Peace Army (16 page)

Suddenly, re-establishing a logistics network had been flung to the top of his priority list.

In light of his new priority, he had given significant consideration to the threat that remained on Telgora. In the end, he decided to bottle up the planet as best he could and postpone a full assault until he had adequate control of the logistic issues.

He called in Ghin to put his plans into motion.

“Ghin, has our next guest arrived?” Truk fought to restrain his anger over the third emissary’s arrival. The idea of bargaining for additional schedule delays was distasteful. Necessary, but distasteful.

“Sir, the Incoming Ship Director has just notified us that the Zrthn vessel has landed. The Zrthn Minister of Trade should be here in ten minutes.”

“Very well. Compose an order,” Truk directed the aide as he settled himself behind the desk. He admired the newly acquired chair and the royal purple leather that covered its seat and arms.

“I want all military forces on Telgora recalled as soon as replacements can be allocated from my Trusted List.” Truk waited for a reaction from his aide.

He received none; smiled. Ghin had promise.

“The forces leaving Telgora are to be closely searched, and each soldier’s identity will be validated, despite rank. That is very important. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir. No one leaves Telgora unless we know exactly who they are.”

Truk nodded. Very good.

“Yes.” Truk did not need to consider who he wanted to lead the forces there. Only one name entered his mind. “Please alert General Soo that I wish to meet with him in exactly two hours.”

“Yes, sir.” Ghin bowed and turned to carry out his orders.

Truk contemplated how much he would have to tell General Soo. The general was his handpicked choice; a loyal follower. Once Soo and his troops were in place on Telgora, they could root out and capture anyone who remained behind. If the Minith responsible for the act against the home world were hiding within the Telgoran mining bases, Soo and his forces would find them.

But did Soo need to know why he was searching for hidden Minith?

Probably, though it pained him to let anyone know that secret.

As far as Truk knew, only he and Ghin knew that the mothership once stationed on Earth was now sitting on Telgora. He had plugged the holes on that information. Twoo was no longer a concern. Truk had similarly disposed of the pilots who had fired on the mothership, the crews that supported them, and the communications personnel who had learned details of the attack through the course of their normal duties. Anyone still in possession of the information certainly knew to keep their mouths shut—or suffer a similar fate.

Truk was still debating how much to tell Soo when Ghin interrupted his thoughts.

“Sir, the Zrthn visitor has arrived.”

Truk cursed. Instead of worrying about Soo, he should have been thinking about his upcoming discussion with the Zrthn.

He offered a promise to his ancestors that he would not lose focus of the trade issue again until it was stabilized. Soo could handle the Telgoran situation—at least, for the foreseeable future.

“Please send him in, Ghin.”

Chapter 23

Titan did not know exactly how long he had been sitting alone in the room, but he estimated it to be several days. At frequent periods, the drape would be lifted a few inches as food and water were pushed into the room. He never saw his captors and avoided approaching the doorway. The Telgorans wanted him to remain where he was. After his previous attempts, he obliged them.

The water they gave him had a heavy metallic smell and he put off drinking it as long as possible. Thirst took over, as Titan knew it eventually would, and he gave in to his need by taking a couple of very small, very hesitant sips. The taste was just as metallic as the smell, but when it did not make him sick, he took two similarly hesitant, but slightly larger, drinks. He kept this up until, by what he estimated to be the third day, he was drinking freely. Soon after, the metallic smell and taste disappeared, and he knew his body had adjusted.

The food was another matter. After similar trials, he learned that the potato-like tubers the Telgorans offered did not make him ill, but the taste of the yellowish pulp was awful, and got no better as time passed. He ate only when his hunger forced him to put another mouthful of the foul stuff in his stomach.

Titan was forcing down his third mouthful in as many hours when the covering was pulled away from the door and a tall creature with a large, elongated head entered.

