ECHELON’S END©
Book 9
The Hidden Enemy
By
E. Robert Dunn
PROLOGUE:
As the hurrying podship, Pioneer 4 traversed between the galactic spiral arms on its way to a promised planet. The cost was energy, quickly being consumed -- denying it the power to sustain itself.
The Aidennians, a hominid species known for their beautiful bodies’ gorgeous muscles, eyes and hair that enhanced their appearance, found themselves with no other option than to explore two separate sources for vital elements needed to prolong their flight. Nicraan Perezsire and Retho Capelsire had found themselves the tempest between warring societal factions with a Coalition known as the Tauon, while Capel Perezsire and the others ventured into a maelstrom on a scavenger hunt with the Unknown within the Tau Thule Array.
The Tauon Coalition was an interplanetary solar group of the Tau Region within intergalactic Gulf Space between the Sagittarius and Orion Arms of the barred spiral galaxy ancestrally known as the Milky Way. Consisting of a Class K orange star known in local Tauonese as Tau Gaius. Ten planets (six of which were habitable) with their subsequent moons or dwarf planets (sixty-four, of which forty-four were habitable), and a vast trail of mineral and ice debris extending outward for millions of kilomets between trans-orbit in a circular path.
It lacked gas giants, which may have been absorbed into the orange star during its protostar stage. The Coalition consisted of origin worlds in orbital order as Cangelosi Prime (Old Order seat of power), Pesta Tau, Seredi Tau, Daedalus Tau, Rhea Tau (New Order seat of power), and Beneos Tau. A Magnate – a figurehead positioned on Rhea Tau, oversaw the Coalition, the remainder the collaborative worlds were regionally governed – such as on Seredi Tau by an appointed Minister-Rector and on Daedalus Tau which had a sovereignty-- Emperor and/or Empress.
Synapsids that placed much importance on clan membership in a caste system, both in society and politics, populated Tauon sentient culture. Before establishing peace, inter-clan warfare was notoriously violent. The Tauons ceased their traditional history of clan rivalries and violent feuding. They had since enjoyed continual peace through until the present.
According to an ancient text known as the Veda, the division of Coalition society based on Gaius’s divine manifestation of two groups: Priests, rulers, and warriors in one division called the Entitle and teachers, merchants, traders, workers, peasants in an underclass known as the Indenture.
The current leader, known as a Magnate, after overthrowing the appointed ruler Gaius Pol Duvia, introduced the caste system as a means of controlling the local populations. Moreover, it was retribution toward the defeated and reward for the victors in an ages-long civil war. Generational reparations to make amends for a wrong the subjugated had done toward the subjugators.
The Magnate was of the latter roles and defined key roles in society, and then assigned groups of people to them. Individuals were born into, worked, married, ate, and died within these groups. There was no social mobility. Atonement for the past civil war was the excuse the Magnate had used to manipulate his own hidden agenda to justify the societal gentrification.
Distinguishing external physical traits of the Tauons included a formed indentation on their foreheads and traditional facial tattoos. Each world’s clanships denoted by dermal art that usually placed on the face, a specific mark or design placed on the skin. They could be removed but were usually permanent.
Tauon blood comprised an iron and copper base, a rarity among species in that area of the Gulf. Its citizenry naming was primarily followed with a suffix –al for males and –sh for females; this usually applied to descendants of the New Order lineages, those families surviving the Tauon Coalition’s multiple bloody civil wars’ past were absent of these suffixes.
The New Order was the reconstruction of the Tau Coalition after its most recent civil armed aggression, which ended some two hundred cycles before the del Sol from the podship Pioneer 4 encounter with Nicraan Matasire and Retho Capelsire aboard. The more the two visiting Aidennians observed of this Coalition, the more they were starting to think that they had stumbled into a precarious situation rather than creating one. The actions of the Sovereignty of Daedalus Tau cemented that impression …
“A Better World”
CHAPTER ONE:
At the other end of a quarter thousand-lightcycle transit in Space from the Tauon Coalition, a hologram of the spatial wastes that filled the intergalactic gulf appeared on the Pod 4’s astrogator projection plinth. The two marker dots that had been superimposed on the holographic display, indicating the present position of the urgently hurling podship and the point of its last contact with its shuttlecraft, had drastically increased in distance from one another. A tiny, almost invisible, dot of light lost among the blackness had been marked with a floating red circle.
Commander Capel Perezsire carefully studied the representation. “Still no contact, Moela?” he asked the auburn-haired lieutenant commander science officer.
From the communications board of her station, Moela Darasiress turned away from her screens and instruments. Her expression spoke of worry and sorrow. “Still nothing, Sire. All channels are open and receiving. All contact still lost with the del Sol.”
“What’s our position, Lieutenant Commander Jor?” he asked.
“ETA to rendezvous point, seven nodes, twelve macronodes, four micronodes,” Dansire, a fun loving male of high spirits, strong emotions, reported from his sunken piloting chair.
“Rendezvous point, we hope,” Dara Lidasiress spoke softly to herself at her station; then to an absent Retho, “my darling son.”
BeeTee joined its commander at the circular astrogator console and brought a more detailed graphic of the spatial area onto the grid. Now there were three marker dots on it and the marker circle. The area of Space had been enlarged to include the estimated position of the Pioneer 4 before it had entered hyperspace and was marked by a third dot.
“When we reach the rendezvous point, cruise the area,” Capel told the listening Dansire.
“For how long?” he asked.
“Until we’ve reached the point of no return,” Capel answered cryptically.
The pilot understood. He nodded and returned his attention to his flight board. Perezsire moved to position himself to stand behind the command consoles and looked out at the vastness of Space and the unfamiliar scattering of stars beyond the curved sectional bowport. He felt a faint tug that he knew to be the united-Ka calling to him from his son. It was very far away.
The podship automatically scanned the nearest sector of Space, returning a three-axis hologram on the center command console’s navigation panel that showed no other objects within sensor range.
From the pilot’s chair, Dansire said, “We’re all alone. Just us and some drifting molecules of interstellar gas.”
“What’s the nearest star group with planets?”
Jor set the scan to repeat. The hologram expanded and held its place in the middle of the center command console. It had changed. “Look,” he said finally.
“We are,” Moela said. Seeing that the updated scan was different from the ones before, the science officer joined her shipmates in the command apse.
Perezsire nodded absently but made no other response.
