Peace World (5 page)

"The governor is expecting me, I assume?"

"Yes.  Go right in," he said, offering a fake smile.

The governor was seated at his large, ornate desk when Rala entered.  He looked up from the work on his desk and gave her a quick nod.  Her presence acknowledged, he turned his focus back to the monitor on his desk.

As a frequent visitor to the office, Rala knew the expected protocol and silently took the chair placed in front of the governor's desk.  As she lowered herself onto the hard surface, she could not help but notice—again—the disparity in height and comfort between the chair where she sat and the one Truk occupied.  The opulence of his throne would have been an embarrassment to most Minith.  The rich purple upholstery, bejeweled back, and intricately carved legs were overshadowed only by the gaudiness of the chair's height and width.  

She felt for the device in her blouse and quickly removed it. 

Her pulse slowed at once.  The ability to perform that maneuver without being detected had worried her for days.  The act itself was anticlimactic.  But the listening unit was now in her right hand, which she lowered slowly.  She only needed to affix it to the bottom of her chair and she would—

"Rala, what do you think you are doing?"

The question cut the air and she yanked her hand back to her lap. 

Governor Truk's eyes were still focused on the monitor he sat behind.  There was no way he could have seen the movement. 

"Um," she said.  Rarely was she at a loss for what words were needed in any situation, but that was the case now.  "I don't understand, Governor."

Truk looked up from the monitor, his eyes suddenly fixed on hers.

"Telgora, Rala.  General Soo.  Earth?"

Rala's pulse slowed down for the second time in as many minutes.  He was talking about Telgora. 

"Soo tells me he is headed to
Earth
?"  Truk's question was more of statement.  Soo had apparently informed Truk who had ordered him to abandon the siege of Telgora and move against the humans on Earth.  Knowing her mate's brother, he had probably laid the entire plan at her feet to save his own hide.  The fact that it
was
her plan made no difference to Rala.

"Yes, sir."  She fought the urge to flick her ears; the movement would let Truk know she was caught off guard by his questioning.  "As you know, humans landed on Telgora.  They helped the natives defeat our forces and take over the agsel mines there."

"Yes," Truk acknowledged.  "But that does not explain why you sent
my
general and four motherships to the end of the galaxy."

"Governor Truk, I sent General Soo to Earth because the humans obviously control the Telgorans now.  Those idiots could not have taken our mines without their interference."

"How does sending Soo to Earth get our mines back?"  The volume of Truk's voice increased with each word.  Rala was on shaky ground.  She could not tell the male about the Zrthn influence on the decision.  He did not need to know, nor would he ever understand.  But she could tell him the reasoning behind the directive.  That still made sense.

"Governor Truk, the humans are weak. And they are protective of their people.  I felt the best way—no, the only way—to get the mines back would be through the humans.  If we crush them where they live, the few who control the natives on Telgora will be forced to cede the mines to us."

Truk stared at her, but said nothing.  Rala wondered what he was thinking, but he gave no clue.

"You are dismissed for now," he stated.  Rala nodded.  As she started to rise, Truk bowed his head back to his desk.  Without hesitating, she reached her right hand down and pressed the small, flat listening device to the underside of the chair. 

Oiloo had insisted it would attach itself with minimal pressure, and he was right.

 *     *     *

The Zrthn listened to the entire exchange with interest.  He had told Rala that once the device was in place, she would be able to listen to everything that happened in Truk's office.  That was true.

He had
not
informed her that he would be listening in as well.

CHAPTER 5

The mothership rattled like a pieced-together jalopy bouncing along the roughest dirt road Grant could imagine at a hundred miles an hour.  He clutched the console with all his might and fought to keep his teeth tightly clenched.  The brutal shuddering threatened to dislodge every nut, bolt, and weld that held the laboring vessel together.  A rising explosion of distress and anger filled the command center as the ship's engines fought to slow the behemoth's passage through the vacuum of space. 

The noise and quaking grew in their intensity long after Grant knew they couldn't get any worse.  The lights in the ship flickered, dimmed, finally went dark.  An occasional spark thrown from the control panel or ceiling provided the only light, and during these brief flashes, Grant spied Gee's bouncing form struggling to keep his place at the controls.  The warrior worried that he had demanded too much of the engineer.  He worried that they had demanded too much from the mothership. 

They were asking her to stop on a dime, and she was pissed. 

The ship's anger and rebellion finally reached the point where death seemed unavoidable.  In that brief moment, Grant offered silent goodbyes to Avery and Eli.  He sent thoughts of apology, love, and regret to the men, women, and Telgorans who would soon die with him.  He thought of the billions on Earth who would have to stand up to the Minith.  Finally, he sent a prayer to the God he had abandoned in his youth.

And then he waited for the end.

But the end never came.  Instead, the ship took a breath.  Then she took another. 

It took a few minutes for Grant to notice the change in her attitude.  At first he wasn't quite sure, but when the lights flickered and returned, he knew they had passed the worst of the storm.  The mothership was relaxing, shaking off the remnants of her anger and resistance.

When the normal hum of the engines returned, Grant looked at the time.

Twenty minutes had passed in mere hours. 

"Amazing," Gee said.

*     *     *

Patahbay felt the tingling in his head moments after the ship stopped shaking.  He reached out to the Family surrounding him and found concurrence. 

No words were required.  The fifty Telgoran fighters joined minds and reached out as a single unit. 

The effort was sufficient. 

They received instructions from the planet and nodded in
shiale
. 

As the spokesperson for their group, Patahbay rose from the circle of Family and set off to find the general.

*     *     *

Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  Although a uniquely human expression, the Minith would have understood its meaning perfectly. 