He swallowed the yellowed paste quickly and stood. It was his first clear view of the aliens. And what a view it was. The Telgoran looked more like a man than a Minith, but that was being kind.

It was unclear if the Telgoran was male or female, but Titan’s first impression was he was looking at a male. He knew he could be wrong, but with no distinguishing features to the contrary, he would just assume.

The Telgoran was roughly six inches taller that Titan, which would place him well above seven feet tall. He wore a simple, thigh-length tunic made of the same material that covered the door. Again, Titan’s thoughts went to the animals on the plain. Apparently the Telgorans hunted or raised them for their hides; perhaps for their meat as well.

The Telgoran’s skin was a medium-gray tone that reminded Titan of ashes. The most distinguishing features were the size of his head and the thinness of his limbs.

The oversized head looked vaguely familiar, like something he might have seen in a picture or a painting. It was easily three times the length of a human head. An overly bulky brow traversed the width of the forehead. The large face possessed outsized ears and a long, broad nose that extended from the brow down half the length of the giant face. The eyes and mouth were close to a human’s and, as such, seemed small on the Telgoran’s face.

As large as the being’s head was, the Telgoran’s body, arms, and legs seemed abnormally thin. Titan thought he could easily circle his forefinger and thumb around the arm so the digits touched. The legs were equally as thin as the arms. If he hadn’t already been knocked down twice by one of their kind, he would have thought the Telgorans extremely weak. The lump on his head, though diminished, and the purple bruise on his chest told him otherwise.

The Telgoran offered a simple grunt that Titan understood.

“Come.”

The tall, thin alien then turned and walked out of the room.

“Yes,” Titan offered in return, then followed.

Two other aliens waited outside the room. The three were indistinguishable. All had similar gray skin and overly large heads. Their tunics, while not identical, were fashioned from the orange leather material and covered them only from neck to mid-thigh.

Titan was marched down a long tunnel that appeared to be drilled through the rock of Telgora. The tunnel was five meters high and just as wide. Carvings, similar to the one in his room, were hung at regular intervals along the tunnel. While all seemed to be fashioned from the same metallic ore, not all the carvings were dull, like the one in his room. Some were polished to a high-gloss shine—others only showed moderate gloss. In each instance, the selected finish added depth and texture to the work.

Interspersed with the carvings, Titan spied statues made from the same gray metal. The statues varied in size. Some were relatively small, less than a meter high and a meter long, while others towered all the way to the ceiling. All were glorious, and most depicted the herds that lived on the plains. Every now and then, he spied a statue of a plant or a carving of a landscape devoid of life. But nine out of ten showed a view of the herds.

The Telgorans were gifted artists. Their ability to shape the stone into such wonderful creations was incredible.

Orange coverings, similar to the one hanging over the door to his room, were scattered along the tunnel between the statues and carvings. Titan knew if he pulled them back, he would find other rooms. He wondered how many Telgorans lived behind those curtains.

They soon came to a junction with another, similar tunnel, and he was escorted to the right. This tunnel was built on a slight decline and the party began a slow, but steady descent. The regular placement of carvings, statues, and orange-covered doorways continued.

As they descended further beneath the planet’s surface, they passed several junctions in the carved rock. Usually they proceeded straight through each intersection, but once they turned right, and twice they veered left. They also began to meet and pass other Telgorans, first as individuals, then in groups. Each of the groups waited silently for Titan’s escort to pass, then followed.

Within minutes, Titan estimated the crowd of Telgorans following them to be more than a hundred.

Soon after the groups joined the procession, Titan was able to pick out the males from the females. The females wore orange tunics that were similar to the males. Besides the tunics, they wore a wide belt of yellow leather wrapped tightly around their midsection. The belts emphasized slightly larger waistlines and buttocks than the males seemed to possess.

The human had no idea how far beneath the surface of Telgora they were when, after what seemed like an hour, the tunnel they were in opened into an enormous, bell-shaped cavern.