Dara drawn into the awe of the moment, leaving her quarterdeck medico station and moving fully to stand beside her spouse. She reached out and touched the edge of the hologram. “Capel, it’s a spaceship,” she said.
The projected representation spun and angled itself around, reacting to the touch and presenting a view of the surrounding constellations with a glowing dot that was more angular than circular.
“Where did this come from?” Moela asked.
“I don’t know,” Dansire said, glancing up from the nav-holo’s scrolling findings. “The answer may be contained in the ship itself. Preliminary scans identify it has intergalactic travel capabilities.”
BeeTee had been silent, busied itself plotting the relationships among the stars on the map to the position of the unidentified spatial object, trying to coordinate them with the System-based star maps contained in the podship’s memory blades. A new, detailed schematic formatted, replacing the stellar configuration. The object was definitely a spacer of multi-decks and advanced technology. The engineering area amidships had features as alien in design as the ship that housed it.
“Anything?” Perezsire asked the syntheform, knowing what the cybernaut was up too during the rest of the crew’s deliberations.
Without leaving its station at the astrogator, the silvery automaton replied, “The ship is a derelict. No life on board. The podship’s bioplasmic sensors confirm this. Whoever had crewed it had perished cycles ago. Therefore, the ship offers no apparent threat, yet it poses a question that needs to be answered.”
“Which is?” asked Dara.
“Why such a ship was left derelict.” Perezsire said simply.
“Do we dare?” Dara pondered.
“We have the time,” Moela reminded.
The commander nodded. “Take us closer, Jor.”
The commander’s pulse quickened – as much with worry as hope – as the podship drew broadside. About to give the order to dock, he glanced questioningly at Dansire.
“We’re steady,” he said. Jor read from the panel of instrumentation in front of his control seat, “Residual energy readings only.”
The abandoned ship hung alongside the Pioneer 4, dead in Space. As fellow travelers of Space, the Aidennians could not help but be moved by the sight of the vessel, once the carrier of beings probably not too different from themselves. A feeling of loneliness filled the Pod 4’s tiny command apse as it drew closer.
The ghost ship by now was hanging just a fraction away from the podship. From the ‘eye-sockets’ of the Pioneer 4 bow’s pallet, two gold lights were reflected in the derelict’s flank, shining warmly out into the vastness – two tiny points of life.
Seeing what looked like a mooring point, Jor maneuvered the podship through a series of pitches and rolls. “By your command,” he said, the flight controls waiting for another series of instructions to complete the preliminary actions toward docking.
Perezsire nodded. “Line us up and bring us in,” he said.
Dansire completed the berthing actions without incident. “Adaptive moorings complete,” he confirmed the oscillations of his flight panel. “Airlock is sealed and pressurized.”
“Shall we?” Perezsire quipped as he turned and stepped up the rear quarterdeck into the vestibule beyond.
The others followed without argument. Dara was in the lead, standing before the sealed inner door, her eyes primed on the airlock control panel’s readouts. “Looks good. Minimal power levels detected. Artificial gravity engaged. Air pressure is at 1 atmosphere… 4.696 psi. 21% oxygen, 78% nitrogen and 1% others – nothing toxic detected. Breathable.”
“No need for the EVA-suits.” Touching the sealed panel’s contact points, Perezsire activated the unlocking mechanisms and both the inner and outer doors to the airlock slid aside.
As one, the Aidennians stepped through and into the specter ship. It was chilly inside. The air stale, hard, musty, dry. Internal control had failed along with some of the power.
Wrist luminators on and guns drawn, the crew began to examine the derelict’s consoles and equipment bays. Although the ship had lain empty for an unknown amount of time, parts of it were still functioning beside its power and life support systems. All it lacked was crew.
It was a beautiful structure, strictly utilitarian in design. Its multitude of pipes and chambers and conduits had an aire of efficiency.
“Carbon-fiber composites and silica blends up top wherever possible, for strength and lightness,” Jor read from his singing techcoder’s presentation screen. “A lot of metallic glass in the partitions. Subdecks are not fancy. Steel floors with a lot of titanium alloy thrown in.”
“OK, all good to know,” Perezsire said as he nodded and pointed at designated teams to fall out. One toward their general direction, others toward the corridors leading away, saying, “BeeTee, you move in that direction. Dara and Moela back there. Do not go too far, test what you see, and stay out of trouble. Immediate contact if you run into anything suspicious. Don’t use your weapons unless there is no alternative.”
“I understand, Sire, we don’t want to upset any natives we may find,” Moela joked.
“I doubt there are any,” Dansire quipped back as he moved off to the left with the commander.
Following protocol, the males went forward; the females went aft, leaving BeeTee to examine amidships.
Intricate chambers ranged in size from half a retem in diameter to a dozen retems across, all interconnected. Corridors led off deeper into the ship’s maze. The completely gleaming structure extended as far back as BeeTee’s cameras and lights could penetrate.
It entered a large, domed chamber. The walls abruptly changed in character and appearance. The smooth, curving walls it had passed earlier formed a bas-relief composed of engine equipment and control panels. Emergency power was sufficient to light Engineering and its immediate environs but not much more.
Stepping over to a large blank flat video display, BeeTee studied its attached control panel. It did not take the cybernaut long to figure out its operations. Within no time, it had the screen illuminated with a complex series of charts and mechanical drawings. BeeTee’s gaze roved over the plans.
Even though the air processing systems were working, the quality of atmosphere was minimal. Dara’s first priority was to get the heating working. She led Moela into a wing that was completely without power. Their uniform wrist luminators revealed haunting scenes of abandonment.
“Where are we?” Moela asked.
Dara studied an illuminated map on her techcoder’s miniaturized screen. “Medical wing. We’re in the right section, and it has the right construct,” she said.
They split up, the lights from their wrists illuminating tables and cabinets, chairs, and expensive surgical equipment. Small medical instruments were in foam-formed slots on the walls. Despite the absence of lights, the wing was not completely energy-dead. A few isolated instruments and control boards glowed softly with emergency power.
Dara’s collar commpin tweeted and she immediately touch-activated it, “Dara, here.”
Perezsire’s disembodied voice echoed hollowly through the vacated ward, “Report on your location and situation.”
Dara gave the surroundings another brief examination before pronouncing identification. “Medical lab. Looks clean. I am attempting to find Life Support. We could use some assistance in getting more than emergency power, though.”
