Tree of Liberty

by Wayne Basta

  The sun still shone outside, and the building had several large skylights bathing plant pots in sunlight, but they were the only source of illumination. Normally, he enjoyed bright natural light, but the overwhelming brightness of Motinor had made him crave darkness. He could only imagine that the Kowwoks who lived here felt much the same way.

  After a moment of taking in the sights, smells, and sounds, Lahkaba moved further into the bar. As he did, Bryel came in behind him. The appearance of a Dotran made the crowd of Kowwoks suddenly stop talking, almost all at once. It would be illegal for the bar to ban Dotran from coming in, even though the reverse would be true at many Dotran businesses, but that didn’t mean the sight of one was welcome.

  “I’ll wait over here, out of the way,” Bryel said, gesturing toward a stool in the corner near the door.

  Lahkaba nodded in reply, feeling sympathy again for the blue Dotran. He was a Dotran, but his position in society was only one step above that of Lahkaba’s own people. Well, maybe more than one.

  As they moved deeper into the bar, the crowd parted for them without comment. Conversation slowly returned to the room, but he and Valinther had already been marked as the people who had brought a Dotran into their bar. He hadn’t counted on that when he’d come up with this plan. Rathalos had arranged a meeting with some of his other associates, but after they’d gotten this kind of attention, it might not happen.

  After ordering a drink, Lahkaba stood at the bar, taking in the scene. Being surrounded by fellow Kowwoks reminded him of home. Sulas had a diverse population, but his section of his hometown had consisted mostly of Kowwoks. There probably had been bars like this one, but he had moved before he had gotten old enough to go in one.

  “So…” Valinther said beside him. While the gathering gave Lahkaba a sense of nostalgia, Valinther looked nervous and uncomfortable. Clandestine meetings in a public place could do that, but it looked like something more. If anything, since Valinther had grown up on Dotra, he should have been feeling even more nostalgic than Lahkaba.

  “You boys made quite an impression,” a voice said beside him.

  Turning, Lahkaba saw a Kowwok female with soft, short, black fur. In the darkness of the bar, she should have been hard to see with that color, but instead of blending into the darkness, her fur glistened.

  It took him a moment to realize he was staring.

  “We, uh, we’re… not from around here,” Lahkaba babbled.

  His twisted tongue took him by surprise. It had been a long time since a beautiful woman had had that effect on him. Granted, it had been a long time since he had talked to a beautiful woman when he wasn’t working. But, he forcefully reminded himself, he was working right now.

  The woman smiled. “I gathered that from your escort over there. You must be Lahkaba and Valinther.”

  Lahkaba’s ears perked up at the mention of his name.

  The woman continued, “The whole city’s talking about you two. Kowwoks from the Kreogh sector, greeted as equals by the Dotran. Some people call you heroes, an example of what Kowwoks can achieve.”

  Though the words were flattering, something in her tone made Lahkaba doubt that she included herself among those she mentioned. “I gather you’re not one of them?”

  She gave him another smile, this one more eerie. “Why would you say that?”

  He exchanged a glance with Valinther, but before either of them could decide how to respond, the women tilted her head toward the nearby tables. “How about a game of vartras?”

  “Sure,” Lahkaba said. He didn’t know how to play, and despite the woman’s beauty, he was doubtful about talking to her. But they had to blend in if there was any chance of Rathalos’s compatriots making contact—assuming she wasn’t one of them.

  The three of them moved through the crowded bar to an open vartras table. The table itself was a complicated maze of doors, barriers, and holes. Lahkaba knew the basic objective of the game—get the ball in the hole worth the most points—but that was where his knowledge ended.

  Fortunately, it seemed Valinther had played before. He grabbed a long pole from the wall while the woman set up a group of five balls at one end of the table. After setting up the balls, the woman gestured to Valinther. “Guests first.”

