Perilous choices, p.21
Perilous Choices, page 21
part #11 of Gate Ghosts Series
The Tridents could transit around the system’s periphery, which meant they joined the flotilla relatively quickly.
SADEs aboard the Liberation handled the travelers’ passengers, collecting their enviro-suits, and leading them to their cabins. Instructions were given about the refreshers and how and when meals would be delivered.
Mila took some time to get a meal and clean up before she headed for the bridge. By then, the flotilla had left the Daubnede system and had again separated for Tridents to check every star, while the Liberation sailed for the next resident’s home world.
Mila commented.
Gaylene chuckled. Then she replied,
At the next home world, a retinue of Krackus ships detected the arrival of conclave forces, and the four ships wasted no time firing their engines and seeking to escape the system.
The Tridents were able to catch two freighters before they could complete their escape by partially damaging their engines. One Imperium transport managed to evade capture, but the second one was overtaken by a SADE. With the SADEs in control of the three Krackus vessels, they were steered back to the home world.
To the conclave members’ despair, the home world had suffered much like the Daubnedes. Their planet had offered generous resources to the Krackus. This meant the Radag commands were unleashed on the local population. As the race existed as simple hunter-gatherers, their ranks were devastated even as they fought the invaders with everything they could muster.
The planet-based Krackus had quickly surrendered and deserted their admin building. Four outposts also meekly turned themselves over to the conclave traveler pilots.
The question of what to do with the Krackus was easy to resolve. The freighters would need extensive repair to enter the dark. Therefore, they would be forfeited.
However, the three Radag commands chose to be obstinate. They’d retreated to the admin building and barricaded it.
Ticnikrok had sent to Mila.
Mila directed the other travelers to clear the area. Some hills displaying dense mineral formations were lined behind the admin building. Retreating briefly, Mila chose to find a point where her ship aligned with the upper right edge of the building. She spent some time programming the controller’s beam shot. When she was ready, she accelerated quickly.
The traveler pilots watched as Mila’s ship shot toward the three-story admin building. At the last second, her beam was fired, and the traveler swung up and away.
The focused energy beam grazed the upper edge of the building, clearing away about two meters along the building’s entire length. The rest of the energy blast had bored a six-meter wide hole into a nearby hill.
A traveler pilot recorded warrior heads popping through the roof’s open gap and studying the damage. One of them barked and pointed to the damage in the hillside. Then they ducked out of sight.
Mila returned to the building’s front. She lowered her traveler until it was only a meter above the plaza, and ever-so-slowly, she eased it toward the lobby doors until her implant relayed wide eyes staring at her ship.
Ticnikrok’s first officer regarded the commodore with a raised eyebrow. The commodore linked privately with the officer and sent,
True to Mila’s belief, the lobby barricade was dismantled, and the Radag commanders walked out first. They still had their weapons vests, but none of them carried energy rifles.
Mila reversed her traveler about ten meters.
When a slender Méridien SADE was on the ground and before the commanders, she inquired, “What is it you wish to say?”
“We want to speak to someone in charge,” a commander growled.
The SADE was a blur, as she crossed the two meters, snatched a sharp blade from the commander’s vest, and spun away. Then, disdainfully, she snapped the heavy blade in half and dropped it on the plaza’s stones. “When you speak to me, you talk to every conclave member who wishes to listen,” she said, tapping her temple. “Make it good. The captain in the bow of that traveler behind me is itching to take this building down around you piece by piece.”
Mila edged her ship forward about a meter to underline the threat. Across the flotilla, conclave members laughed and chuckled.
When the residents heard the translations, they howled, chirped, grunted, and whistled at the commanders’ uncomfortable predicament.
“If we surrender, we wish to know what will happen to us,” a commander said. “There’s only the single transport left operable. The imperator will give precedence to freighter officers.”
“We’ve comfortable cabins aboard that great ship, the Liberation, above us,” the SADE replied. “You can join your companions whom we collected from the previous home world.”
“This is true?” a commander queried.
“If a warrior said that to you, Commander, what would be your response?” the SADE queried.
The commander silently laid his hand on a blade’s handle.
“Then should I take that weapon and apply it to your throat, Commander?” the SADE inquired innocently.
“My apologies. No insult was implied,” the commander quickly replied.
“I thought not,” the SADE replied. Pretending to listen to a comm signal, the SADE, said, “I understand, Captain, just give me a minute more with them.”
Mila chuckled at the SADE’s antics. She could see that the commanders had grown more uncomfortable as the minutes passed.
The commanders spoke briefly. Then they dropped their vests on the plaza’s stones and gestured to the warriors inside the building.
Energy rifles didn’t appear and vests were dropped as the warriors exited the lobby doors.
Kelley answered instead.
Mila’s ship and two other travelers landed in the plaza, spinning aft ends toward the assembled Radags.