“Jor’s working on that. We’ve discovered what appears to be the command deck and some relay junction controls.”
“Understood.” Dara smiled, adding, “Keep us in the loop if you find anything about what happened here.”
“Will do. Capel, out.”
Dara’s eyes roved the emergency-lit chamber until they found what had attracted Moela’s attention. At the far side of the lab, seven transparent cylinders glowed with violet light. Combined with the fluid, they contained the light served to preserve the organic material within. All seven cylinders were in use.
“Stasis tubes. Standard equipment for a med lab this size,” remarked Dara as she approached the glass cylinders.
Each tube held something flattened and encased in a material like beige leather, thin and translucent. Unidentifiable creations with pseudo-gills drifted lazily in the stasis suspension fluid. There were no visible organs of sight or hearing. A long tail hung from the back of each abomination, trailing freely in the liquid. Two of the ‘creatures’ held their tails coiled tightly against their undersides. All had a faded colorization.
“These are dead,” Dara said when she’d finished with the last tube.
Moela had noticed an active medical computer flat screen. She began reading with the aid of her uniform light. The glyphs were very alien, making her unclip her techcoder to decipher the foreign language. A printed script manifested on the miniaturized screen, it was overflowing with charts and sonographs. There were a couple of nuclear magnetic resonance images, which attempted to show something of the creatures’ internal structure. They were badly blurred. All of the lengthy computer printouts had copious scribbled notes.
“Anything interesting?” Dara was leaning around the stasis cylinder beside the computer terminal, studying the creature it contained from every possible angle.
“Probably a great deal, but even with the translation program most of it is too technical for me. “ Moela tapped the techcoder. “Report of the examining physician.”
“Let me have a look-see,” Dara said as she craned her neck to have a better view of the ‘coder’s screen. “Death occurred before embryo implantation could be completed. Standard surgical procedures useless.” Dara stayed focused on the report, adding, “All surrogates died during the procedure.”
“That’s curious.” Moela was as interested in the specimens as her siress but not to the point of taking her eyes off the rest of the room.
“What is?”
“The scripts are different,” Moela noted, pointing to the report’s characters and then compared them to the morphemes of the surrounding med lab’s equipment labeling.
“They are different.”
“Which means this report was written by someone not of this crew’s world,” Moela reasoned.
“If so,” Dara sighed, not taking her eyes of the report, “that just deepens the mystery about this ship’s situation.”
Moela surveyed their surroundings, surveying for familiarity in the ward’s layout. If this was the medical wing, then life support should be close by. Her visual wanderings proved fruitful. She walked into an adjacent chamber that had all the ear-markings as being a power section. And, off of the chamber was a door to more sophisticated equipment connected to air processing and filtering mechanical apparatuses. The science officer smiled.
“Siress,” she called out excited. “Over here!”
Dara quickly made her way through the maze of medical equipment in the ward over to the side room where Moela stood gesturing toward wall-mounted panels that had to be computers. “Is it what I think it is?” she asked, handing Moela her techcoder.
Moela looked up from her active techcoder and nodded, “According to my readings, yes. It’s the Life Support Department’s Power Section.”
“Do you think you could get its capacity back up and running?”
“Let’s see,” Moela shrugged as she walked over to a particular piece of hardware on a red-colored wall panel. She touched a contact point. The lights began to strobe. A loud popping sound in a bearable pitch vibrated on the air until it became a continuous hum. Following suit, the lights stopped their blinking and gave off a steady light. Within the adjoining partitioned-off room, lights and air distribution came on completely.
Unseen by the two females, the same scene was happening as well as with several dark control panels and compartments shipwide. Namely on the Operations deck …
From Perezsire’s and Jor’s perspective having the podship’s energy supplies to go on, they now had much more. Fate could not have smiled at a more unlikely moment. They had entered into what appeared to be the bridge.
“Check to see if its fuel source is adaptable to our Pioneer Four,” Capel told Dansire as they continued exploring the circular configuration of the command section. “Particularly its raw stores of tritium troilite.”
“Understood,” the pilot scratched his head, not knowing where to begin. Spying a wall-mounted large box that appeared to be a power junction control on the far side of the spacious cabin, he wondered whether he could trace their cabling back to the power source and went over to examine them.
Perezsire toyed with a small monitor, which had all the ear-markings of being part of the mainframe. The board had an integrated series of cylindrical features. Mammalian instincts had him pressing on them. One attempt was successful, and the circular slot responded. A series of charts appeared on the flat screen, none of which made any sense to him. Trying to find something that he could understand, he went through the console board’s lineaments, one by one.
Intrigued, Jor had come over. “Obviously a data bank,” he observed.
Capel nodded, pressing another dial. Much of the derelict’s technology was recognizable. “The beings who navigated this ship had not been all that advanced with similar automation,” he said. “Still, there is no doubting they had known a few extra tricks.”
“Just so you know,” Dansire sighed. “The power source is sophisticated. It’s a bit beyond our capabilities, but if we’re here any length of time we could crack it …”
Perezsire found something that they could understand as the image of an alien being’s visage flashed upon the flat screen. The image was grainy and degraded but featured well enough that the two Aidennians could see it belonged to a homo-phibianspecies – a blending between terran and amphibian.
Wearing a military peaked helmet bearing the same emblem embossed on the derelict’s hull, its caecilian eyes stared quizzical out at them. As they watched, its caudate gaze started to quiver, and its polliwog lips began moving. It broke into a hesitant, whispered speech in a language that was a series of expected croaks and chirps. If the two Aidennians had closed their eyes, they could have easily imagined themselves listening to a sonnet sung in any bog anywhere in the galaxy.
Quick not to miss any information, Dansire unclipped his belted techcoder and activated its philology programming. It only took a few phrases before the ‘coder bleeped it had a translation ready. A narrative quickly sounded on the stale air somewhat coordinated with the animated figure on the monitor screen:
“…progress toward the colony has been without incident until 04:00 this diurnal course. We have picked up a distress signal from a passing spacer. Following universal decency, we’ve docked with the ship in distress and welcomed aboard a hominid species in need of supplies.”
As hoped, the message would explain the mystery of the derelict – why the abandoned had been so suddenly, with its control section still in working order. And, perhaps much more.
