Retreat And Adapt (A Galaxy Unknown) (29 page)

Jenetta awoke at the usual time, but she felt just as tired as she had when she climbed into bed. She recognized the signs of depression immediately, so she called her office and told them she would be late. Then she called the hangar where her plane was stored and told them to prepare it for use. When she completed the calls, she felt more invigorated than she had in days. A quick shower lifted her spirits even more and she almost had a spring in her step when she left her suite to start her day.

The first order of business was an hour of flight time. Her cats would wait patiently in an office at the hangar until she returned. Her protection detail would see that she came to no harm from external enemies. Of course, they couldn't protect her from herself, and they just hoped that today wasn't the day a slight lapse in flying judgment or attention would prove fatal.

It wasn't. Her flight ended as they always did, with her landing safely back at the base and feeling more alive than she had in days.

* * *

"Sir," the tac officer aboard the
Rio Grande
said, "the target is not at the expected location."

Lt. Cmdr. Jasson Lister cursed silently and mumbled, "Not again," under his breath before saying, "Helm, swing us around and retrace the course the enemy ship would have followed since having its presence confirmed by the
Mekong
four hours ago to see if it halted somewhere. Com, notify the
Mekong
that we've turned to search for the enemy mother ship."

As the ship turned, Lister contacted the Captain, who happened to be working in his office.

"The mother ship is missing, sir," Lister said when Commander Marc Hodenfield raised the cover on his desk's com unit. "I've ordered a reverse search of their expected course since the last confirmed sighting."

"I'll be right out, Jasson."

"Aye, sir."

Commander Hodenfield pushed the com unit's cover down and sighed. He was working on tomorrow's daily report and would now have to rewrite it from the beginning where he had stated that they continued to monitor the travel of the enemy mother ship and that nothing had changed.

Hodenfield emerged from his office and walked to the command chair. As he settled into the comfortable seat, he grimaced at Lister and said, "I hope this doesn't lead to a full-scale search. I wonder if the two mother ships changed their plans to rendezvous."

Lister hadn't uttered even word one of his intended response when the tac officer said, "Contact ahead."

A second later, the scout-destroyer
Rio Grande
passed a halted mother ship at Light-9790. Then they passed another.

"Good Lord!" Hodenfield said. "How did that get here so quickly? We estimated that they couldn't meet up for months."

"Unless…" Lister said.

"Unless what?" Hodenfield asked.

"Unless that isn't the second ship we've been expecting."

Hodenfield stared at him for several seconds before responding. "I hope you're wrong, Jasson— but it's a possibility."

"So what do we do, Captain?"

Turning to the com chief, Hodenfield said, "Get me Commander Morrow aboard the
Mekong
."

"Aye, sir," the com chief said.

"The
Mekong
, sir?" Lister questioned.

"There's only one way to find out the situation here. Either there are more of these ships in GA space than we thought just yesterday, or they have substantially greater speed than we thought. At this point I don't know which would be worse."

"Commander Morrow is responding, sir," the com chief announced.

"Put him on my left monitor, chief."

"Aye, sir."

A second later the image of Commander Cody Morrow appeared on the screen and Hodenfield's CT chimed to indicate it was active.

"Cody, we have a problem. A big problem." It took just thirty seconds to bring Morrow up to speed. "So one of us has to go looking for the ship reported by the Territorial Guard ship. If you'll take over here and perform the four-hour checks, we'll continue on and see if we can locate a third ship."

"Wow, Marc, you're just full of good news today aren't you."

"I wish it was otherwise."

"Yeah, me too. If R2HQ was right about the maximum speed of these mother ships, then I agree that there must be a third, or even more. In any event, we need to know. We'll take over responsibility for the four-hour checks while you go learn what you can. Stay safe."

"Roger that. We'll message you as soon as we learn what's what and then hightail it back here as soon as we're able.
Rio Grande
out."

"
Mekong
out."

