Chapter 23: Something is Fishy in the State of Denmark

“Thank you for attending this briefing,” said Queen Basarab Afumati.

She introduced Craig, Horti, her family, and friends to Gen. Asterius Magnus, head of the armed services, his assistant Gen. Feraldus Ardavan, Gen. Marast Frichassa, the director of intelligence, and her assistant Gen. Ilassan Bemis.

“Marast, will you please go ahead?” Gen. Magnus asked.

“My Queen, honored guests, and colleagues:

“Thanks to Craig Kargo, Hortense Maguire, her friends, and family, we staged raids on the two farms the next evening after they informed us about the fish farms. Both farms were growing hundreds of thousands of fish. I will return to the raids later. Thank you for your warning about the power of the Grork telepaths. Our telepaths used psychic amplifiers to neutralize them.

“Following our interrogations, we located farms in twenty other cities on Dinnio Prime and storage facilities containing millions of tons of fish in stasis. We arrested traders and merchants and tracked deliveries throughout our kingdom, and located thousands of other stasis storage facilities. We unraveled a network of planned distribution outlets where they planned to introduce the Grork-contaminated fish to billions in restaurants, markets, shops, and online.

“We discovered merchant links to the Collective and the Coven. We liaised with our colleagues in both civilizations. They commenced raids two days ago.

“When was all of this scheduled to begin?” Queen Basarab asked.

“The program of dissemination was to start in the city tomorrow. The Naturalista is scheduled to begin the program in other cities next week. They were testing delivery methods here first. We learned that fish grow on two non-Dinnion planets, one in the Collective and one in the Coven. Both places support the cyst development phase of the parasite.”

“General, may I suggest you give the Collective and Coven psychic amplifiers, as the Grork we dealt with killed many Collective telepaths,” said Heather.

“Thank you, Heather; I did not know! Each fish has many parasitic cysts. The farmers and processors cut up the contaminated fish and distribute the pieces mixed with other fish protein products to widen the impact. The operation here has been storing fish for thousands of years. They did not intend to go ahead for many years, but we derailed the intended plan when we joined the Empire, and then Gen. Genada Bontara’s escapades derailed everything. The Naturalista rapidly moved into many civilizations.

“We enlisted the help of interrogators from several civilizations, as we had so many captives and so little time. Millions of Azloc and Gromelix are helping us to find and remove Naturalistas from our military, corporations, government, and civilization. We do not have the unique skills required to find the Grork and must rely on others. The Gromelix are under pressure as so many teach magic around the Empire.”

“General, how hard is it to find the cysts?” Asked Aubrey.

“Our scientists developed several detectors which can find contaminated fish. We will scan every fish product but face a delay as we must build and install millions of devices. We are making a smaller inexpensive version that restaurants and smaller distributors can use. As soon as we can, we will scan every food product. We will broadcast warnings that people should not eat fish or fish products for two weeks unless they thoroughly cook the food. We will provide instructions on how to cook the fish adequately. The good news is that the cysts will not survive in food replicators and cannot survive in fish protein tanks.”

“Did you guys sustain casualties?” Craig asked.

“We used heavily armed troops supported by teams of mind strikers,” said Gen. Frichassa. “The Coven and Collective are doing the same. The Grork at this level is not in the same league as the Colonel you faced, nor were they at the level of the ones the Emperor and his teams faced during the War. The Naturalista were armed but not armored. The strongest ones were in the military. We had a tough time with several of them and deployed psychic amplifiers.”

Gen. Marast Frichassa poured herself a drink, picked a snack, and returned carrying a plate to the table. She sipped her drink and then continued.

“The raids on your farms went well. The farmers were frenetically busy and were working twenty-four hours a day in shifts. They slept and worked down below. There were more of them than on any other farm we have seen. Our troops chased them down and captured most of them.

“One platoon chased several farmers down a narrow tunnel that joins the cavern between the two farms. They turned towards a darkened area and disappeared. Our troops followed them and also disappeared.

“Our Colonel did not permit anyone to follow them and called the engineers to examine the area.

“We can see indentations on the floor, roof, and walls, but the captain of the engineers tells us they are unlike anything she has ever seen and thinks it is a type of portal. The Uzliumbax engineers we consulted informed me it is not a Grork portal. I will show you what it looks like”—she set up her hologram and pointed at dimly glowing areas on the floor, walls, and the roof—”they look inactive to us. We can detect no energy or irradiation. We see no light or any sign of activity.