  Valinther nodded to her and then started tweaking the arrangement of the moveable doors and barriers on the table. When he finished, he handed the pole to the woman, and she proceeded to hit each of the five balls in turn. They bounced around the table, ricocheting off the barriers. One went into one of the holes on the side of the table.

  Once the balls finished moving, she handed the pole to Valinther and then stared at the table for a moment. She reached out and moved one of the barriers about forty-five degrees. When she did, Valinther laughed.

  “Clever,” he said, and then took his turn hitting each of the four remaining balls.

  None of what they did over the next few minutes made much sense to Lahkaba. While he thought the goal was to get the balls in the holes, sometimes they seemed pleased when the balls didn’t go in. Sometimes they would manipulate the gates and barriers. Other times, when it looked like they should rearrange them a certain way, they wouldn’t change anything.

  After about ten minutes, Valinther knocked the last ball into a hole. He sighed and then turned to the woman. “You play very well. I used to be pretty good, but I haven’t had the chance to play in many years.”

  “It doesn’t show. You’re better than many of the opponents I’ve played lately,” the woman said. “Now, shall we get down to business?”

  So his suspicion had been correct. Taking the change of topic in stride, Lahkaba said, “Yes, let’s. I think we’ve played enough to bore our escort.”

  A casual glance at Bryel showed the Dotran sitting and staring at the glass of water in front of him. He would look toward them occasionally and then quickly survey the room. Clearly, he was not an intelligence or security officer—or, at least, not a very well trained one.

  “Our friend says you have questions,” the woman said.

  “We do,” Valinther said.

  “Let’s start with your name,” Lahkaba said, smiling and taking one of the poles off the wall. “I don’t like talking to strangers.”

  “You can call me Mella,” she said, resetting the five balls on the table.

  Lahkaba frowned. The name was too short to be genuine, but he decided that pressing for her real name would be pointless and unnecessary. “Very well, Mella, let’s get down to details. Why do your people want our Union’s negotiations with the Confederacy to succeed?” he asked.

  “Having a free state open to independent Kowwoks would be a great benefit to us,” she said, giving the same response Rathalos had.

  “Maybe. But that’s not the reason. Let’s put the games behind us,” Lahkaba replied. Then, to add a layer of irony to his words while also maintaining their cover, he bent over and hit one of the balls with the pole. He didn’t watch where it went, instead keeping his eyes up, on Mella.

  “All right,” Mella said, moving forward to take the pole. “Once the fleet leaves Confederate space, we’re planning a mutiny to seize control of it.”

  The sudden revelation brought Lahkaba up short. He stared at Mella for a long time. The sheer audacity of the idea left him speechless.

  Valinther was the first to speak. “Why wait for it to go all the way to Kreogh Sector? I assume this is going to be carried out by the Kowwok personnel aboard. Why go so far away?”

  “So that it takes the Dotran longer to respond,” Mella said, her tone matter-of-fact. “Anywhere in the Confederacy is just a few days away from reinforcements. But if we act during the long hyperspace journey, when each ship is out of contact from each other, our people will have plenty of time to gain full control of the ship.

  “There aren’t enough Kowwoks aboard every ship to get them all, but we can get most of them. By the time the fleet emerges from hyperspace, we’ll control the majority of them. Then we
can force the rest to surrender, or destroy them. And it will be months before high command knows anything about it. We can take the fleet and expel the Dotran from Kowwa before they know what’s happened.”

  “That’s a bold plan,” Lahkaba said, unsure what else to say. It had a certain simplistic elegance to it. And he had to admit that it did have a higher chance of success in hyperspace than in port.

  “I like it,” Valinther said, his tone excited. “Though it does beg the question, how quickly do you plan to return the fleet to Kowwa?”

  The question hung in the air like an accusation. It pleased Lahkaba that Valinther had been the one to ask it. He had felt sure his fellow delegate was becoming wrapped up in the idea of Kowwok independence and forgetting about the Union fight.