* * *

"Hello, sweetheart," the image of her mom said as Jenetta tapped the play button on the new vidMail message. "My news is so big that I couldn't wait until tomorrow to vidMail you. Regina is pregnant."

Jenetta's jaw dropped. She had originally been concerned because the message had arrived a day earlier than normal for the weekly messages from Obotymot, but now she was concerned because Regina hadn't seen her husband, Jenetta's brother Billy, in over two years.

"Billy and Regina had decided to wait, but since it doesn't appear that Billy is going to make it home any time soon, they decided to use the cryo'd sperm Billy deposited in a sperm bank just after their marriage. Regina was impregnated just before coming to Obotymot. It was a big secret, but now that she's starting to show, she told Marisa and me. And get this— her sisters and parents are going to come
here
for the birth. Isn't that wonderful? Regina and Billy's baby is going to be the first member of the Family Carver to be born on Obotymot.

"And now that Regina and Billy are going to have a baby, Marisa wants to have a baby. She just sent a message to Richie telling him to cryo some sperm and send it here so
she
can be impregnated.

"This is all too wonderful for words. I'm finally going to be a grandmother. It's funny, but I always thought you would be the first one to have children. Of course, that was back when you were just going to be a science officer. I thought you'd meet a nice man at whatever base you were assigned to and decide to become a mommy. Well, I know it will happen in time.

"I hope you can come home for a visit when Regina is near the end of her term. By then, Marisa might have begun to show also. Oh, I'm so excited. I've sent a message to your father, and now I'm going to send messages to your sisters and brothers. Of course, Billy and Richie know already. Well, it doesn't matter. I'll congratulate Billy again and tell Richie that I hope he'll send the sperm for Marisa. There's the timer, so I have go. I love you.

"Annette Carver, Palace of the Family Carver, Gavistee Peninsula, Obotymot, message complete."

There were two other messages waiting, one from Marisa and one from Regina, but Jenetta wanted to think about the changing situation before she listened to them. She had been sitting on the edge of the bed watching the message on the nightstand com unit and now flopped back onto her bed and stared up at the ceiling. Naturally, she was excited and happy for her sisters-in-law and her brothers, but it had caught her totally by surprise. Another thing that caught her by surprise was her mother talking about her coming home for a visit. It was the first time her mom had referred to the palace on Obotymot as home. That was significant. Annette and Marisa had now been on Obotymot for seven months and showed no indications that they were leaving, or were even thinking about leaving. To the contrary, they seemed to be putting down roots. That pleased Jenetta no end. She had always regretted that the palace was empty, and it was wonderful to see it being used by family members.

Jenetta didn't know how the upcoming confrontation with the Denubbewa was going to end, but if Space Command and the Marines were able to defeat them, or at least end their efforts to arrogate GA space, it might be time to take an extended leave from the service. So far, she was only sure about one thing— she didn't want to become a permanent member of the AB and be forever tied to a chair in the AB Hall. Keith Kanes had once suggested that as the older members of the Board retired from the service, Jenetta might be pushed to accept the position of Admiral of the Fleet. The post had never interested her and didn't interest her now in the slightest.

* * *

"Contact off starboard, Captain," the tac officer aboard the
Rio Grande
said.

"Is it the enemy mother ship?" Commander Marc Hodenfield asked.

"It's right at the limit of our DeTect capability, so I can't say for sure, but it's under power and appears to have the right mass. I would say yes."

"Is it on course for the expected rendezvous point?"

"I'll need another pass to determine course and speed."

"Helm, swing us around for another look. Keep us at the edge of the DeTect range. We don't want to spook them."

"Aye, sir. Beginning our turn now."

"The ship is exactly on course for the rendezvous point, Captain," the tac officer said as they performed another flyby of the mother ship. "Speed is Light-462."

"That's good enough for me," Hodenfield said. "She's exactly where we expected her to be and headed on a course that would have her rendezvous with the other ship we were following. So now we know that we have three mother ships to deal with. Com, send a message to the
Mekong
that we've identified the enemy mother ship at the expected location and that we're headed back. Helm, take us back."