“We are twelve karpecs distant from our destination. The delay in aiding these fellow space-travelers will set our estimated time of arrival back minimally…”
The message degraded into a fuzz of static and the techcoder’s translation ceased. The slot that Perezsire had activated darkened and the cylindrical feature rose back to station-keeping. The commander tried to remove the tube, but it seemed wedged into the slot. His attempts were not in vain, as it became apparent that the designed cylinder was to move around in the slot. Turning it to the right, both Aidennians hear a ‘click’ as the circular solid locked into a new place.
“I think I have it figured out,” Perezsire smiled. Pushing down on the narrow barrel, it once again descended back into the slot. The screen was active again. Another message from another recording; the techcoder hummed again as the decoding transcription began again.
“Transporter Inaugural Progress Report. Doyen Timonel reporting. We’ve been delayed by the on-boarding of the refugees …” The screen jumped and the homo-phibian’s image went out of focus, blemished by lines of misrepresentation. The contorting display seemed to be temporary and the messenger was back on and so was the ‘coder. “…they seem to be anemic and in desperate need of transfusions …” The screen once again jumbled and twisted with interference. Intermittently the messenger’s report broke through the degeneration… “The alien anemia seems to have spread to my own crew, first within the medical staff, and now sporadically in other departments…” More distortion and more breaks in the message came and went, the tubular cartridge moved on its own. “…in the burial tradition of my species, I have ejected the dead into Space…” Static and malformation, the log cylinder moved again on its own, then, “… I’ve set my medical engineers to work again…”
Distortion and broken images, a flash of light, then the cylindrical cartridge again moved on its own. The display cleared for a moment as the screen seemed to reset itself. Doyen Timonel was back on, but looking feeble, almost bloodless. The techcoder was struggling to translate its elevated whispering, almost plaintive voice. “…what I’ve suspected of our visitors is true. This realization… has come too late… and at a high price…soon they will come for me. At the conclusion … of this report I will join my brethren in Space… to prevent my body from being abducted into their body count …”
The techcoder fell silent. The image on the screen twitched nervously and faded away. The log cylinder went dark and rose back to its starting position. Capelsire and Jor started blankly at the screen for some moments, overcome with emotion. Even though some of the puzzle solved by the series of log entries, they now had more questions than answers as whom the mysterious boarders had been that seemed to play a major role in the demise of the derelict’s crew.
BeeTee was in the middle of deciphering the spacer’s faster-than-light technology to see if it also used tritium troilite when it got Perezsire’s comm-call.
“Everyone report back to the Pioneer 4, immediately!”
“Yes, sir. Are we finished with our inspection?”
“Just head back to the podship.”
Breaking the connection Perezsire said to Jor, “That goes for us, too.”
“You didn’t answer BeeTee, Commander. Are we finished here?”
Dara called before Perezsire could answer. She said over his collared communications pin, “Capel, I’ve discovered some disturbing specimens here in the med lab. Nothing serious to our investigation, but I’d like to examine…”
Perezsire cut her off, “Head back to the Pioneer Four. I’m aborting the mission. As soon as we all get back, we leave.”
“Capel?”
“Do it!”
Perezsire tabbed off the connection and began to retrace steps, lengthening his stride so that the hyperplasmic engineer trailing him had almost to run to keep up with him. Jor saw his face, the taut expression.
“Is anything wrong, Commander?”
“I hope not.”
“But you think there is?”
Capel said curtly, “I’m not sure, but whoever did this to the derelict’s crew could still be lingering around. If they are, we’re racing against time.”
Dansire followed as Perezsire led the way, consuming with an urgency that left no time for thought. They were almost at the podship when the others came into sight. Dara was in the lead, her left hand gripping the wrist of Moela, her right steadying the case that swung over her shoulder. BeeTee treaded in from a side corridor.
The Pioneer 4 was where they had left it, the port opening as the outer door lock was disengaged. As they piled in, Perezsire slammed a palm on the closing and locking mechanisms wall panel. Jor was already at the flight controls.
“Stand by for disembarkation.”
“Move!”
Perezsire caught the back of the pilot’s chair to steady himself as Dansire detached the podship and set it away into the safety of Space. The others had gone to their stations and he followed one in particular, standing by her seat at the medical and life support console.
“We made it,” he said. “Just.” She did not answer and he stared at her, his face anxious. “Dara, is anything wrong?”
Her hand lifted to touch his unmarred temple, the fingers falling to trail gently over his cheek. Dara glanced toward the others. Moela flushed, breathing deeply, her eyes bright as she gazed at Jor.
A female in love, happy with her male.
“Dara?” Perezsire touched her gently on the shoulder. “You look vague, lost somehow. Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?”
“Nothing.” He was not satisfied; she could tell, but how to explain how she understood his anxiety about remaining on the alien derelict? She said, slowly, “Capel, I know what happened to the crew.”
“How? Did you access the captain’s logs?” His voice held concern. “I don’t understand, Dara. What are you talking about?”
“I did read medical reports on aborted embryo implantations.” Her eyes changed, somehow to exhibit horror. “They were alien, Capel. That is why they failed. Whoever had invaded that ship, tried using a portion of its crew as surrogates.”
“Piece that together with the ship’s logs and you saying ‘invade’ is correct. An errand of mercy that turned out to be an act of self-destruction for an innocent, do-good people. That’s why the ship had the appearance of the crew just picking up and leaving.”
“Right. Picking up and not packing up. Abductions?”
Perezsire frowned, and then shrugged. “Looking at all the evidence we were able to thread together … I would say, yes.” He noticed her expression. “Are you sure you feel all right now?”
“I’m fine,” Dara studied her console’s screen, the image of the spacer it contained. Already it looked small as it moved on and away. Potential lost.
“A mystery still and one we’ll never fully understand,” said Perezsire. “Supplies lost. A pity, but we have to accept it.”
“And?”
“We go on,” he said, dryly. “Time has run out on us. We’ve no choice.”
A marker buoy remained. A message in a bottle. A show of hope from the receding podship.
* * *
PLANET RHEA TAU, TAU GAIUS STAR GROUP
GALACTIC COORDINATES [-321.5, 48.6, -89.7^]
Millions of mets away, through the endless void of Space, probing photographic orbital sensors censured across the vacuum. All information from such probing channeled to and from the planet Rhea Tau and its capital city.
