Chapter 15

Ben's excitement was dampened when the reality of Hannah's funeral intruded once more and also with thoughts of the millions of Wodenites who were now under the thrall of the Zytol.

He was still determined to try to use the situation to full advantage however, and he was already thinking about how that could be achieved.

A knock at his study door snapped him out of his thoughts and he answered.

"Come in, I'm decent."

Sarah laughed at his silly comment, as she entered the room and took a seat beside Ben on the sofa.

"I've been thinking," she said, "wouldn't it be a nice thing to have Hannah's funeral back at the caves? That's where all her children and grandchildren are after all. And besides, if we go too, all of the remaining original twins would then be back together."

Ben didn't even have to consider her suggestion, it made absolute sense.

"Of course, if I'd have been thinking properly I would have suggested it myself. Listen, you're not going to believe what I've just discovered," he added.

"What?" asked Sarah.

Ben proceeded to tell his twin about the stunning broadcast from the Woden Emperor and how shocked the crew of the WS Scout were.

"That's awful!" cried Sarah. "Surely there must still be some resistance on the planet? According to Simeone there are more than one hundred million people."

"No, the broadcast made it clear that all resistance was to end otherwise the Zytol were going to turn off the life support systems. Simeone keeps telling us that Wodenites are a peaceful civilisation at heart, but for so many to be conquered in only a few days does take some believing," mused Ben.

"What are they going to do now? The men on the space ship I mean, what will they do? Will they still try to kill all of us?" Sarah asked.

"That's what I've been sitting here thinking about. The message from the Emperor urged all of the Woden space ships to gather together and to develop their skills to the point where they could liberate their friends and families.

"It's clear that their ships are woeful — no armaments to speak of and pretty flimsy shields. Neither are Wodenites natural fighters and that's going to be a big problem for them. Their engineers might be able to come up with improvements to their ships, but how are they going to change their personalities so drastically?" asked Ben.

"I see what you mean, that does sound like a difficult thing to do. To change thousands of years of pacifism, something that's in your blood, that sounds almost nigh on impossible," agreed Sarah.

"But if you think about it, we have something that we could offer them. David and his tribe are already experts with weapons and the tactics of fighting. They could almost become like a training camp — we could send the Woden troops to him to toughen them up and to learn how to fight effectively.

"Thomas has already shown just how good he is an inventing things and improving what's already there. He could possibly make all the necessary design changes that will be required to make the Woden ships lethal weapons.

"As for the rest of us, it's clear that our tribe has got some outstanding leaders. The mix of our genes really has produced some outstanding individuals — readymade commanders. Strategic thinkers, decisive, but also mindful of their people's safety. What do you think?" Ben paused in his outpouring.

Sarah was shaking her head in amazement.

"You've got it all figured out, haven't you? You're going to speak to the Woden Captain and make him an offer he can't refuse. But, if all the Woden ships that are still at large come here, how would we cope with them?" asked Sarah.

"Easy. There's still a harvest ship orbiting our planet remember. I've checked it and the maintenance systems are all still running properly. The ship is almost full with every kind of resource you could imagine — enough to feed and equip a small army in fact!" said Ben with a chuckle.

Sarah could see that that would work.

"How are you going to approach the Captain? What if he's not interested in our help? He has been trying to kill us up until now after all."

"I'll just have to think of something that grabs his attention and makes it impossible for him to say no, won't I" grinned Ben.

"Getting back to the funeral, how are we going to set that up? Hannah's death is going to come as a major shock to all of the people at the caves. How do we handle that and make the necessary arrangements?"

"Perhaps it's time that I re-appeared at the caves in the flesh so to speak? I can break the news to them and find out how they feel about the burial being there. There's quite a bit of explaining to do — where Hannah went, how she got there, how she died — none of that is going to be easy to explain away."

"Why not fall back on the same assumption that Simeone jumped to? They've all seen the Woden troops being teleported now; we can just claim to have developed similar technology. After that, it's easy. We teleported Hannah to be with us and she tele-ported two of the Woden troops which resulted in a terrible accident," suggested Sarah.

"Do you think that'll work?"

"Of course it will. The Woden's have got tele-port machines so it shouldn't be too hard to convince everybody."

The water twins agreed that both of them would approach the caves rather than Ben go on his own. Sarah would deal with all of the arrangements for Hannah's burial while Ben would begin to discuss future plans with David and whoever had taken on Adam's role. There would be much to do if they were going to help liberate Woden.