When the mothership appeared on their detection systems unexpectedly, and—more importantly—only thirty thousand miles away, the well-trained operators knew they were facing trouble.  They did not know the extent of the problem, or its source, but it did not matter.  The training and protocols established by General Soo to protect the planet and their people from a potential Zrthn invasion kicked in.

The Minith took immediate action. 

It took less than sixty seconds for the operators to notify the top Minith commander on Waa, General Spaak, of the mothership's appearance.

As General Soo's handpicked replacement during his absence, Spaak knew his duty and carried it out with similar efficiency.  Within three minutes, every military force across the planet was notified and mobilized.  Once that was completed, the general set off to notify his governor of the situation. 

Between the initial moment of the ship's detection and Spaak's verbal notification to Governor Truk, less than ten minutes had elapsed.

*     *     *

Thanks to the device the Minith female had planted, Oiloo received the report at the same time as Governor Truk.  His surprise was nearly as great as that of the Minith leader.  He had not expected the humans—who else could it be?—to be so bold. 

There was obviously more to these pale bi-peds than he had previously considered.  Who knew these formerly mild-mannered inhabitants from the farthest outpost in the galaxy could be so complex, or could behave so far outside the norms of their natural character? 

Oiloo was accustomed to having more information than his opponents.  He was used to knowing their moves and their motivations as soon or sooner than they themselves did.  This nugget of information about the arrival of the humans near Waa was a perfect example.

Every Zrthn was raised on the premise that knowledge is power.  It is a given that he who has the most knowledge of a situation is always in the best position to come out ahead.  It was why he and his people expended so much of their resources on intelligence techniques and data gathering. 

The Zrthn trade arranger sent off a quick message to the administrators, alerting them to the latest developments.  Hopefully, they would recognize the danger and allow him to take direct action.  He was more convinced than ever that these humans were a threat to Zrthn interests. 

They were an unknown, and Oiloo's beliefs regarding interplanetary political-economic norms did not allow for unknowns.

*     *     *

"Let me get this straight," Grant said.  "The Waa told you we needed to land there?"

"Yes, General."  Patahbay stood unmoving.  As usual, his long, alien face revealed nothing of his internal emotions or thoughts.  "They are preparing for our arrival."

"So you can communicate with the Waa telepathically?"

"We share a form of Mass Mind with the Waa, General.  It is unlike what we share with the Family, but more than we can share with humans."

"Interesting.  It doesn't explain why we should land there, though."

"It makes some sense, Grant," Gee interjected.  "The Waa build motherships for the Minith there.  They have the facilities for liftoff and touchdown."

"I'm with you on that point, Gee.  My concern lies with trusting the Waa.  How do we know they really want to help us, and aren't working with the Minith instead?  They could be leading us directly into a trap.  Also, it seems like the
expected
place to land, and we need surprise on our side."

"General, the Waa are honorable.  They would not suggest this without a reason.  The Family has already reached
shiale
on this point."

"That's good enough for me, Little Man."  Titan, who had been leaning lazily against the far wall of the command center with his arms crossed, made his position clear.  "If the Family says they can be trusted, they can be trusted."

Grant gave a single nod to let Titan know he was considering his input.  It was not insignificant.  He trusted Titan's and the Telgorans' judgment, and his gut was telling him the same—that the Waa
could
be trusted.  But this was a big decision and one that they did not have much time to consider. 

According to Gee, they could be on the ground in just over an hour, but they needed to program the systems for the chosen landing site within the next couple of minutes.  They could go with their initial landing site, an open area a few miles outside of the capital city—or they could land smack-dab in the center of the city.  The center served their purposes much better, but required them to place their fate in the hands of the Waa—a race he had never met.

Gee, Titan, and Patahbay looked at him expectantly, waiting for his decision.  Grant felt the weight of command press heavier on his already tired shoulders.

This is why they pay you the big bucks
, he thought.

Grant rubbed his temples and released a heavy sigh.

"City center it is."

CHAPTER 6

Once again Rala found herself overlooking the ship-building fields to the south of her office.  It had become a daily ritual.  From the top-floor window of the high-rise building, she studied the tiny figures of the Waa in the distance as they went about their routines.  As they toiled, she worried over the concerns of her job, her family, and her race.  She also worried over the futures of those in the distance, and the inseparable link they shared with her own people.  She struggled, as usual, with how to prevent their eventual extinction.  As usual, she had no answers.

A dull ache through her core hinted at a depth of fatigue she rarely felt.  The tiredness slowed her mental capacity as well; a thin veil of gauze seemed to cloak her normal clarity of thought.  On a normal day, she would have noticed the increased activity outside her windows much sooner.  When the changes in the ship fields finally registered, she was shocked.  Instead of the dozen or so Waa she normally observed, there were more than a hundred of the little creatures bustling about the distant fields now.

Awareness of her surroundings and mental sharpness quickly returned.  In their wake, she noticed dozens of military carriers in the skies outside her window.  They were speeding in groups of three and four to the north—toward the governor's residence. 

Something was happening. 

If she had been in her residence, she would have activated the listening device she had planted.  Not willing to risk its discovery, she had elected to keep it there.  It was a calculated move, but she could not have it in both places.  Home was the safer choice.  As a result, she rushed to her desk and opened a standard channel to Truk's office. 

"Trade Minister Rala."  Ghin answered her incoming call with his normal terse greeting.  She detected a hint of anxiety overlaying the greeting that was unusual for the normally calm aide. 

"Fill me in, Ghin," she bluffed.  "No need to bother the governor.  I know he must be busy dealing with the current situation."

"Um…yes.  He is very busy," he replied.  "The mothership will be landing within the hour.  From its current path, we know it will land on this island or the one directly to our east.  We are scrambling all forces to intercept its arrival."