Hidden Empire (76 page)
Basil was astounded to hear the shouts and cheers of absolute conviction. Prince Peter had the crowd in the palm of his hand.
“Therefore, I command the launch of a full-scale military assault using our newly upgraded battleships. Hansa cloud harvesters
will proceed under full EDF escort
and take all the ekti we need!
Our first target will be Jupiter, right here in our home system. The hydrogues have no right to deny us our own resources.”
Basil smiled. The population, though grief-stricken, was enthusiastic, and apparently willing to sacrifice anything.
“In the face of hydrogue posturing and threats, all of humanity must remain brave. We have never intended these aliens any
harm—but harm is certainly what they will find if they interfere with us in any way.” Peter raised his voice, hurling his
words into the tidal wave of the crowd’s response. “I command that the ships be launched immediately!”
Basil sat back in his alcove, pleased at how well the speech had turned out. Peter had changed a few words to make his mark,
probably a petty gesture to resist where he could. This Prince was perhaps just a bit too much his own man still, but that
could be taken care of. Basil would knuckle him under by the time of the coronation.
A
s all exuberant new fleets going off to battle from every war in human history, the mood in the Earth Defense Forces was upbeat
and patriotic. Even those cadets who had previously given Tasia a cold shoulder now gave her a comradely slap on the back,
grabbed their equipment, and ran for their assigned vessels. She hadn’t been called a “Roacher” in days.
After waiting for so long, Tasia would soon get her chance against the alien bastards. The hydrogue emissary that had killed
King Frederick had had the audacity to disguise himself as Ross. She wanted to kill them for that—among other things.
They had received unconfirmed reports about a massive, intentional cometary strike against the gas giant Golgen, the site
of the first hydrogue attack. While no one could be certain how much damage the celestial bombardment had inflicted on the
enemy, the sheer audacity of the spectacle lit up the imaginations of the Terran soldiers. They seemed startled, even amused,
that a mere Roamer could have done such a thing. And it stood to reason that the EDF “professionals” could do even more damage.
Tasia knew in her heart that Jess had been behind the cometary scheme. He had chosen Golgen intentionally, to retaliate for
the destruction of the Blue Sky Mine. “Now it’s my turn, big brother,” she said to herself.
Swept along by enthusiasm and her own plans, she gave Robb Brindle a swift, hard hug followed by a startling hot kiss, then
rushed off before her grinning friend could react.
With her kit and her uniform, and a few Roamer survival items she had managed to stuff into her jumpsuit pockets, Tasia ran
toward the shuttle bay where troop carriers ferried crews up to the waiting battleships. Admiral Stromo, in command of the
Grid 1 battle group, would captain the magnificently armored
Goliath
, first of the new enhanced-class Juggernauts. The
Goliath
had already completed its initial shakedown routine and tested out perfectly. Ready for battle.
When Tasia saw the congregation of enormous ships, the sheer massed firepower about to launch for Jupiter, she felt the same
confidence and optimism as all the other recruits. But she also knew that such things could change in a heartbeat. After studying
intelligence files of the hydrogue attack against the Ildiran Solar Navy at Qronha 3, they all knew the alien warglobes would
be tough nuts to crack.
Because of her excellent scores, Tasia had been promoted in rank again, to Platform Commander, or Platcom, and given command
of her own Thunderhead weapons platform; such rapid promotions were possible only because of the huge war buildup, but she
knew she had earned her place. Robb Brindle, who had demonstrated effective teamwork with Tasia, was assigned as her first
officer, given full command of the Remora squadrons that would bear the brunt of space combat should the hydrogues appear.
When all the EDF ships had been manned, their engines powered up, their weapons fully charged, Remora squadrons prepped and
in position for immediate launch, Admiral Stromo broadcast on the channel linking the expeditionary fleet.
“This is our first direct mission against the enemy, more important than any other action the EDF has taken. This is not just
a brushfire conflict with a rebellious colony or a punitive strike against a few unruly Roamer pirates preying upon innocent
colonists—”
On the bridge of her Thunderhead, Tasia glowered at hearing the reminder of Rand Sorengaard. “Shizz, thanks a lot, sir,” she
muttered, quietly enough that no one would hear her. With his dismissive comment, Stromo had just weakened her ability to
command.
“This mission has direct consequences for the future of the Terran Hanseatic League, and for all of humanity,” the Admiral
continued.
Tasia’s bridge crew made rowdy catcalls. “Let’s go kick some hydrogue butt!”
“Only one way to deal with a bully—kick him in the balls!” Tasia recognized the voice of Patrick Fitzpatrick, who had demonstrated
his own willingness to bully, until she had shown him the error of his attitude. He had not received a promotion and remained
assigned to her Thunderhead’s bridge crew.
Tasia just wished they would get on with it and launch already, but Stromo droned on. “This will not be a direct offensive
strike, since we do not know the location of our enemy. We must, however, stand up to the hydrogue ultimatum. We will take
the ekti we need by main force.”
The fleet finally departed from the swarming construction yards in the asteroid belt and chased after the enormous ball of
Jupiter. It was a striped sphere of clouds; gray and tan and yellow bands girdled the planet with enormous hurricanes. Had
hydrogues always lurked here, throughout the millennia of human history, even before Galileo had first looked through his
crude telescope?
