A Galaxy Unknown 10: Azula Carver (32 page)

Slightly more than ten minutes later, the Denubbewa mothership came into view on the front monitor of all three Space Command ships.

Gavin waited until it came to a complete stop before saying, "That's your cue,
Pechora
and
Koshi
. Good shooting. Let's send these Denubbewa to join their cousins in whatever afterlife these cyborgs believe in."

While the
Koshi
would actually drop the bombs, it only did so when the
Pechora
'
s
targeting computer gave the command, so the timing between both ships had to be perfectly synchronized down to the nanosecond. To accomplish that, the
Pechora
's computers would actually fly the trailing
Koshi
through the mothership.

Although separated by a considerable distance, both ships moved out as one when Eliza gave the command to engage.

~ September 11
^th
, 2289 ~

Two days after the GSC Destroyer
Vancouver
arrived at Obotymot, it had departed to continue its patrol duties, but the mobile hospital unit remained for a full month following the birth of the twins. Before they left to rejoin the
Vancouver
, the doctors certified that Jenetta and her babies were in perfect health.

Jenetta had just finished transmitting her daily vidMail to Hugh from her personal office when Tayna entered. The Jumaka asked if she could see the twins. The hospital staff had managed to keep them out until then, which hadn't been difficult because she and Cayla knew a new mother was entitled to a little privacy right after a birth.

"Of course you can, Tayna. Why don't you and Cayla bring your families in so everyone can see my babies."

Ten minutes later, the entire population of Jumakas on Obotymot— all twelve of them— were lined up in the section of Jenetta's enormous bedroom that had been converted into a nursery. Jenetta wrapped each of the babies in a blanket and placed them in wicker baskets, which she then set on the floor so the Jumakas could see them more easily.

The cubs, now almost seven months old, were almost fifty percent of their expected adult size. It would be like a Terran child being almost three feet tall. But the baskets were a little higher than the cubs were tall, and even stretching their necks didn't enable them to see Kyle and Kaycee clearly. Ruby, one of Tayna's litter, walked up to the edge of the wicker basket and stood on her hind legs with her front paws on the rim of the basket to get a better look. Tayna instantly scolded her and Ruby got down. Tayna 's collar was still active so Jenetta heard the scolding.

"It's okay, Tayna, as long as they don't climb
into
the baskets with the babies. The babies are much too delicate for that right now."

Tayna told Ruby it was alright to put her front legs on the basket but not to go any further. In seconds, all eight cubs were perched with their two forelegs on the rim of the baskets so they could see.

"Ruby wants to know the name of the baby she's looking at," Tayna said to Jenetta.

"Kaycee."

When Tayna didn't say anything, Jenetta said, "Tayna, do your babies understand Amer?"

"We've been teaching them Amer. They're still learning, but they understand a lot. Ruby knows what you said."

"We'll have to get some more microphone collars made so they can talk with me."

"How soon can your babies talk?" Cayla asked.

"Normally, Terran babies can't talk until they are almost an annual old."

"By then Jumaka babies are full grown and able to hunt on their own."

"Yes, Terran babies are a lot more dependent on their parents for a longer time."

When Ruby said something to Tayna, Tayna said, "'No."

"What did she ask you?" Jenetta asked.

"Ruby wanted to know if she could have this one."

Jenetta grinned, but not in a condescending way, before saying, "Ruby, I'm pleased that you'd like to have Kaycee as your own, but as I've told Arturo and Berl, both Terran and Jumaka have to agree it's something they both want. So if you love Kaycee and get her to love you by being her companion, her friend, and her protector as your mother has been to me, there's a chance she will select you also when she's old enough to make that decision. Do you understand what I've just said?"

Ruby nodded her head up and down.

"Good." As Jenetta looked around at the other cubs, they all nodded as well.

