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“I have,” Marisea confirmed, as
the first of the missiles found their targets. A moment later the ship went
dead. “I hope that trick works twice,” Marisea commented into the darkness.
Almost immediately she got her wish and the ship sprang back to life.

“Adjusting course for the swarm,”
Trag reported, “Three gees acceleration.”

In the screens, Park saw the
phasers being fired, but the metal-screech weapon caught them up before Iris
could manually fire the gravity cannon. The screeching lasted longer that time;
almost three subjective seconds. And then the screeching stopped once more, but
the ship creaked ominously. “Status?” Park demanded.

Everyone started talking at once,
but Ronnie’s voice cut through to Park’s ears, “That crack in the hull is a lot
bigger now. We can’t take another hit like that.” The bridge was silent by the
time she finished saying that. Park turned to Marisea.

“The fleet?” he asked.

“We didn’t lose any ships that
time,” Marisea reported, “and over half of us got hit with the power drainer,
but used Ronnie’s trick to come back online.”

“Dark Ships are down to only
nineteen,” Iris reported. “We’re low on missiles, though, no specials, just one
round of normal darts now. I’m fairly sure that’s the state of most of the
ships that came with us. The ones from Earth are in slightly better supply, but
not much.”

“Open a channel to the Dark Ships,”
Park commanded. Again he gave the Dark Ship Aliens a chance to surrender.

“It is dishonorable to surrender,”
came the translated response. The being at the other end sounded angry even
though the translator.

“Hell!” Park swore, “That’s
suicidal. There must be a way to stop with honor.”

 
“We would like to stop fighting with honor,”
the Gilara responded. “We have a concept…” there was a pause and the translator
produced an unintelligible series of syllables.

“That did not translate,” Park
reported, “but we recognize a state called an armistice,” Park responded. “It
is a ceasefire without either side formally surrendering.”

“Yes,” the Dark Ship Alien
commander agreed readily. “Armistice. Will you agree?”

“Yes, I agree,” Park nodded.
“Power down your weapons, especially that planet melter of yours, and we can
talk.”

“Planet melter?” the Gilara
echoed. “Ah! You mean the swarm of volcanic activators? Their primary use is to
restart the life-cycle on a world that has become too old or polluted. Yes, of
course. It would be a violation of all that is holy to use it as a weapon when
we are in armistice. We are already sending the deactivation orders.”

Marisea broke contact and Park
breathed a sigh of relief. “I should have been demanding they submit to a
ceasefire all this time.”

“Let’s just see if we can turn it
into a truce,” Iris suggested.

“It is a basic tenet of our
religion,” the Gilara commander, Borainth explained sometime later via
translator. It turned out that his actual title was “Priest-Admiral” or that
was the automatic translation of the title.
 
Together the Earth and Gilara ships had rescued over half the Gilaran
crew-persons and most of the Earthlings, due to the Gilaran preferences for
attacking armed and active ships.
 
“One
can never surrender and we did not realize you recognized the concept of
honorable armistice. It was quite disconcerting, when you found a way to defeat
our Energy-sponge,” he added.

The Gilara, it turned, out were
neither human nor humanoid. Like the Atackack, they had six limbs, but most
frequently walked in a quadrupedal manner, whereas the Atackack were most
frequently bipedal. The Gilara, not surprisingly did not fit into any Earthly
taxonomic scheme, but most resembled the later dinosaurs and were warm-blooded,
but they has flexible and expressive faces, and while none of their expressions
matched up with human ones, there was feeling of familiarity when Park watched
them.

Cousin was, at first, wary of the
Gilara leader, but when she suddenly jumped up on to the table in front of him,
Borainth reached out a hand to stroke her fur and she purred in response. After
she had her fill of attention she returned to Marisea’s lap and went
contentedly to sleep.

“You could have asked,” Park
pointed out.

