A Galaxy Unknown 10: Azula Carver (27 page)

As she looked around the table, each of the council members nodded their head.

"If we can't get the plans from the Dakistians, the Upper Council wants us to develop our own cloning labs. I don't want to spend the next fifty years reinventing the wheel, so let's come up with some ideas. If you can't think of anything right now, I want you to submit one in writing within the next twenty-four hours or you'll be eating and sleeping in your offices until you do. And don't send me any foolish ideas just so you can say you've complied. Okay, who wants to start? Or should I pick someone?"

~     ~     ~

"I've further refined the Jumaka translation database, Your Grace," Wilkerson said when Jenetta dropped in to visit him in his lab behind the gardens. "The translator will now expand the Jumaka sentences to better simulate the way we speak. Instead of hearing something like, 'Look for babies,' you'll hear 'I'm looking for my babies.' It's not perfect yet, but every tweak gets it a little closer to normal Amer."

"That's wonderful, Mr. Wilkerson. You've done an exceptional job. I was wondering if I might make a request?"

"Of course, Your Grace."

"I was thinking that a small external speaker the Jumakas could wear around their necks might be useful. Naturally, they'd have to be able to activate it and deactivate it, just as they can with the collars."

"Hmmm. I can think of situations where that would be perfect and situations where it would be less than desirable."

"That's why they must have the ability to turn it on or off by spoken command. In security situations, they could deactivate the external unit, and only I and the other Jumakas would be able to understand what they're saying. In other situations, they would be able to talk with people other than myself or yourself."

"Yes, under those conditions it would be perfect. So we'd need something very portable but with enough power to drive a speaker. I'll get to work on it and see what I can come up with."

"Thank you, Mr. Wilkerson."

~

"Come in, Chamberlain Yaghutol," Jenetta said when he appeared at the door of her office on the third floor.

"You wanted to see me, Your Grace?"

"Yes. Can you tell me, roughly, how many farms we have that are not being worked by a tenant?"

"Well, yes, but understand not all are ready to be occupied. You see, several annuals ago when you expressed a desire to have the entire peninsula mapped, the planning department began making a complete survey of your entire estate. Much of it was virgin land at that time and remains so. Once they had all the data, they set about identifying the land most suitable for agriculture, the land most suitable for parks and recreation, the land most suitable for manufacturing use, and the land which would best serve as municipal use for villages, towns, and cities. In essence, they established a complete model, subject to your approval, that would serve for the next hundred annuals.

"At present, there are roughly eighty-five thousand farms unoccupied. Most of that land is virgin in that it has no domicile, has never been farmed, never been fertilized, and to which water conduits and irrigation piping have never been laid. In other words, they're farms that have been identified on maps as such and fully surveyed but which are not ready for tenants. We simply didn't need to prepare them for use since we didn't have farmers desiring to occupy them."

"It appears that the time may have come to begin expanding the aqueduct system to provide irrigation water to those surveyed farming areas that currently don't have access to water for irrigation. How many ready-to-occupy farms do we have? I'm not concerned with abodes and barns, only water access."

"Roughly twenty thousand, most without any existing structures or fences but with irrigation piping to the surveyed plot."

"So, if we stay with the policy of not allowing newcomers to occupy adjoining farms, we have roughly ten thousand farms available for tenancy."

"Yes, your grace."

"Thank you, Chamberlain. That tells me what I needed to know."

"Always ready to serve, Your Grace."

~     ~     ~

A week later Jenetta sent a request to the King of Nordakia asking that two Home Guard warships be stationed around Obotymot. It had not seemed necessary previously because the society was almost a closed one, the planet was almost entirely agrarian, and it was just recovering from decades of natural damage resulting from the meteor hit. Nordakia was the business, military, and education hub for both planets.

She made a similar request to Admiral Platt at Space Command, asking for orbiting warships on station around Obotymot when the Clidepp refugee ships began to arrive.