Metanoia was a domed metropolis below a boiling, seething atmosphere full of fading radiogenic particles that formed radioactive clouds enveloping the brown and teal sphere. At one time, the planet had been a place of sophisticated architecture, a beauty suddenly torn apart when torpedoes began raining down on its enormous cities; causing massive destruction everywhere. But, that was generations ago…
The light of a strong, orange sun fell on the planet’s clouds, its rays illuminated ghastly patches of the gray and anonymous surface of a world concealed beneath a wild vaporous mass. Down there, on the barren, inhospitable world, the seat of the Tauon Coalition Oligarchy not only thrived, but also influenced its neighboring worlds occupying the same solar space. A series of dominant class or group governmentally-united planets populated with former clan-warring therapsid beings.
It was a union distinguished by royalty, wealth, education, or military control. A few families or clans who passed their power from one generation to the next, making up an elite caste of Entitles controlled some components of the oligarchy governments. Other members had one family or clan that had power for several revolutions, and then the power shifted to another group of people or another family or clan based on their military ties or wealth within the same caste. The people did not influence these decisions. They were influenced solely within the small group of entitles with whom the power was held. Ultimately, all constituents fell under the power of the supreme eminence of the entitled caste, a Vedic named the Magnate.
All eyes of the Coalition Collaborative turned to the hub of power and influence on Rhea Tau. Beneath protective, environmentally controlled domes, Rhea Tau was a world that was flourishing. A place of synapsid peace and prosperity: an interlinked garden. An enclosed inland sea and a warm shallow ocean swarmed with contained life; a planet in nurturing transition.
A post-apocalyptic world so environmentally hostile anyone who might exit a bio-dome enclosure would have to wear a full life support suit. A world in the process of healing through the aid of modern terraforming technology. The planet was in the process of returning to its original start using atmosphere rectification equipment and water reclamation processors.
Seen from high altitude, Rhea Tau took on a polka dotted appearance. The immense cloud cover stretched from horizon to horizon. Across the breadth of the planet, a pattern consisting of an array of filled circles generally equally sized and spaced relatively closely in relation to their diameters clearly seen. Vortices pinwheeled over each ‘black dot’. Elsewhere there were long necklaces of fair-weather cumulus resembling ‘puffs’ of chimney smoke.
The atmosphere processing plants dominated the land while the water purifiers took up station within Rhea Tau’s waterways. Close-up these structures were 1,500 retems high, with a 1.0 terawatt power plant fusion reactor overseen by a variable crew complement. Each was a large semi-automated reactor capable of either ‘converting’ the unbreathable, toxic or otherwise inhospitable planetary atmosphere into one suitable for sentient habitation or its stagnant waters drinkable.
A century-long endeavor ending in less than a decade.
Under one such pressurized dome, in the capital city of Metanoia, within its command center, the Coalition’s leader, Magnate Titian Don-al, an operative named Atthew Atticu-sh, Controller Avetz-al, and others grimly watched the holographic manifestations brought back to them.
Don-al’s tattooed amniote-features looked perturbed, while the others appeared to be more worried, distraught, and overworked. Atthew had located the rebel fleet's ion engine trails through Space. The holo-screen filled with the panorama of the star-studded heavens. She looked at her console as her smaller holo-monitor came alive with new information.
"Something's coming up!" she excitedly yelled. "I've got a location!"
Titian Don-al was a florid-face, obese male with a gratingly false-hearty manner. He had fat jowls and soft white hands bearing pinkie rings. Being the Magnate, he had enough political clout to make him the most important figure in the Collaborative government. He was a male who could not change his personality and had no intention to do so. He represented the most perilous qualities one could imagine in a leader: sloth, grandiosity, ignorance, and a stately arrogance that allowed him to indulge in childish cruelties. Don-al was a very rough and tough male, insensitive, and greatly concerned with his masculine image.
"What is it?" he shouted back at her.
The Magnate had been born in the Koboko Parish District, in northwestern Rhea, to a Cangelosi Prime father and a mother from Lugbara, a livable moon of the uninhabitable Coalition outer planetoid Somal Tau. Don-al’s paternal great grand-progenitor, Nald, made a sizable fortune by building and selling housing for Coalition soldiers and their families during the Coalition’s Final Civil Aggression. Following the armistice, Nald’s son, Rederick, used his inheritance and amassed a fortune by opening restaurants and hotels for precious metals seekers on their way to the planetary and asteroid mines. After his death, Rederick Don-al’s fortune passed on to his wife and Titian.
It was this paternal company’s influence that the Magnate got his start in politics. A rise that was paved with the blood of those that had opposed his ascent into the highest seat of power in the Tau Coalition; including the then reigning Magnate, self-proclaimed Gaius, Pol Duvia. His mother would have turned over in her crypt had she witnessed the ruthlessness that dominated her only child in his pursuit of power.
"Calibrating now." Atthew stabbed at a series of membrane contact points in rapid succession.
Panels flashed and winked on the console surface. The dials of digital calculators spun figure after figure across themselves. Finally, the whole bank of the equipment she was operating seemed to erupt in a series of loud retorts and flashes of light and color. A long read-out graph appeared on the console's 3-D screen. Atthew leaned over and began reading it.
Don-al abandoned his standing position and ran over to her. "Where is it?" He could scarcely contain his impatience. His mixture of reptilian and mammalian characteristics hardening against contained rage. His scaly flesh flushing bright orange, his row of sharp retractable teeth crowning, claws threatening to lash out.
"According to this read out -- they're somewhere on…” she jumped up, astonished. “… Daedalus Tau!" Don-al and she stared at each other with mixed emotions.
"That sly Doric is plotting a rebellion against us!" the Magnate blurted out. "She's aiding those cretins!"
"Yes," Lan Avetz-al agreed from his console, shaken. "That's why she must be delaying the return of the captured Aidennians."
"Perhaps even the planet Seredi Tau is in on this plot!" Magnate Don-al said, his face flushed with red-yellow anger. “Daedalus Tau is a world rich in grain harvests, making it a wealthy planet. But it still is surrounded by the might of Rhea Tau. If Empress Doric could harness Coalition interest for her own ends, then the Collaborative could be hers. Seredi Tau would be a powerful ally.”
He moved to stand beside Atthew Atticu-sh. "Get me Empress Doric on the colony Daedalus Tau, immediately!” he roared. “I will speak to her."