“One command to each ship,” the Méridien SADE directed.
On each ramp, the commander and his two squads were searched for weapons. When they were found, which was expected, they were tossed onto the stones without a second thought.
When the commands were loaded, conclave crew members collected the weapons on the plaza and inside the admin building.
Meanwhile, Juno, Kelley, Gaylene, and the local resident visited the first freighter.
The SADE controlling the ship’s bridge had informed them that the module database was vague about contents.
Kelley, Juno, and Gaylene investigated each module, and they questioned the returning resident if the local population could make use of the contents.
“Apologies, friends,” the resident often said. “My race can’t make use of any of these ores. Neither do they know how to prepare some of the grains that the Krackus had planted and harvested.”
In the end, there was little aboard either freighter that the hunter-gatherer population could use.
Juno offered the resident the same opportunity to have a lab with which to teach the young, but he thanked the sister and refused.
“My race has too far to develop,” the resident said. “I will do what I can with the rest of my life to help the population recover.”
With every Krackus and Radag aboard the Liberation, the SADEs sent the freighters and the transport toward the local star.
Then the flotilla sailed toward their next systems to investigate. They’d yet to encounter one of the patrol fleets.
Aboard the Liberation, the number of Radags had tripled, and the Krackus passengers were now occupying a second deck.
Before others could comment about the suggestion, Kelley replied,
At the Liberation’s next destination, the ship waited in the dark for Tridents to arrive.
However, a message was received instead. A Trident had discovered a patrol fleet stationed above an ice planet deep in the system and collecting frozen water and gases.
The Trident had signaled every ship in the flotilla of the patrol fleet’s location.
Both SADE and sister voted for joining the other ships in the event that rescue and medical services were required.
Derry signaled Captain Giselle Armand of the decision. The freighter had always accompanied the Liberation rather than follow a Trident.
The luxury liner waited until the freighter was underway. Then both ships achieved sufficient velocity to enter the dark. Cycles later, they exited outside the target system. Early telemetry indicated the patrol fleet remained at station.
As soon as Mila could, she linked with Ticnikrok.
Ticnikrok replied.
Mila responded.
Ticnikrok gazed at his first officer, who wore a thoughtful expression.
After Derry acknowledged the request, he chuckled. Mila and the SADE, Salus, were already in the traveler and waiting for permission to launch.
Salus gave Mila a jaundiced eye, and she laughed.
Then Derry signaled the crew chief to prep the bay for a whip launch.
Salus approvingly noticed Mila’s demeanor change. One moment, she was a young woman enjoying bantering with him. Now she was all business and had a duty to perform.
When the crew chief signaled Derry that the bay was ready, the operation was handed to a SADE.
The Liberation reversed position and headed deep into the dark. Meanwhile, the traveler was placed outboard and tethered in place. When the liner returned, the ship slid to starboard and whipped the traveler, releasing it at the height of the turn. Like a rock in an ancient slingshot, the traveler shot toward the system.
Mila took note of her ship’s velocity and had the controller calculate her arrival time at the rim. Then she left Salus as pilot, got a small meal, and stretched out on a seat to sleep.
Later, Ticnikrok had a thought, and he linked to Mila’s traveler.
Ticnikrok said.
Salus replied.
Minimalist, Luther, and Morgoth had dubbed Mila a bright light. Every SADE carried a list of these individuals. It was each SADE’s duty to see what they could do to support the bright lights when they came in contact with them. Sometimes, it required counseling. Occasionally, it required protection.
Salus considered it his fortune that the duty had fallen to him to protect a bright light who constantly threw herself into dangerous situations.
Mila woke when her implant chronometer triggered that the rim’s approach was imminent. She used the refresher, got a hot drink, and resumed her pilot’s seat.
Some of the bridge officers around Ticnikrok were laughing, but, across the flotilla, the SADEs were exchanging a horrendous amount of noise.
When an appropriate reply didn’t occur to Ticnikrok, he wished Mila and Salus good fortune and ended the link.
15: Imperator’s Dilemma
“Declinator, we’ve an object on approach,” the telemetry officer reported to the declinator.
“Details,” the Krackus second-in-command requested.
“Too far out to clearly resolve,” the officer replied.
“Where did it come from?” the declinator inquired.
“Its course suggests it came from the outer rim,” the officer replied.
“Trajectory?” the declinator asked, sipping on his drink through a glass straw.
“Headed for us, Declinator,” the officer responded.
The declinator rose from his seat to study the telemetry officer’s panel. “What’s the probability of an asteroid from the rim coming directly for this ship?” the declinator mused rhetorically.
With a few taps on the panel, the declinator checked for what the asteroid would impact if he moved his peacekeeper. Unfortunately it would be the planet. Worse, the frozen gases recovery plant would be within the impact zone. Crew and valuable equipment would be in danger.