Weeks later, Clidepp ships in GA space received a repeating message from Azula Carver. The captain of each ship ordered it played over speakers throughout the ship. In the message, Jenetta said, "Attention Clidepp refugees. The people of the GA are sympathetic to your plight and wish to help where we can. I've been informed that as many as three hundred passenger ships and freighters filled with refugees are presently headed towards Obotymot. I regret that we cannot possibly accept everyone aboard those ships as immigrants and most will be turned away. Presently, my estate can accept only ten thousand more new core-family groups into our farming communities. A core-family group is one where all family members live together on one farm. Our resources are finite, so that's all I can permit to land on my estate. I naturally can't speak for the other estates on the planet. We realize that everyone on their way to Obotymot is willing to accept our conditions for assimilation into our society, but the issue now is simply one of how many new immigrants the planet's infrastructure can support. I'm sorry and regret I must suggest that many of you establish a new destination or risk being turned away when you arrive here. Ships entering orbit around Obotymot will be assigned an arrival number and immigrants will only be accepted from the earliest ships to arrive."

Refugee leaders aboard the ships immediately called emergency meetings to discuss the announcement.

~     ~     ~

"You've been unusually quiet lately, dear," Annette said to Jenetta one morning at breakfast. "Are you feeling alright?"

"Yes, Mama, I'm fine."

"Is everything okay with the babies?"

"Yes. Nothing unusual. I'm just tired of being fat and knowing I'm going to get a lot fatter in the coming months. My body hasn't changed in more than two decades, and now I seem to be changing every day."

"It's only until November," Marisa said.

"That's more than four months from now. I wish Hugh were around."

"We're military wives," Regina said, "We must accept there will be long stretches where we don't see our spouses. Hugh has his job and you have yours. And yours is seeing that you remain healthy for your children."

"I'm staying healthy. I'm paying more attention to what I eat now than at any time over the past two decades when I remained healthy no matter what I ate. But I'm still concerned for my children. I can't help worrying that the changes made to my physiology will pass on to them in unwanted and unpredictable ways."

"You're afraid they won't grow up?"Annette asked.

"What if they get stuck in permanent infancy? What kind of life would that be? And what if their minds mature, but not their bodies? Or what if their bodies mature but not their minds?"

"You'll know the answers to that at the proper time," Marisa said. "There's no sense worrying about things we can't control." Turning to look at her son, she said, "Berl Edmond Carver, stop playing with your cereal and eat it, or you won't get to go outside and play with the kitties this morning."

"I can't help worrying if I made a mistake by allowing myself to get pregnant. But back then I didn't even know if I could get pregnant."

"Don't ever think that, honey. Allowing yourself to get pregnant was the only way you'd know for sure, and it was the right time. I'm sure all your worries will be unfounded. Now eat your cereal or you won't get to go outside and play with the kitties."

Jenetta smiled at Annette as her two sisters-in-law giggled.

~     ~     ~

"Contact off the larboard side," the tac officer aboard the
Ares
said. "Too distant to get any information."

"Under power?" Captain Gavin asked from his command chair. It was nearing the end of the first watch and XO Gates had arrived on the bridge and climbed into the XO chair, but Gavin hadn't relinquished bridge command yet.

"I'm unsure, sir. I only had a read for a fraction of a second, but I would say probably not, based on the data I received."

"Helm, turn us around and head for that contact. Maintain twenty-five-thousand-kilometer's distance as you circle the object if it's stationary, and maintain the envelope."

"Aye, Captain," the helmsperson said.

Several minutes later the
Ares
was standing well off the derelict hulk of a freighter. The cargo section was missing, and the hull was peppered with holes.

"Looks like another Denubbewa attack, or a simulated one," Gavin said to Commander Gates.

"Yes, sir. Should we ready a boarding party to collect information?"

"Yes. Let's get the gritty details so we can report to HQ. I wish we could find whoever is doing this."

As before, the shuttle, commanded this time by Lieutenant Connie Cox, would have to remain by the freighter's emergency airlock while the Marines and engineers entered the ship to collect the log information and DNA from the bodies of the crewmembers. While she held the small ship in position, the boarding party, led by Marine Second Lieutenant Xander Lolla, exited the shuttle. Lolla, wearing a thruster harness, then towed everyone the short distance to the ship. Within minutes, the
Ares
crewmembers were entering the ship.