The planet Daedalus Tau was idyllic A world of which dreams had been written and sung. To outsiders it was a place of mystery where Natura ruled. A place where ice met fire. Untamed forces of nature predominated and no matter where one went, the sea was not far to reach. Mist and cold in seemingly endless forests, wilderness. Nestled within the hilly folds of its immaculate verdant landscape was the futuristic designs of cities. One of which was the planet’s inhabitant’s capital, Gara, situated neatly between two rolling highlands. The metropolis surrounded by a panorama of forests, jungles, and grasslands. Despite the neatness of the planet, this area looked alive, and wild.
Tough, calculating, skilled, and in a powerful position, Empress Doric Cora Von was a beautiful, voluptuous, blue-eyed and light haired synapsid female. She fully depicted the image of a regal female in the prime of her life, wearing a diadem and veil and holding a lotus-tipped staff. Like most entitled monarchs of the Tau Coalition, Doric saw herself as divine; from birth, she and other members of her clan declared gods and goddesses.
Typical of physical traits of the Tauons, Doric also had a distinguishing formed indentation on her forehead including traditional facial tribal tattoos as well. These just added to Doric’s celestial claims and her slinky cattiness.
Highly image-conscious, Doric maintained her mystique through shows of splendor, identifying herself with the deities Orus, Rah, and Aset, and in effect creating much of the mythology that surrounded her presently. She was an inamorata of disguise and costume. She could reinvent herself to suit the occasion; a mark of the consummate politician.
She entered the command operations room in time to hear one of the communications officers announce that a signal from the planet Rhea Tau was coming in. Turning to face the main holographic projector fully, Doric saw the unblemished, graceful beauty of a Rhean operator as she appeared. The female was so like them in appearance, yet she had an aire of supremacy about her like all Rheans; an acquired attitude of the nexus-ruling world. She seemed relaxed and friendly, almost to the point of being the one stooping to a less formal state.
"Planet Rhea Tau to colony Daedalus Tau," Atthew Atticu-sh said warmly. "I have a trans-solar group call for Empress Doric Cora Von from Magnate Titian Don-al. Do you receive?"
The command operations communication's officer reached forward over her control board and tabbed an icon. "Affirmative, planet Rhea Tau, one moment while I connect you to..."
"There is no need, I am here," Doric cut in as she came closer to the particle-synthesized image, making her presence fully known to all within her sphere of influence. "This is Empress Doric Cora Von of the planet Daedalus Tau."
The holographic image of Atthew Atticu-sh shifted, and then Magnate Don-al's flaring face filled the presentation plinth. At one time, his synapsid-features might have been considered handsome, but ravages of age and the scowl he wore only detracted from any youthful remnants. His clanship facial tattoos seemed to be as faded and in need of refreshing as his disposition.
“Doric, I'd like to know the meaning of you taking on rebels to the Magnatency?!" he snapped accusingly, cutting off any formal pleasantries the empress may try.
Doric sensed his hostility. Her forming smile vanished in a heartbeat and she stiffened as if cornered. "Just what are you saying?! We have no evidence of any unauthorized …"
"We have evidence there are Belfi on your planet, Doric! They tried to overthrow us! I want to know why they are there unharmed and not in restraints," the Magnate spoke frozenly. There was an element of loathing in his voice.
Doric Cora Von knew the Belfi urged same-gender oriented Coalition citizens to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with self-pride. Hostility toward same-genderism had deep roots in Coalition society. Planetary sexual laws criminalized homogender acts. Collaborate mandates excluded immigration of homogender citizens, permitted postal authorities to exclude homogender publications, and prohibited the depiction of Belfi characters or open discussion of homogenderity in entertainment representations.
The Collaborative Psychiatric Synod's diagnostic manual had defined homogenderity as a psychopathology. During the present era, the charge that Belfi were ‘moral perverts’ and security risks led the government to adopt rules explicitly excluding them from Coalition jobs or military service. Law enforcement entrapment of Belfi and harassment of Belfi establishments were widespread. In the cities such as Metanoia and Grand Metropolis on Rhea Tau, law enforcement officers arrested 100 Belfi a month on misdemeanor charges relating to homogenderlity.
Although the emergence of the Belfi liberation movement caught the general public by surprise, it did not emerge overnight. A handful of advocacy groups arose over the past two centuries, opposing laws that prohibited and punished homogenderlity. In modern times, Belfi subcultures and communities had grown in many of the Coalition's cities, complete with drinkeries, cabarets, periodicals, and restaurants. At the same time, challenges to earlier legal and medical opinions about same-genderism appeared.
Studies of sexual behavior suggested that Belfi behavior was far more prevalent than most Coalition citizens previously suspected. Reformers within the legal profession argued in favor of decriminalizing private, consensual adult homogender relations, on the grounds that government should not regulate private morality.
It was all so radical. It had become one of the most highly charged issues in Coalition politics. It was driving Coalition society to a distress that was palpable.
The Empress tensed. "Have you located their position?" she asked.
"Not exactly -- I order a radius scan of the entire area around each Daedalusian population center!"
"Yes, Excellency," Doric replied, her once jelly insides turning to stone. Her boiling anger controlled, her saurianesque eyes were the only traitors of inner emotions. And, there was a damned buzzing in her ears. The sensation was peculiar: at first a chilling experience and then a slight ringing -- not painful, but somehow unsettling.
"Listen to me, Doric," the Magnate hissed at her. "Heed my orders, or I shall investigate your world myself -- by force! The Martial Directive is still enforce. And, your ally world of Seredi Tau will suffer if you fail. I know that you two are involved in something, and I intend to find what your aristocracy is up too!"
“We've gotten off to a bad start in this communique, haven’t we?” Doric cooed. “I've rubbed you the wrong way.”
“I'm not sure l want to be rubbed by you at all, young female,” Don-al countered, tempered.
A bold statement built on arrogance. Yearends before Rhea Tau and the Magnatency arrive on Daedalus Tau, the natives were mining and smelting precious metals. When the Coalition formed, the Magnatency took over the metal mines of Daedalus, immediately increasing their productivity and output. All of the precious metals eventually made their way back to the treasury in Metanoia.