  “Originally, we intended to return immediately,” Mella admitted. “But, now that we’re working together, we can take a little time to help you with your Alliance problem.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Valinther said with a wide smile. “Then, maybe, together, our two fleets can liberate Kowwa.”

  “Wait a minute, Val,” Lahkaba said. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Right now, the Dotran have halted negotiations until we agree to give them the regenerative shield tech. So there’s no fleet coming to help either of us.”

  The group descended into silence for a minute. Lahkaba took his turn at the table while he thought about the new information. An entire fleet of Confederation warships controlled by Kowwoks? Would that even be enough to liberate Kowwa? Maybe, since they would arrive as friendlies. But then, could they hope to hold it?

  Kreogh Sector had one main advantage against the Alliance: distance. The core worlds of the Alliance were months away. They couldn’t just dispatch large numbers of warships and personnel on that kind of journey without risking their other borders.

  But Kowwa was only a few days from Dotra. The Confederacy might be weakened by losing some of their warships to the rebels, but they wouldn’t have to dispatch others for a multi-month journey. It would be a costly fight for them, assuming the rebels managed to take Kowwa with its planetary defense guns intact, but a winnable one.

  “I think I have a way around that,” Valinther said, returning to the topic Lahkaba was supposed to be thinking about. “We offer them the shield tech in exchange for a fleet of warships, but we don’t agree to give it to them until the fleet arrives. Then, our friends here take over the fleet while en route. We won’t be obliged to turn over the technology, because no Dotran fleet will ever arrive to assist us.”

  Lahkaba frowned. He hated deals that hinged on backstabbing the other party. Granted, it was all too common in politics, but this was a new level of underhandedness. But, it might free both his home of Sulas and his people’s homeworld of Kowwa. Wouldn’t that be worth a little underhanded negotiation and some risky actions?

  Before he could answer that question for himself, the sounds of a commotion drew his attention. The doors to the club flew open, and a group of armored Dotran streamed in. Another sound alerted him to a similar group coming in the back entrance. The two groups plowed through the club, making no effort to wait for people to get out of their way. They converged on Lahkaba and his small group.

  The first Dotran there grabbed Mella and slammed her against the vartras table. Restraining her arms behind her, another Dotran put metal cuffs around her wrists. They hadn’t been gentle, and a trickle of blood flowed from Mella’s nose, matting her fur. Despite the injury, no look of pain crossed her face. The only emotion he saw in her eyes was contempt. And she wasn’t looking at the Dotran.

  Still staring helplessly, Lahkaba watched as they hauled Mella away. The other guards fanned out around the club and began arresting all the Kowwoks present—all except him and Valinther.

  Bryel approached them once Mella was clear. “You did excellent work, Ambassadors.”

  The statement sent Lahkaba’s head spinning even more. Everything had happened so quickly. Bryel’s statement clicked into place. This hadn’t been a random raid or because Mella had been under surveillance. He had been the one under surveillance.

  “We did what?” Valinther stammered. “What just happened?”

  Lahkaba realized that Valinther hadn’t made the connection, so he quickly added, “We weren’t expecting this to happen while we were still here.”

  “My apologies. We didn’t want to risk the traitor having the chance to slip away,” Bryel said.

  Before Valinther could say anything else, Lahkaba asked, “What’s going to happen to all of these other people? Surely they can’t all be traitors.”

  “That’s unlikely,” Bryel agreed, looking at the Kowwoks being led out of the room. He had a small frown on his scaly face. “They will be interrogated. Those who we can prove were just in the wrong place at the wrong time will be released.”

  As Lahkaba watched impotently, the remaining Kowwok patrons were ushered out, all with a clear view of him and Valinther standing beside a Dotran officer.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “We’ve got two thirds of the crew onboard already,” Arzesaeth said. “The rest are either on leave somewhere on Kol or coming up on the next few shuttles.”

  “Forget about anyone on leave. It will take too long to recall them. We’ll make do with those who make it aboard on the next two shuttles,” Saracasi said.

