Chapter 12

It didn’t take long for my wife and my confidant to up the ante, so to speak. I was asked to take Seng and Deem with me on a trip to Outer Solon. Excuses were made for and or by all of my other female companions to be busy or otherwise occupied in any case. I’m sure Clarise and Gwyneth thought that the opportunity would be adequate to provide motive and means. Let the crimes begin.

Our voyage was interrupted by an all hands call for help from out beyond Outer Solon, however, so we changed course and headed directly for Vinal. Vinal was a very large planet which held many forms of life, not the least of which was human, and not the most of which was the full entourage of Earth originated animals and agriculture. I have mentioned mangos earlier. Vinal had them. They had just about everything from avocados to zinnias and aardvarks to zebras.

The humans on Vinal were in the majority of the sentient life forms, however, there were others. We have seen that most sentient life forms are derived from the human DNA that originated on Earth, or the one other instance we had found, but had not been able to trace back to its origin. Many believed that the other faction as well as the earth humans originated elsewhere in the universe, many thousands of years prior to civilized history being recorded by those humans. To date there was no answer to those questions, but it didn’t deter anthropologists from looking into it, even now.

There were no openly hostile races on Vinal, nor any from elsewhere that had shown hostility toward the different peoples of Vinal, however, so the approach of a hostile race who started bombing and landing soldiers near populated areas was not a normal situation.

Vinal did have countries. Vinal did have armies. Vinal was a member of the Alliance, as were all but one of those countries. Most of the countries also had the capability of space travel. There was an actual war happening when we and several other Alliance members and their spacecraft approached. I listened and watched carefully as the on-scene commander for the Vinal contingent greeted and shared information with the Admiral leading the Alliance forces while we were assessing the situation from afar.

I think we all saw it at the same time, but when we did, I was pretty sure we had run into the green animals that Willaw and Teng had spoken of.

“Admiral Farley, this is the Chancellor. We were right behind you arriving here. Did you just witness the large orange beam of light there between those two enemy ships?”

“Yes, sir, we did. It can’t be a weapon, I don’t think, as they are using it on one of their own. Oh, it appears they are pulling that damaged ship.”

“Yep. Looks like they are pulling into a bay in the back of that battleship. Look to your port bow, admiral, there is another one. That carrier is retrieving that mess behind him. This may very well be the green animals we’ve been tracking now and again, Farley. We need some of them alive, but since they attacked Vinal, and we have not been able to stop them with diplomacy, just annihilate them all and we’ll see if the governor of Blayne Vinal can find us someone on the ground that knows what’s going on. Consider having someone shoot a particle beam of some type into that beam and see if we can disrupt it in any way.”

“Good idea, Chancellor. Please keep yourself out of the fray. I know you have some long-range weapons and if you want, you can have your crew contact the CACTUS if you feel you must participate.”

“Will do, Admiral. I have civilians on board, but I’ll have my captain contact Ops.” The CACTUS was the Command and Control, Targeting, Update and Status Center, or operations center for the Alliance forces. They were under Farley’s command but took direction from the Vinal commanders until they could assume command and control of the entire operation. Years of training went into making sure this all worked well in situations like this. Alliance members knew this was how any hostile actions would be handled and had agreed in advance that this was the best approach to the problem. It had worked in every case where it was used.

“Chancellor, I have a corvette near the carrier down there with a two-hundred-and-fifty-millimeter carbon infused photon beam emitter. Stand by.” We did, and stood watching as the carrier was pulling the smaller craft behind it, reeling it in. The bright flash of the cannon fire illuminated the entire area. It also illuminated the carrier and the smaller craft in a much brighter fashion, disintegrating the back half of the carrier and emaciating the smaller cruiser entirely.

“Well, if we find that technology, remember not to use it during a battle. Try to get that destroyer the same way. Maybe they didn’t see that mess. Take care of it, Admiral. I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Yeah, right ... uhmm, sir. Oh, and good idea about that beam, Chancellor. You found the Achilles heel of their Achilles heel, so to speak. I can’t believe it was that easy and that fragile. I’ll take it from here. I’ll get my engineering staff on that thing right away. We’ll do what we can glean from the ships after we take care of the occupants.”

“If they are green, and resemble animals, don’t let your children, or any of our people near them. From what we understand, they eat the flesh of their enemies’ children to frighten them into compliance.”

“I’ll do my best, Chancellor.” He looked at me over the video feed and cocked his head. He must’ve seen the serious look on my face. “You aren’t kidding are you, sir?”

“Nope. Not a bit. They are dangerous. Quit your yacking with the boss and get back to work. Your people almost have it under control, but you need to mop up and make sure that Vinal itself hasn’t been overrun with some sort of magic weapon by their ground forces. Remember, we need prisoners, and the normal questions must be asked and answered.”

“By your command, sir. Who are they, where did they came from, what do they want, and what capabilities do they have to meet their ends? I’m familiar with the drill. Also, I know we need that tractor beam tech. Frank already warned me. If we ran into those critters, we had to be careful and do our best to capture that capability.”

“Correct Admiral. I’ll leave this mess in your capable hands. So long for now. My captain advises me the CACTUS would rather we were not here, so we’re out. Thanks, Roger.”

“You and yours have a safe trip, Chancellor. May the Goddesses journey with you.”

As we departed the area, we watched as the battle became less and less intense. I was pretty sure the Admiral wouldn’t have any issues with the battle area, but he did need to get his people on the ground, and soon.

“Chancellor, may I have a word?” Commodore William Phillips, our captain, looked troubled.

“Of course, captain. Our lives are in your hands.”

“Thank you for that honor, sir, but two of their ships came in from beyond the next planet out from Vinal and are trailing us as we prepare to jump.”

“Hail the admiral and tell him what is happening, but don’t jump. I want to confront them and find out for myself what they are all about. Do you think it’s safe? Will our shields hold?”

“They are working fine in the theater of battle at Vinal, sir, and their weapons are not advanced beyond what we have, that we know of. I don’t want that to bite me in the ass, sir, excuse my language. ‘That we know of’,” he air quoted, “takes in a lot of unknowns all by itself.”

“That’s true Captain Phillips, but we need to take chances once in a while.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll set up an ambush in an asteroid field just ahead. Just being able to do that will tell us a lot about their capabilities.”

“Go ahead Bill, but I want them, at least one of the ships, alive, if we can. We need more information.”

“By your command, sir.” He acknowledged and entered his wardroom to speak to his commanders, planning the actions they were going to take.