“Shall we agree upon what Rhea Tau really wants...has always wanted of Daedalus?” Doric smiled sardonically. “The stability of the Tau Coalition from my provinces. Corn from Agypten’s Alittum Great Plains and grain from the Ku-Bab Prairie to make soylent; three hundred thousand tonnes per solar revolution. Cruller for the masses is a great instrument of power, Magnate. No? If the people are not hungry, they are quiet. Amphora filled with wine from Spanien, olive oil from Mauretania …army appurtenances from Tunis Algerien… treasure, precious gems of Mon Ceekate to the rare metals extracted from the mines of the Eastern Desert of Parther Laqip…gold, iron, and amber from Gallien…. fine textiles from Pikten Germanien. It is the old story. Rhean greatness built upon Daedalusian riches.” Doric breathed, calculating; then said, “You shall continue to have them. You shall always have them all and in peace. But there is only one way.” She said softly, “My way.”
“That sounds very much like an ultimatum,” Magnate Don-al’s tone raised slightly as his saurianesque skin’s pigment became more orange.
“There is no other way,” Doric reminded him. “Stability of the Coalition rests on stability on Rhea. That means the filling of a lot of stomachs from Daedalusian bread. Besides, there are my armies…and the simple fact that no mortal hand can destroy me.”
“Yes, l recall some mention of an obsession….” the Magnate smirked. “…. you have about your divinity. The goddess Aset, is it not?”
For two centuries Daedalus Tau had been a subservient ally to Rhea, and preserving the stability of the Tau Coalition, with its great agricultural wealth, was in Rhea's economic interest. Ethnically descended from Daedalus Tau’s first assigned sovereign, Legislator Soter Von of Cangelosi Prime, the Von’s spoke Cangelosian and observed Cangelosi Prime customs, separating themselves from the ethnically Daedalusian majority. But unlike her forebears, Doric actually bothered to learn the Daedalusian language. For Daedalusian audiences, she commissioned portraits of herself in the traditional Daedalus Tau-style. Doric used patriotism to cement her delegated position.
The Magnate never seemed to pass on any opportunity to insult the empress on her appointed position, and her planet’s role in Coalition politics. It was infuriating.
“l shall have to insist that you mind what you say,” Doric insisted. “I am Empress Doric Cora Von, sovereignty of Daedalus Tau, Marchioness of Gara, Kindred of Orus and Rah, beloved of the moons and suns, daughter to Aset... and of Old and New Daedalus Tau… daughter of the First Creche, holder of the Sacred Alembic of Amphisbaenia, heir to the Dominion of Daedalus….Empress… I am worshiped by milionoj who believe it. This is my world, Magnate Don-al. All of it is available to me at my will. I am not your slave. If anything, at this moment, you are my guest. Do not confuse what I am...”
“...with the so-called divine origin...” interrupted Don-al. “...that every Rhean general acquires together with his shield. Yes, Doric, I know you are widely read; well-versed in the sciences…and mathematics. You speak sep languages proficiently.” He paused for a moment, for what seemed for a dramatic effect. “Were you not a female, you'd be considered an intellectual." He paused again, and then spat. “Nothing bores me so much as an intellectual.”
Doric breathed, then said tactfully, “It was Gaius you chose to be descended from, wasn't it?”
“I must now do a little insisting of my own...” the Magnate shook his head, then fixed his stare on Doric squarely, patiently retorting, “First, l am not your servant, Empress. Do not dictate me. Secondly, you have no armies, young female. They are gone because you could not pay them. Daedalus’ riches are not available for your own use... much less to give away.”
“I hope you are as wise, as brilliant as the god they say you are,” Doric said diplomatically. “You old Rhean generals became divine so quickly. A few victories, a few massacres. Only yester, Magnate Pol Duvia self-proclaimed himself as Gaius…a god. You murdered him, did you not to take his place?
“Yes. He was unstable. And, as such, he was a threat to the safety of the Coalition.”
“Magnate, it is essential we understand each other,” Doric warned. “Only through me can you hope to escape…the desperate situation in which you find yourself. You are not a fool. Or are you?”
“Immodestly, perhaps, no.”
“You're being tolerant of me aren't you?” Doric said, coyly. “Is it because you're so much elder?”
“Don’t patronize me, Doric. It is well known that in obtaining your objectives, you have been known to use torture, poison…and even your own sexual talents, which are said to be considerable. Your lovers, l am told, are listed more easily by number than by name. It is said that you choose in the manner of a male…rather than wait to be chosen after femalely fashion."
"How dare you --”
“Yes, I think the time has come for us to understand each other,” Don-al growled. “Whatever else I may be, in your opinion, first of all, I am Magnate.”
“And, I am Doric, Empress of Daedalus Tau, kindred of Orus and Rah…beloved of the moons and suns, daughter to Aset...”
“If I say so and when I say so,” barked the Magnate. “You are what I say you are, nothing more.”
“Comparatively, who are you?"
“You know who I am,” snapped Don-al. “Do not diminish what little respect I have for you! There is only one world of importance! That is Rhea Tau. Don’t ever forget, Doric. The Coalition will continue to grow.”
“Hail, Magnate!” quipped Doric, patronizing. Then she bowed in mock obedience, her eyes boiling with her own loathing at the male and his arrogance. The ringing intensified in her ears. It was maddening. “Hail, Rhea Tau! Rhea, always Rhea! The planet, like you, are insatiable!”
The gestures of Doric did not go unnoticed. Don-al clenched his sharpened teeth as his measured words oozed from his tightened lips. “You, a descendant of generations of inbred, incestuous mental defectives, how dare you disrespect me!”
“You barbarian!”
“Descendent of a promiscuous harlot and an idiotic lyre-playing drunkard who bribed his way to the throne of that colony.”
“Your price was too high, remember?” Doric leaned forward, verging on being irate.
Tensions mounted. Magnate Don-al did not relent. “I’ve had my fill with the smug condescension of you worn-out pretenders, parading on the ruins of your past glories.”
“It’s the future that concerns me!”
“Then do as I say.”
Doric almost laughed. “Do as you say? Literally? As if I were something you had conquered?”
“If I choose to regard you as such.”
“Do I understand that you feel that you can do to me with whatever you want?!” Doric was indignant. “Whenever you want?”
“Yes. I want that understood.”
Doric placed her hands on her curvaceous synapsid hips, almost as a non-verbal defiance. Then she smirked, slowly saying, “Won’t you at least wear Gaius’s laurel so I can be reminded it is the divine Magnate Don-al that orders me so?”
“You talk too much!”
“Subservient,” Doric lowered her tone as the ringing started to intensify within her ears to a dull ache. “I promise you … you won’t like me this way.”
