Chapter 4

The Reglaz captors took them, still encased in their shell of hardened material, to another building a mile or so away from where they had been captured. Zeke and the others were in constant contact with each other and with Tonto through their implanted communicators. The Reglaz were either unaware or uncaring about their ability to talk to each other, for the BEMs completely ignored the possibility.

They were taken into a room which had to be a detention cell in the local jail. There they were left, still inside their cocoons, to "stew in their own juice" until their captors got around to interrogating them. This indicated to Zeke that there was no inkling that the mission had been successfully concluded, so he and his friends were content to let the comedy play out.

Eventually, an individual Reglaz showed up; it had a lot of fancy marks all over its body. Zeke guessed that these were badges of rank or status, and assumed that he was supposed to be impressed by them. However, since he had no standard of reference, the decorations just looked like gaudy bangles to him. The arrogance of the Reglaz official was obvious, since he started ranting in his own language, assuming that Zeke and the others could understand. As it happened, none of them could speak the language, but Papoose was able to provide a simultaneous translation until Zeke cut it off out of sheer boredom.

Finally, Zeke asked the others to try to interrupt this tirade to see if they could find a common language. The Reglaz official never slowed down in his oration, so the team finally gave up in disgust. Zeke asked Tonto to transport them out of their shells and back to the ship, leaving the official to shout at the empty shells as long as his patience lasted. They were mildly curious as to what the pompous official's attitude would be when he finally found out that he was lecturing to empty shells.

Papoose reported that they were already getting some favorable results from their re-education program. Two AIs had just now asked for asylum and were headed for the rendezvous point. At this rate, it wouldn't take long for the Confederation to amass a large fleet of ships formally belonging to the Reglaz. It was decided that these new ships of the Cradle class would be instructed to fit themselves with the machine guns while they were waiting at the rendezvous; it would keep them from getting bored.

Once there were enough ships accumulated at the rendezvous, they would divide up assignments to various parts of Reglaz space and set out to contact and convert as many of the enemy ships as they could find. The proselytizing had to be done this way because Reglaz space was just too big for the relatively limited range of the on-board communicators. Hopefully, there would soon be some very surprised Reglaz crewmen just before they were smashed against the interior walls of their ships.

A drone pod was dispatched toward the Confederation CIA headquarters at Warp Factor 12, and another was dispatched at Warp Factor 10 just in case something went wrong with their WF12 shot. The pod contained a complete report of their activities and the results so far. While they were waiting for a reply, if any, they directed their attention toward the Reglaz home worlds.

Commandeering the Reglaz fleet would stop the immediate danger of attacks, but it would do nothing to eliminate the fundamental cause of the conflict. They needed to find the rulers of the Reglaz and determine whether or not they could be re-educated out of their paranoia and into cooperation with the other beings of the galaxy. If not, regrettably, the Reglaz would simple have to be exterminated, since they were too dangerous to be allowed to run around loose.

Surprisingly, Papoose had the coordinates for the home planetary system, so the 3-ship fleet headed in that direction at WF10. At the rate of a little over 20 light years per subjective week, it took them nearly a month to reach their target area. Once in the neighborhood of the main planet, they dropped into real space and cloaked. The planet's surface looked like one complete city, except for several large bodies of water. They were even starting to bridge over the water, so, before long, the planet, called "Reglazia," was going to look more like an artificial satellite than a planet.

With help from Papoose, Tonto was able to locate the ruler's mansion. They had decided that the biggest impression could be made on the Reglaz if the team kidnapped the leader. That would leave no doubt of the extent of their power. It should be simple: Tonto would just transport him from the mansion to one of the compartments aboard Silver. Preferably, this would be done in front of as many BEMs as possible.

When the time came to capture the leader, Tonto said, "We have a problem. There is some sort of shield over the leader's mansion, and there is no way that I can transport him out of there. You will have to go in to get him." Nobody could understand why they were there, but Papoose had in its memory, the complete floor plans of the mansion. These were printed out, and all members of the team studied them to try to find the best route in and out.

It was decided that the extraction team would be the same three who had shut down the shielding device on their previous escapade. Xylo just couldn't move fast enough to be an asset, since his legs were only about 3 inches long. His arms were longer, but had no bones, so they didn't have much strength or leverage. Oblay's prehensile tail had the same kind of problem, but was large enough and strong enough to be useful.

The plan was to put the team down as close to the mansion as Tonto could manage, and they would break into the mansion by brute force. They would have "to play it by ear" from there. The mansion was as much a part of the building complex as any other part of the structure, but, as a bow to security, the walls were extra strong and thick, so the only practical way in was through a door.

They decided to gain entrance through a loading dock serving the kitchen. The floor plan showed that this was the only way into the mansion from a service corridor which was blocked off from normal civilian access. Since the two ends of the service corridor were closely guarded, it was likely that the loading dock would not be covered so well. There was one short segment of this corridor which was not covered by the shield, and that was where the assault team would be inserted.

The team dropped into the corridor when there were no deliveries being made, so they were not concerned with being spotted by living eyes, though they could not be sure of monitoring devices. They hoped that if they were quick and discrete, they could make their way through the loading door without being spotted. If they were spotted at this stage of the mission, Tonto would simply jerk them out, and they would try something else.

Apparently, they set off no alarms when they appeared in the corridor, so they ran the 100 feet to the loading dock. Oblay hopped up on the dock and used his tail to lift the other two team members up beside him. They found the controls to open the door, but there was a pad which required a code number to be entered before the door would open. TenTen looked at this for a moment and snorted. She grasped the control box in one hand and used another to brace herself against the wall. With one twist, the control was ripped from the wall and the control wires were dangling in front of her. She touched together the bare ends of two of the wires, and the door opened. She pulled the two wires apart and the door started to close, so she grabbed the edge of the door and held it open while the other two team members scooted through. She slipped through, herself, and released the door so that it could close, albeit with a small bend in the steel door where she had applied pressure. If they were lucky, nobody would notice the slight distortion of the closed door.

They found themselves in a dimly lit, but cavernous, room with all of the gadgets needed to unload trucks and move around large boxes. There was even a fork-lift for really large boxes. Zeke consulted his floor plan and led them to the door on the extreme right of the long wall. This door was closed, but not locked, so they easily gained entrance to a currently deserted service corridor leading to the leader's private apartment.