The floor of the bell was easily a kilometer from side to side and the ceiling was easily half a kilometer high. If he hadn’t seen the roof as it curved over them, Titan would have thought he was standing outside.

The cavern was much better lighted than the room where he had been held. Although the source of light was still a mystery, the illumination gave the appearance of daytime, further encouraging the feeling of being outside. The ornate carvings and statues circled the entire room.

In addition to the hundreds of Telgorans following behind, the cavern floor must have held ten thousand or more of the tall, thin individuals. None of them spoke or made any kind of sound.

Titan stopped in his tracks and stared in awe at the crowd. He watched as the assembled masses turned slowly and faced him.

When every Telgoran in the cavern had turned their direction, the male who led him into the cavern slowly bobbed his head up and down. It reminded Titan of a slow, exaggerated, nodding motion.

Up and down.

Up and down.

The male was soon joined by the two nearest natives, a male and a female. Then the four just beyond them started the strange slow bobbing.

Up and down.

Up and down.

Within seconds, like ripples washing out from where Titan stared, those Telgorans just beyond them started nodding. The ripples expanded. More and more of the assembled masses nodded. It took about sixty seconds before all of the Telgoran heads in the cavern were rising and falling slowly.

Up and down. Up and down.

In sync, they bobbed.

Titan’s body responded to the movement and, without any conscious effort, his head bobbed with the crowd. It felt right, like he belonged.

Seconds after the heads in the farthest corners of the cavern joined the ritual, all movement abruptly ceased. With no visual or verbal cue Titan could discern, it simply stopped.

Okay, that was weird.

Titan was prodded from behind by one of his guards. He took the hint and continued farther into the cavern. When he reached a point he guessed was halfway, he was told to stop.

“Sit,” the lead guard grunted and pointed to a spot on the ground. Titan was glad he had taken his turns on the training table. His communication was not great, but he knew enough of the language to follow basic commands.

He sat.

The Telgorans in the cavern all nodded once, in sync, then sat as a group. It was a nicely choreographed move that seemed fluid, practiced.

Without preamble, the lead guard, who Titan could now discern from the other Telgorans around them, issued a single commanding grunt.

“Speak.”

Titan was unsure how to start, or what to say. After a few moments to gather his thoughts and search for the proper grunts, wheezes, and hand motions, he started with the first basic truth that came to mind.

“We… hate… Minith.”

He was answered by a collective, single nod from the Telgorans.

Well, that went well.

From there, he told the story of how the Minith arrived on Earth and how he and his group had come to be on Telgora. It was not easy with his limited vocabulary, but he seemed to get most of his message across. The telling took him over an hour—an hour in which he was met with the occasional group nod, and one or two group grunts requesting he repeat himself.

As he neared the end of his talk, he told the assembled crowd about Ceeray, and asked that he be allowed to bring her to the Telgorans. The request was met with a single grunt.

“Wait.”

The lead guard sat quietly for a moment, then began the slow nodding motion again. As before, when those in the furthest parts of the cavern added their nods, the motion in the cavern ceased abruptly and without warning.

Titan did not know how he knew, but a decision had been made.

“Go,” the lead guard wheeze-grunted. “Bring the speaker.”

Titan contributed his own nod.

Chapter 24

“Approximately eighty-three percent of all Minith vanished with the planet, sir.

“Of the remaining population, which totals just fewer than two million Minith, fifty percent reside here on Waa. The remaining fifty percent are spread across the thirteen other planets in the Empire.”

Ghin calmly delivered the report Truk had commissioned days before. The numbers were staggering. Truk almost regretted that the home planet had been destroyed.

Almost.

“Militarily, we lost a great deal. More than eighty percent of all Minith military forces were stationed on Minith, including the upper echelons of the War Council.

“Of the remaining forces, which total roughly five hundred thousand soldiers, twenty percent reside here on Waa. The rest are posted to the outer worlds.