"AI, alert the other officers that I want a command meeting in my state room in thirty minutes," said Captain Marlon.

"Affirmative, Captain," the Ai replied.

Marlon passed the thirty minutes away trying to gather his thoughts and get what he wanted to say straight in his head. The first of the officers, Hansa, arrived with five minutes to spare and the others followed quickly behind.

The Captain's state room was well appointed — even down to some quite exclusive and expensive art-work. In the past Marlon had used it to entertain dignitaries from other ships or from Fleet, whenever there was a routine inspection. It was unusual to have a need to use it for a meeting of his own officers, but somehow the gravity of the situation made the idea right.

As each officer entered, they replicated a drink for themselves and then took a seat at the ornate meeting table that filled one end of the room. Marlon let them get settled and exchange a few words with their neighbours before calling the meeting to order.

"Gentlemen, order please."

The murmured conversations in the room quickly died away and all eyes were on the Captain.

"You all heard the Emperor's message. I asked the AI to make a transcript available too - for the avoidance of any doubt and to ensure we've considered all of the details."

Marlon handed a small pile of papers to Lieutenant Beegs and he took a copy of the transcript before passing the gradually dwindling bundle onto the next man (or woman). The Captain gave them a few minutes to read the message again before speaking once more.

"Gentlemen, we need to decide on our next course of action. By my reckoning there should be at least one more scout class ship and numerous other seeders and harvesters out there somewhere. Do we seek them out or ask them to come to us?"

"To do what, Sir?" asked the most junior officer, Gaven.

"Haven't you read the Emperor's message, man? We need to prepare ourselves to free our planet and all of our friends and relatives! What else would we be thinking of doing?" Marlon demanded.

"But, Sir. The Zytol managed to subdue our whole planet in just a few days. What chance to do we have of achieving what the rest of Woden couldn't? We don't have the skills or the weapons to fight a war," Gaven spluttered nervously.

"Well, we'll just have to do what the Emperor suggested. We'll have to re-invent ourselves as well-armed, well-trained warriors. This meeting has been called so that we can discuss how to take the first steps on that journey — a journey that will end when Woden is free," replied Marlon firmly.

He could see that a number of the officers were shaking their heads, as if they silently agreed with Gaven.

Marlon thought the best thing to do to deal with the pessimism was to get them started on thinking about the necessary actions they were going to have to take.

"So, where do we start? Beegs, what about you? What do you think we should do first?" Marlon asked.

"I think we're orbiting round a perfectly good planet, a planet that we know could sustain us, and we should take it as our own. The task of building up our strength and training our men how to fight is going to take a very long time — even the Emperor says that in his message. I say we should wipe the savages from the face of the planet and colonise it. Send messages to any other ships to join us here too," offered Beegs.

Beegs had been one of the ones who had shaken his head in agreement with Gaven. The thought that one day they would be able to liberate Woden was beyond his imagination and the prospect of putting himself in harm's way was not one that he welcomed. Having only recently been caught in a cross-fire — involving real shots no less! — he was in no hurry to risk his hide again. His suggestion was pitched using the language he knew the Captain wanted to hear — but Beegs had no intention of re-training so that he could fight the Zytol. He hoped to convince the Captain to colonise the planet and then simply let time slip away until all thoughts of freeing Woden were forgotten.

Having been fired on by the resident savages, Beegs also liked the idea of getting rid of them before any colonisation took place. Who knows what dangers might have to be faced if the savages were left alive?

"That's a good start. Anyone else? Hansa, what about you?" asked Marlon.

"I was thinking, Sir. The harvesting ship is still in a stable orbit and I wonder whether any of the resources on it might be salvageable? If more ships do join us, resources could be very useful."

"Excellent, excellent! Okay, who's next?"

Having expertly engineered the start of the discussion, Marlon sat back with a smile and let his officers bounce ideas off of each other. There was virtually unanimous agreement with Beegs' idea of colonising the planet below and inviting other Woden ships to join them. Where there was disagreement was in relation to what to do with the current inhabitants.

"They've already attacked a Woden ship, so by definition they are the enemy!"

"Don't forget that the pilot of the WS Reaper is probably being held captive. We still need to rescue him."