"Aye, sir," both the com chief and helmsman said.

* * *

Marine corporal Beth Rondara awoke just as a Denubbewa technician lifted her right arm off the surgical table and carried it away. She was mortified as she looked to where the arm had been. It seemed to have been efficiently severed at the shoulder. Strangely, she felt no pain. She wondered if her body was simply in shock right now and that waves of pain would soon drive her mad.

She twisted her head the other way and saw that her left arm was missing as well. She should have been hyperventilating by this point, but she couldn't seem to get excited. Even when she raised her head and looked down to where both legs had been the last time she was awake, her respiration didn't increase.

The Denubbewa technician returned to the table and applied some kind of a surgical dressing to the newly opened wound. Within seconds the dressing, which looked simply like a piece of cloth, had shrunk and self-sealed around the shoulder. Lastly, a garment of some sort was slid up what was now her lower extremity. Like the surgical dressing, it instantly shrank for a tight fit and fluid seal.

PFC Vincent Kilburn, on a table in a different operating room, was likewise being dissected piece by piece while awake and witness to the process. As with Rondara, he felt no pain or exhibited any agitation over the surgical process.

When Kilburn's surgical wounds were sealed and a tiny garment fitted over his lower torso, he was picked up by a very large cyborg and brought to a recovery room where Rondara, sans arms and legs, was already lying on a table.

Rondara watched as the cyborg gently set Kilburn down and strapped him to the table. As the large creature left the room, Rondara tried to talk. She believed that her lips were moving, but she didn't hear anything or feel any vibration in her throat that might suggest she was making a sound. She was surprised when she heard a response from Kilburn in her head.

"They cut off my arms and legs also," Kilburn said. "But I didn't feel any pain."

"You can hear me?" Rondara said.

"Uh— yeah. But you sound funny."

"Funny how?"

"It doesn't sound like your voice."

"Whose voice does it sound like?"

"Uh— it doesn't really sound like a voice at all. I'm hearing words but they're not like real sounds."

Rondara stopped moving her lips and just thought about what she wanted to say. To her surprise, Kilburn answered her.

"What do you mean that they might have removed our vocal chords? I heard everything you just said."

"I didn't say anything. I just thought it. Try it."

"Okay, here's me trying to talk without talking. Can you hear me?"

"Every word. This is weird. Your lips didn't move."

"Holy God. What have they done to us, Corporal?"

"They must have done something to our brains so we can communicate telepathically."

"You mean like supernatural, alien stuff?"

"There doesn't seem to be anything supernatural about it. We've been watching them since they captured us and I've never heard them say anything. So they must use telepathy."

"Why didn't I feel any pain when they chopped me up? Do they care if we're in pain?"

"It's more likely they want to reduce the trauma to the body."

"Why are they doing this? Do you think they're trying to turn us into one of them? Are they going to put us inside one of those cyborg bodies?"

"Maybe parts of us."

"Parts of us?"

"They've already removed our arms and legs. They might be dismantling us to determine what they need to include in new bodies. Or…"

"Or what."

"They might be preparing us to act as baby-making machines."

"Baby making?"

"Yeah, we wouldn't need arms or legs to procreate. We just need a male and female."

"Not even," Kilburn said.

"No?"

"All they'd have to do is harvest your eggs and pump me for my sperm."

"Human babies are reportedly much healthier when they get breast milk for the first year after birth. The mother passes on a lot of antibodies. And males can continue to produce spermatozoa until old age."

"So they need us alive, even if we can't move around?"

"It's possible. And not being able to move on our own would make us easier to control."

"I don't want to live like that. Just being part of a baby factory partnership is no way to live."

"That's the way it was for all women until the twentieth century. Many women died in childbirth or before reaching forty-five."

"Long before our time, Corporal. But we males didn't have it so good either. Back then you were lucky to reach thirty-five."