"Shut up!" Don-al exploded. "Just do as I say and report back to me as soon as you know anything about these rebels! For the life of me, I will never know why our ancestors allowed worlds to be regionally governed! Fail me in this task, Doric, and you'll see the end to your empress title!"
"Daedalus Tau and I live but to serve," Doric said dryly, and then gave a meaningful glance to the Ops communications officer; who in return, banished the magnate's face from the three-D view. "Oooooo!" she hissed, letting her pent-up anger out by jamming her staff into the floor with a loud ‘crack’. The ringing of her ears had become almost subconscious and at this moment seemed to try and quash the fuel of her rage. "That male!"
"Your orders?" asked the senior executive.
"Contact Patriarch Counselor Bain from Security -- tell him to find those convicts as well as those rebels. Have him report back to me every tridek minutoj!"
"By your orders, Excellency," the male replied, moving his fingers across the touch-sensitive keyboard of his console.
Sage Yron Uoff had landed the coupe about a met away from the rebel base's surface entry lock point. The little flier sat now in the midst of a jungle. It lay in the center of a clearing, the fronds of soaring trees rising in a ragged circle all around, leaves casting moving shadows in the brilliant heat of the day.
Unstrapping from his acceleration chair, Retho Capelsire looked out the forward viewport. He was an extremely handsome, perfectly built male with auburn hair. In awe, he asked, "Where are we?"
Yron chuckled as he set the ship's controls to self-destruct. "We're about a met or so from the base. Now hurry, this ship'll blow in a matter of moments."
Over the tiny cockpit's airwaves, the on-board computer confirmed Uoff's proclamation. With an accompanying siren pinger, the neutral voice heralded, "Warning. Ship Auto-Destruct has been activated. Desired interval until destruct has been programmed at 00:59."
Along with the computer announcement, data graphic displays throughout the coupe began to provide time-remaining information. A schematic of the shuttle illustrated areas of the craft that were prepping for the deadline. The counter began to tick down.
From Retho's extensive indoctrination at Spacecorps during his orientation for the Mira IV mission, he knew that this was an accepted fact of life aboard any space going military vessel, that the ultimate sacrifice may have to be made to insure that neither the intact spaceship nor the technology contained therein would fall into the possession of Threat forces. The total destruction of a vessel executed by special command authorization procedures. Obviously, Uoff was privy to command authorization codes and destruct scenarios to manipulate the coupe's hardware configuration and operation.
Though the gesture was perhaps unnecessary, Uoff kicked open the cockpit emergency exit. But he was so full of joy, so glad to be alive, that he did not care. Each moment of his freedom stretched onward for infinity of happiness. He jumped to the ground, turned, and held out his arms. Retho jumped as well, and the professor caught him and then settled his lithe body beside him.
The elder pushed Retho along a sparse pathway and toward the encircling trees. The youth said, "But why blow up the coupe? We might need it later. It could be our only means of escape."
"Because, if the security force finds it a burning wreck, they'll think it crashed and that we're dead," Uoff replied, making himself as well as Retho take cover behind a group of boulders.
"Not if there aren't any skeletal remains," Retho answered just as the ship blossomed into a flower of flame and smoke.
A lethal hail sent flying above the acrid vapor of the explosion; fragments of the coupe became a molten debris shower falling haphazardly about the clearing like an unexpected cloudburst. Rising, Retho observed the area where the craft had been micronodes before. There was nothing left but a burning hulk with some charred cladding stretched over bared ribs of the craft's destroyed hold.
"Now I see why you didn't worry about that point of the plan -- nothing, not even bones could survive that," Retho admitted, turning to see Uoff at his side, staring at the inflamed carcass of the flier as well. "But even with the ship as a decoy, we'll never get through the jungle with all of Gara's security officers searching for us," he added dejectedly as they moved rapidly through the gloomy boughs of bushes and animal passageways.
"Think again, Garan fugitives!" a proud, deep voice boomed out from in front of them.
They stopped abruptly in the center of a large, stone-strewn pathway. Almost as startled by the sound of the voice as they were by their intercepted getaway. Yron and Retho were even more startled a moment later when, by the flickering light coming through the dense upper fronds of the trees, they saw the tall, magnificently adorned form of a barbarian-type reptilian-anthropoid from the shadows. He was a chief, and a dozen or so of his shabbily dressed soldiers, who formed a formidable circle about them, quickly surrounded him. Their enlarged clefted frontal skull bones and saurian eyes characterized all of these reptilian-anthropoids. More evidence of genetic engineering generations old, thought Retho.
With a gasp in horror, he began backing away; stopped by the crude tip of a sword in his back, turning his head slightly over his shoulder, he saw that it belonged to one of the beastly soldiers. Retho's mind reeled, embracing the possibilities. He did not want to speak before he had his bearings in this unexpected circumstance. "Sage, what can we do?" he asked weakly, moving slowly back to Uoff's side.
"Fear not, buck," the amiable, if fierce, lord said in a smoother tone, "I... we... are friends of the rebels. We helped build their new base here on Daedalus Tau."
"Is that true?" Retho asked Uoff out of the corner of his mouth. The Aidennian looked quickly around the clearing, trying to assess the situation. Were these beings an underground movement of some kind? One that operated with support and approval from Gara? On the other hand, was this some kind of ruse, intended to throw him off balance and force him to reveal his true purpose? Although his obvious physical appearance showed that, he was free of any reptilian influence.
The burly male's voice was reassuring. "I am Lord Goff Bruce. You are among friends."
Yron nodded and gave a reassuring grin. Turning to look at the brawny chief, he said, "Lord Bruce, it is good to see you again; we need escort to the base's northern entrance. There are Garan guards searching the jungle. The explosion will no doubt catch their attention."
"Ah, yes, we have spied them, had some fun with a couple. They are quite different from your city's dungeon guards, I must say. Not as giving." Goff Bruce's head fell back and his agape mouth let out a roar of laughter that seemed to shake the very earth. Others in the company chuckled too. "Come, Yron, we'll show you the safer way to the entry lock."
Without hesitation, Bruce gestured for his males to start on their way. Retho considered the lordly male’s eyes and knew he must take the risk. He had not survived all that he had been through because he intended to play it safely. The stakes were too high for that.
Bruce followed Yron and Retho, making sure there were no Garan gunslingers coming up the rear.