"With the track record that these people have, I'm afraid the pilot is almost certainly already dead. I say we just zap them and be done with it. Why risk losing some of the crew by trying to take them on again?"

Marlon joined in the discussion at this point.

"It is our duty to try to rescue the pilot. What Gaven says is worthy of consideration however. We have access to the emergency escape shuttle, and we know the pilot used it. So, we should be able to gather some of the pilot's DNA from it. With that, we can use our scanners to carry out a personalised search to identify whether he is still alive and if so, where he's being held."

The Captain smiled smugly at what he considered was a superior idea and that was re-inforced by the other officers loudly acclaiming him for coming up with a solution.

With the issue of the pilot resolved for the time being, the officers turned their attention to what else needed to be done.

"The first thing we need to get the engineers working on is our defences. If the Zytol managed to take all of Woden in only a few days, then our existing technology must be sadly lacking."

"That's right. We need to be able to defend what we have before we can develop the kind of weapons to re-take Woden. We colonise the planet, set up strong defences and then build for the future. We also need to somehow start to gather intelligence about what the Zytol are up to. The safest way to do that would be to develop some kind of spy technology that can be controlled remotely."

"What about better weapons? Who knows where to start with that? We're going to need ships that can do real damage if we're going to have any hope of success. Does anyone know if any of our engineers are qualified for that?" asked Hansa.

To a man (and woman) the officers became uncomfortable even with the notion of developing weapons. Marlon could see the energy that had been built up in the room starting to dissipate and he acted quickly to try to rectify things.

"AI, have the profiles of all of our engineers delivered to my cabin. I'll review their histories personally to identify which ones might be able to help on this part of what we need to do."

With the nervy topic of weapons happily removed from the agenda, the officers threw themselves into generating ideas once more.

Ben and Sarah told Simeone that they were going to take a short trip to discuss Hannah's funeral arrangements and suggested that it might be a risk to take him along with them.

"Why? Where are you going?" he asked.

"We need to visit the two tribes that you've already had a run-in with. Hannah's tribe are the ones who captured you — you remember? When Adam tied you up and kicked you in the you-know-whats? David's tribe are the ones who accused you of being a blasphemer," answered Ben.

Simeone was in no great rush to meet with any of those people again until he was assured it would be safe.

"By all means then leave me here. Once you've met with them you can judge whether I'm going to be safe. Why you don't just have the funeral here though is beyond me."

"Simeone, you clearly think that the people born on this planet are all savages — we resent that! We feel emotions just like you do, feel pain, love and loss. The people at the caves are all descended from Hannah. They are her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren. They will want to pay their respects and have the chance to say one last goodbye. And don't forget, they're also your offspring so what does that make you?" snapped Sarah.

Simeone looked suitably abashed. He realised he had been starting to look down on the tribes and resolved to try to do better. The twins left him and wandered off into the bush not far from the great house.

It was the work of seconds for Ben to transport Sarah to a spot inside the treeline just beyond the lake in front of the caves. He followed her using the same method he had employed when he had first set foot in Aetherkraal. He closed his eyes, concentrated on the spot where he had deposited Sarah and then simply stepped forward.

When he opened his eyes he saw his twin standing beside him, a look of relief on her face.

"I still don't know how you do that and I'm always afraid that it won't work," she explained.

"It hasn't failed me yet. Come on, let's find out what kind of welcome we're going to get."

Security seemed to have been tightened around the caves — perhaps in response to the close call with the Woden troops — and the twins were stopped as soon as they emerged from the trees.

"Who are you and what is your business here?" demanded a man, a pulse rifle pointed straight at them.

"I'm Ben and this is Sarah. We've come to speak with Elizabeth and Thomas and if he's still here, David too," Ben answered.

"Oh yeah? Pull the other one. Now, tell me who you really are or you'll be in trouble!" demanded the man.

"No we really are Sarah and Ben," pressed Sarah. "We've been gone so long that probably only the other original twins will recognise us or remember us."

"The Ben and Sarah?" asked the man, a look of astonishment now spreading on his face.

"If by that you mean are we the Ben and Sarah from the original group of twins, then yes, we are The Ben and Sarah," said Ben, his irritation showing.

"Wait here until I get somebody who might recognise you and verify your claim," said the man, sticking to his duty despite the awe and respect that he could feel welling up inside himself.

It was more than twenty minutes before he returned, Elizabeth in his wake.