The log data had been transmitted to the
Ares
, and the DNA collection was almost complete when the tac officer suddenly announced, "DeTect contact, Captain. Five ships approaching off the starboard quarter. The computer identifies them as Denubbewa warships."

"Lieutenant Cox, this is the Captain. Return to the
Ares
at once. No arguments. Lieutenant Lolla, we have Denubbewa warships approaching. No time to bring you back aboard. Get your team into escape pods or stasis beds if any are available. We'll return as soon as we can. Acknowledge."

"Acknowledged, sir."

"Helm, as soon as the shuttle is aboard, build the envelope and get us out of here. Make our course reciprocal to that of the Denubbewa."

"Reciprocal, sir?"

"If they came from a mothership I want to know it, and know where it is."

The wait seemed interminable, but finally the shuttle was aboard and the envelope could be built. Two minutes later, the
Ares
disappeared from sight just as the Denubbewa warships arrived within firing range.

"What about our people, sir?" Commander Gates asked.

"We're not equipped to fight Denubbewa warships with the
Ares
. If we stay here and fight, we all die. We need scout-destroyers with bombing capability. But every SDB we have has been sent out to search for Denubbewa in that part of Region Two where they were last seen. Damned clever of the Denubbewa to leave that cyborg body on the
Lina Algocoldo."

"Clever, sir?"

"If we hadn't found that, I would have requested SDBs join us right away. But that body indicated that someone was trying to make us think it was Denubbewa when it actually wasn't. Clever."

"Yes, sir. I see."

"I'm going to send a message to HQ, XO. Keep a sharp lookout for any sign of a mothership or a further Denubbewa presence. You have the bridge."

"Aye, sir, I have the bridge," Gates said.

Captain Gavin sat down behind his desk and touched the sensor spot on the com unit that would begin recording an outgoing message.

"Message to Admiral Brian Holt, HQ, Quesann Space Command Base. Begin message.

"Brian, we've just run away from five Denubbewa warships that seemed intent on engaging us. We had come across a third derelict freighter and an investigation team was aboard collecting log data and DNA when the Denubbewa showed up. I only had time to recover the shuttle standing by outside the derelict. My investigation team is still aboard the freighter. We have a scout-destroyer with bombing capability in our docking collar beneath the ship, but as you know, bombing runs require two. So I need at least one SDB here as soon as possible if we're to have a chance of recovering our people and destroying the Denubbewa warships attacking freighters in the
Ares
patrol area. A dozen would be better since I have no idea how many Denubbewa ships might be in this vicinity. We are currently traveling on a reciprocal course to the one on which the Denubbewa arrived. Since we couldn't engage those warships, I'm hoping to at least pick up some information about their current point of origin. I hate leaving people behind, but saving the thirty-five hundred crewmembers aboard the
Ares
naturally took priority.

"Lawrence F. Gavin, Captain, aboard the GSC Battleship
Ares
. End of message."

Captain Gavin sat back in his chair and thought about the people he had left behind. There had really been no choice. The Denubbewa had easily destroyed every Space Command warship that had gone up against them before Admiral Carver devised the ingenious tactic of using the scout-destroyers as bombers. The SDB would actually lay a bomb
inside
the Denubbewa ships as the out-of-phase scout-destroyer passed through the enemy ship, but the timing sequences that allowed for the precise placement required two SDBs with their propulsion and weapons systems linked together via telemetry data. All new scout-destroyers and destroyers were being equipped with bomber capability before they left the shipyards, but older ships were still waiting to be retrofitted and had standing orders to avoid any contact with Denubbewa ships. No frigates, cruisers or battleships were being retrofitted for bomber capability.

Gavin felt that Jenetta should be aware of the new Denubbewa threat but didn't know if she was still being kept apprised of developments in Region Two, so he prepared a special report to her and sent it off before heading to his quarters to have dinner. Gates would keep him informed if anything developed.