  She was splitting her attention between listening to updated reports, such as Arzesaeth’s report on the crew, and going over technical specs. She didn’t like splitting her attention, but she couldn’t afford to do one thing at a time right now. There would be time to catch up on anything that she missed while in hyperspace. Far too much time.

  Average speed for a journey to Irod from Kol was seven days. A fast transport like the Cutty Sark could do it in a little over five. A packet ship could do it in three and a half. If the Audacious hyperdrive worked like it had been designed, they could be there in less than three.

  But that was a big if. The ship’s hyperdrive had been used once before, after they had stolen her from an Alliance depot near Ailleroc. That time, they had almost become stranded in the middle of nowhere. She and Chavatwor had repaired many of the problems with the ship, but neither one had felt comfortable declaring it ‘fixed.’

  Even if Audacious did work, it had already been more than a month since the location of Irod had been transmitted to the Alliance fleet fleeing Mirthod. Mirthod was far closer to both Sulas and Irod than Kol. The Alliance would have had plenty of time to launch an attack force from Sulas.

  She cleared another few routine matters with Arzesaeth, and then he left to address his other duties. He had been left in command of the Audacious for the last few months, keeping guard over Sulas. While she respected his abilities, he had only been a commercial pilot before the war. His only time in combat had been as her XO defending Kol. She needed someone with more experience leading this fight. The irony of that statement was not lost on her.

  “Commodore,” Jerik’s voice said, interrupting her.

  Saracasi turned from the tactical console and saw an eclectic group standing just inside the bridge. Jerik stood beside two armed marines, who had a shackled Terran between them. She felt a small touch of relief to see that Davidus Brieni looked no worse for his time in captivity.

  Davidus had an eyebrow raised in amusement at Jerik’s statement. A lot had happened since she had ordered him arrested. She had always regretted the necessity of that decision. Now she had a chance to remedy it somewhat.

  She nodded in response to Jerik but directed her attention to one of the marines. “Deja, what’s the report on Mr. Aerinstar?”

  Deja’z’reth Adat’to shook his head, his antennae twitching grumpily. “No sign of him, Commodore. We searched the base and the shipyard and are beginning a sweep of the surrounding area.”

  “Continue the sweep, but don’t push your marines too far. Odds are he’s long gone by now,” Saracasi said wearily. This disappearance seemed to confirm he
r suspicions. Kaars was likely the traitor, and he had run the moment he thought he would be discovered.

  “You can release the cuffs,” she added, gesturing to Davidus’s shackles.

  The other marine unlocked them and placed them on her belt. Deja’z’reth kept his rifle in a ready position, though. Once the cuffs came off, Davidus rubbed his wrists, even though there didn’t appear to be any marks.

  “Commander Brieni,” Saracasi began, immediately feeling weird, “I believe the identity of the true spy has been discovered. I’m pleased to be able to release you and return you to duty.”

  Jerik’s eyes grew wide in shock. He hadn’t heard any of the news yet, so he would be playing catch-up during this conversation. She regretted that, but she could only do so many things at once.

  “Evidence has come to light that the power surge aboard Defiant Glory while at Mirthod was the result of sabotage. Kaars Aerinstar is suspected and has now all but proven his guilt by disappearing. Even if it’s not him, there was no way it was you.

  “Unfortunately, in addition to the sabotage of the DeeGee, Kaars also managed to access her navigational records and transmit them to an Alliance fleet. It’s assumed that the Alliance has the coordinates of Irod. As such, I’m preparing to take Audacious to the moon in expectation of an Alliance attack force. Commander Brieni, you will follow up with the remainder of the fleet as soon as it can be assembled.”

  “Commodore,” Jerik said, his tone still sounding shocked, “are you sure we can be confident that Commander Brieni isn’t also an Alliance spy? No offense, Commander.”

  “None taken. You’re right. You can’t be sure I’m not also a spy,” Davidus said, his tone flat.