“We did,” Priest-Admiral Borainth
replied, “but it seems the Premm were less than honest.” He paused, then added,
“or honorable.”

“Their religion demands the
destruction of my world,” Park pointed out, “or at least the ruling faction there
believes that. I suppose those same people felt that any means to that end was
justified.”

“Deceit is never justified!”
Borainth exclaimed. “We shall restart the life-cycle on all the worlds of the
Premm for this.”

“Please don’t,” Iris requested.
“First of all, that sort of revenge is not our way, not against a defeated
enemy. Second of all, not all Premm were involved in this deception, just the
leading faction in their council of priests. Those people are no longer in
charge.”

“You have killed them?” Borainth
asked.

“I think most are still alive,”
Park replied. “I didn’t want them dead.”

“You Pirates are crazy,”
Priest-Admiral Borainth commented, although without much heat. “You would leave
an enemy alive.”

“Maybe so,” Park smiled tightly,
“but if we kill such enemies, it’ll be a lot harder to look them up if it turns
out we need them later. This is no casual decision, though. We are not
conquerors expecting to reap tribute from the Premm Worlds. Having beat them
militarily and upset their entire system of governance, it is now our
responsibility to help them rebuild into what we hope will be a more
responsible and respectable neighbor. One of the ways that happens will be to
let the people decide what to do with their former leaders. I doubt any of them
will regain any sort of power, though. If you had seen the welcome we got from
the common people of Premm you wouldn’t doubt it either.”

“It will be hard to convince the
Holy Leaders of Gilara to let the Premm go unpunished,” Borainth told them,
“but you Pirates have the superior claim. I do believe they will allow this to
stand and will ratify our armistice.”

“And how about a truce?” Marisea
asked.

“A truce?” Borainth echoed. His
translator was obviously having trouble with the term.

“A formal declaration of the
cessation of hostilities and perhaps the beginnings of friendship and trade
agreements between our peoples,” Marisea explained.

“I do not know that I can commit
my Holy Leaders that far,” Borainth explained. “It may not be compatible with
our Holy Prophecy. We thought ours was the same as that of the Premm, but after
what you have shown and told me, I think we shall be hesitant to accept another
alliance.”

“Tell me about your prophecy?”
Marisea requested. Priest Admiral Borainth’s response was hesitant at first,
finding he had to stop several times and go back to explain details that any
Gilaran child would have learned as they started school, but as he went on the
prophecy sounded as nebulous and lacking in specifics as any human prophecy
ever did.

“Sounds like you ought to speak
to a friend of ours,” Park told him. “His name is Okactack and he’s a shaman
mystic among the Atackack people.”

“A holy person?” Borainth’s
expression was hard to read, but his eyes seemed to light up. “Our prophecy
says we shall ally with a holy man who is no man… I mean who is not one of the
Gilara… and that we would learn Truth from him.”

“Sounds a bit like Tack,” Park
nodded.

“We thought the Voice of the
Premm was that man,” Borainth explained. “But it seems clear now he is not that
one. You think this Okactack could be the holy man we are looking for?”

“I don’t know,” Park shrugged,
“and I do not think it is up to me to say that he is, but why don’t you come
and speak to him and decide for yourself.”

“I should, yes,” Borainth agreed.
“I imagine many of my leaders will want to meet him as well before they decide.
The interpretation and fulfillment of the Holy Prophecy is a serious matter.”

“I am sure it is,” Park agreed. “And
perhaps you might join us on our next vacation,” Park went on wondering what
corner of Pangaea was schedule for exploration next. He thought about it and
realized they might end up spending weeks just looking for Tack.

Borainth had a strange expression
on his face. “My translator says that is an extended period during which a
person does something other than his normal activity. This is correct?”

“A fairly accurate translation,”
Park agreed. “Although for me it is generally getting back to my original
occupation on Pangaea.”

“What an odd concept,” Borainth
commented. “Still, after I have met with your leaders, it might be pleasant to
try.”

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