initial repairs. What I’d also have done was make sure the tracker I used could detect if it was being actively scanned. I’d expect a passive scan to check for damage, but an active scan, aimed at the tracker, would send a signal letting me know my target found the tracker.”
“So we can move it? I mean, now that we’ve found it, and Restive Pro doesn’t know we’ve found it, we can use this to our advantage, right?”
Lu nodded her head, yes.
“So how about we move it to another swooper and send it off in a different direction. Send her on a wild goose chase and leave us free to do what we need to do?’
Lu smiled. “Nice idea, but for two things.”
“If I’d done this, Id have made it tamper proof. As soon as it’s touched or meddled with, I’d know. In that case I’d no longer trust what it told me.”
“Of course, all these theories are based on one thing,” Kirk said.
“What’s that?” Lu asked. “That Restive Pro is a sly as I am?”
“I would have said clever, but the point is the same. What if she isn’t that smart.”
“She is,” Lu said flatly. “We may even be underestimating her.”
“You said there were two reasons. What’s the other?”
“This is our advantage,” she said, pointing to the tracker.
“And just how can Restive Pro knowing exactly where we are be an advantage to us?” Kirk asked.
“I’m guessing she won’t overestimate our abilities. She’ll have built in all the safety precautions, but I suspect, doubted that they would ever be needed. While we know she’s coming, we can’t be taken by surprise. Well, we can, but we can at least be a little more prepared.”
“And if we have no idea where she is, or when she’s coming, it will be a bigger surprise when she finally does track us down,” Kirk finished her theory.
“Exactly.”
Kirk studied the tracker a few minutes longer, then, without turning, he asked a question that had been bothering him for a few minutes now.
“I don’t suppose you considered an additional advantage would be that knowing she was coming, you’d be sure of a showdown with her, did it?”
“No,” Lu lied.
Initially, the Lord High Prime minister’s reason for visiting the Y’lem was to ensure the prisoner was securely contained and there was no possibility of escape. He never had any doubt his machine would work, it was just a matter of time.
The machine was something he had initiated, and while he had done nothing toward its design or creation, he still saw it as his.
He began development of
the machine to create a synthetic way of doing what their own secretions did naturally. Highjack the DNA of any other species until that species mutated into a Prion. With it he could adapt that process to create Prions who could function in various environments. Unlike the originals who preferred a hot and humid climate.
When the Provost announced that Y’lem was to arrive soon, the machine had been in working order for only a few months. Primary trials were successful, but they involved species the Prime Minister knew were easy to adapt naturally. Now he was faced with he need to try it on a Y’lem, and this frightened him.
As he watched the energy crackle across and penetrate the gelatinous body of the prisoner, he wondered why the Y’lem had not resisted. The whole process of capturing their guest had been laughingly simple, and even after it was clear that the Provost’s intentions were anything but conciliatory, there had still been no discernible attempt to escape.
Now, as he sat and considered the Y’lem, the prime minister was deeply concerned. More so than usual. What worried him was that he now had two very real concerns. The first was that since the Y’lem had managed to fool him, and had seemingly thrown off all signs of the conversion process, it was now taking much longer to work. Even by the most generous estimates, the Y’lem should be completely under their control, as much Prion as he was Y’lem yet he was barely tinted green around the edges.
However, what worried the Prime Minister more was seeing the possibility that the actions of the Provost could put in danger everything he had worked for all these years. At first, this was something that saddened him. But slowly he became aware of a new feeling. Anger. It suggested something so new and alien. He needed to meditate on the sensation, observe it more closely, develop an understanding. Finally he realized what it was. He was developing ambition.
It was both curious and frightening. It frightened him because he could see what ambition had done to other ministers and generals. In a clear example, he could now see what ambition was doing in his plans for the Empire, since the Provost was now motivated by a very personal agenda rather that what was good for the Prions. What would such a feeling do to him?
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