~     ~     ~

Seconds after beginning their bomb run from ten billion kilometers away, the
Pechora
and the
Koshi
arrived at the Denubbewa shipyard. The helmsman barely had time to make a slight alteration in course before the SDB was passing through the center of the enormous Denubbewa mothership. If the release of the bombs hadn't been handled by the
Pechora
's computer, the bombs would never have been planted properly.

In a few more seconds the two SDBs were billions of kilometers away. Since they were still linked, both ships came to a halt the instant the helmsman aboard the
Pechora
followed Eliza's order of all stop.

Eliza, Lt. Commander Ellison, and Captain Gavin had maintained a direct communication link since the two SDBs had first been linked up for the bomb run.

"How'd we do, Captain?" Eliza said after touching the contact spot on the monitor by her right hand that would open the voice line with Captain Gavin.

"Let me send you the image I'm getting from the sensor buoy we left at the ship site."

A second later, the front monitor showed the mothership the pair of SDBs had just attacked. There were huge holes in its hull from the WOLaR explosions. It may not have been able to escape the area, but it was still not destroyed.

"It looks like we have to make another pass," Ellison said.

"I agree," Gavin said. "Let them have another round."

"Aye, Captain. Are you ready, Commander?"

"You have the helm, Commander. Take us in."

Eliza gave the order to her helmsman, and after making a wide swing around to point at the shipyard site, the two small ships disappeared in the blink of an eye.

This time the small ships didn't enter the mothership dead center. They were actually closer to the far end, away from the tunnel entrance, but they did pass through the body of the mothership.

When the SDBs were again at a remote distance, Eliza activated the com link. "Second pass complete, sir."

"Excellent work, Captains. My congratulations on a job well done. You should be seeing the live feed now."

The mothership was no longer a ship, and explosions continued to rock the large pieces tumbling in space. They had hit something that had caused a cascading series of internal explosions and ended the threat from that ship forever. They watched closely for any sign of Denubbewa warships, but they saw none emerge from the various pieces of the mothership.

"I hesitate to say it," Gavin said, "because I know how resilient these creatures are, but it looks like a clean sweep this time."

"Should we return to the RP, sir?"

"Yes, come on in. We're through making bomb runs for today. We'll let the dust settle and see where things stand tomorrow. If we got lucky, the warships inside that mothership were all destroyed, but we'll continue to monitor the images from the sensor buoy to see if anything starts to move under its own power. If it does, we'll make additional bomb runs, but we'll only drop one WOLaR each pass because we'll be attacking warships, not motherships."

~     ~     ~

"Wonderful news this morning," Admiral Moore said after opening the regularly scheduled meeting of the AB. "We received word from Captain Gavin overnight that the Denubbewa mothership we thought had gotten away before we were able to get assets in place returned to their shipyard."

"Are we sure it's the same one?" Admiral Bradlee asked.

"Well, we can't be sure of that because they all appear identical in design and construction, and they have no exterior markings, but we're going to assume it was the same one. The
Ares
had placed Distant DeTect buoys out so they'd have adequate warning if any Denubbewa ships arrived. When they got a signal indicating a Denubbewa mothership was approaching, they dropped a sensor buoy and returned to the original RP. It was from there that they launched the bomb run.

Lt. Commander Carver led the attack run, with Lt. Commander Ellison in command of the bomber. They dropped five WOLaR weapons on the first pass and five more on a second pass. On the second pass, the mothership was 'almost obliterated,' in Captain Gavin's words."

"Then I suppose we've lost all opportunity to recover the inspection team the
Ares
had to abandon," Admiral Burke said.

"Until we find a way to stop a Denubbewa vessel without having our vessel destroyed by those small, nuclear-tipped missiles they fire by the hundreds," Admiral Bradlee said, "our inability to do anything other than totally destroy the Denubbewa whenever and wherever we find them means that anyone taken by them must immediately be considered lost. I don't like it one damn bit more than any of you do, but we're unable to disable their ships and board them while they have missiles that render Dakinium as ineffective in ship-to-ship battles as aluminum would be. If we tried, we'd lose our ship and every crewperson aboard him."

"What now, Richard?" Admiral Plimley asked. "Are we still attempting to recover the ships at the Denubbewa shipyard and bring them here?"

"I see no reason to change our plans. Those ships might give up valuable insights into the minds of the Denubbewa. We should proceed as planned and bring the ships to the Crondezzo system."

~     ~     ~

Aliana Shanara stood pensively staring out the floor-to-ceiling glass window of her penthouse apartment. She was miserable and saw no relief in the near future. The Upper Council, according to one of her bodyguards, had decreed that if her bodyguards lost sight of her for even one minute, the entire team would get to observe a working blast furnace in a foundry— from the inside. As a result, they were well motivated to keep track of her at all times. When she went clothes shopping, one of them always went into the dressing room with her. As long as they didn't touch her, she didn't mind. She supposed it had something to do with having been a male on more than one occasion, as well as having been a female more than once. It gave her a unique perspective regarding gender.

Shanara had seen a copy of the immigration policy Carver had established on Obotymot and learned that Carver was now living there full time. That meant that she was separated from Space Command and this was the optimal time to kill her, but since the Upper Council had decreed that the Carvers must be left alone, Shanara couldn't send Raider minions to do it. She would have to do it herself. But she couldn't evade her bodyguards long enough to sneak away and enjoy a private dinner, let alone take care of that one little overdue matter. And even if she could get away from her bodyguards, the Upper Council would know it was Shanara's handiwork if Carver's death happened while she was missing.

Being unable to operate freely made her so angry that she poured another eight-ounce tumbler of whiskey and drank it down like it was water. But to her it
was
like water since her body immediately neutralized the effects of alcohol. That was another reason she was angry. Back when she, as Mikel Arneu, opted to have the DNA Manipulation Process performed on her male body, she'd thought that not being susceptible to intoxication would give her a great advantage. She could drink everyone under the table and not have the slightest buzz. However, there had been times since then when she'd wished she could drown her sorrows in a bottle but had so far been denied that simple pleasure.

She'd even tried hallucinogenic drugs to escape the pain of reality on occasion but had learned she was immune to their effects as well. Those damn scientists on Raider One had never told her when they mixed the DNA procedure cocktail that it would change her life forever. If they hadn't died when Carver destroyed Raider One, Shanara would track them down and finish them herself for what they did to her. She knew it probably wasn't a fair assessment. After all, they had given her the closest thing there currently is to immortality. But she was feeling angry and upset and would have lashed out at anyone to relieve her inner turmoil.

Things were not going well on Dakistee. Shanara had tried every trick she knew to locate a chink in that planet's executive department armor but had been unable to develop a single contact on the inside. So since she'd been unable to turn even a minor official, the only alternative was to grow her own. Shanara was now funding a number of political campaigns for Dakistians interested in a first run for office. The candidates had no insider knowledge yet, but eventually they might, and that's when the previous campaign support would become invaluable. The close ties also made the candidates vulnerable because once a politician got a taste of real power, they never surrendered it easily and would do almost anything to get reelected.

She'd also begun searching for the best and brightest among the scientists at the Raider Central lab. She wanted to form a cadre of individuals who would begin work on her quest for true immortality. As the head of the Lower Council, she now had a free hand to do as she pleased. The Upper Council would be told that most of the lab was working on developing a cloning procedure, and, in fact, some of them would be, but the primary focus would be the immortality procedure.

Shanara had two main goals in life and no moral scruples to get in the way over how she would accomplish them. First, she wanted to live forever or die trying to realize that dream. Second, she wanted to kill Jenetta Carver and her clones.

~     ~     ~

"Come in, Christa," Madu said, rising to meet her guest.

"Hello, Madu, how are you getting on?"

"I feel like I'm drowning in a sea of problems, Christa."

"What's wrong?"

"I'm missing the people we lost. I never realized how much I relied on them throughout the day. Since they've been gone it seems like I get about three hours' sleep each night."