Four massive Hansa ekti harvesters had been put into service, assembled from cannibalized components in the asteroid construction
yards. The gigantic facilities moved under their own power, escorted by the EDF battlegroup.
On the Thunderhead’s bridge, Tasia could not help smiling at the primitive Hansa-design skymines. Roamers had made the harvester
systems much more sophisticated, streamlined, and efficient. While these jerry-rigged factories might serve the purpose, after
learning the questionable skill of the local ekti miners, she understood how her people had managed to keep a corner on the
market.
But without EDF protection against the hydrogues, the Roamers were effectively cut off from their livelihood. Eventually,
given the inefficiency of their own facilities, the Hansa might contract with Roamers, providing enough military support to
guard their skymines. But being put over a barrel made Tasia deeply uneasy, and it would force an uncomfortable partnership
with the Big Goose, which the Roamers had avoided for their entire existence.
The cross-orbit journey was brief. The Juggernaut
Goliath
, three Manta cruisers, and a cluster of Thunderheads shepherded the ekti harvesters down into the Jovian atmosphere. Tasia
was impressed with the beauty of Jupiter’s fingerpainted cloud bands, but she had seen many other planets, had stood on the
observation deck of the Blue Sky Mine with Ross.
Now she was spoiling for a fight, for direct payback against the hydrogues. If the deep-core aliens dared to show up, Tasia
hoped to get in the first shot.
A resounding cheer went through her crew as the ekti harvesters began to skim along the clouds, sucking up a huge volume of
hydrogen and processing it through their ekti reactors.
The slow facilities would have to remain on-station at the gas giant for weeks before they produced enough of the rare allotrope
to make a worthwhile cargo. But simply by putting the operations in place the EDF had scored a psychological victory for humanity.
They had proved they would take the stardrive fuel, in spite of alien threats. They had called the hydrogues’ bluff. They
had stood up to the enemy, thumbed their noses at them.
Tasia’s crew was joking, making bets, sounding even more enthusiastic than they had before the fleet’s launch. Manta cruisers
flaunted their military maneuvers where other ships could see them. Robb Brindle stood beside her, though not too close, because
he was on the bridge and she was the platcom. But he caught her gaze with his honey-brown eyes. “Far be it from me to request
a reality check,” he said in a low voice, for her alone, “but I have a feeling that we’re mooning a mean junkyard dog, all
brave and laughing—until the dog’s leash breaks.”
Tasia looked at him with a bemused expression. “Sometimes, Brindle, you speak a language completely foreign to me.”
But in truth, she understood exactly what he meant… understood it all too well. She just wondered how long they would have
to wait.
A
function diagram inside the Klikiss machinery provided the clue Margaret had been looking for. Using her new intuition that
the symbol tiles around the trapezoidal window represented coordinates of the lost race’s planets, Margaret hurried through
nearby rooms. She stared at the clearest records—testaments or desperate messages hastily scribed on the wall surfaces.
While Louis tinkered with the machinery itself and DD rigged more lights around the writing, Margaret stood for hours, concentrating.
She quickly documented her suspicions, translating one section at a time. Whenever she encountered stumbling blocks of undecipherable
pictographs, she skipped to a different section. Each newly translated segment gave her insight into the more difficult parts,
and she went back and forth.
Understanding each wall segment was like peeling back the layers of an onion, yielding some answers while revealing new mysteries,
filling in Klikiss history yet demonstrating how much still remained to be learned. Finally, she pieced together a rough summary.
Two of the black robots lumbered into the stone-window chamber to observe the archaeologists’ progress. In an adjacent chamber,
where Margaret stared at the alien words, she started the tiny music box Anton had given her, its tinkling tones helping her
subconscious. The metallic melody encouraged her eyes to wander up and down over the symbols. In fact, the way the Klikiss
chroniclers laid down their notation actually seemed to have a rhythm, a linguistic “cadence” that human language did not
have.
Moving on their clusters of fingerlike legs, Sirix and Dekyk entered her chamber and scanned the walls with their optical
sensors. The plinking melody seemed to unsettle them somehow. The black robots remained motionless until the music box wound
down and the melody slowed to a stop in midmeasure.
DD turned to the two Klikiss robots. “We have good news for you today; much progress made. Margaret, would you share your
translation so far?”
She traced her finger along compact groupings of hieroglyphics. “I’m still putting pieces together, but it’s going much faster
now. Each bit I understand helps me unravel something else. Here, it talks about a great war, an enormous conflagration that
swept across the galaxy. That’s probably what wiped them out. We suspected as much, especially after seeing Corribus, but
this is the first outright Klikiss documentation of the event.”
She pointed to a broad section of the wall. “This part is incomprehensible, so far, though the few words I can identify make
me suspect this talks about an enemy of the Klikiss. And look, here and here.” She walked forward, indicating several pictographs
in the dense clusters of markings. “I believe these are notations about the Klikiss robots.”
Sirix and Dekyk flashed their optical sensors and buzzed to each other. Margaret put her hands on her hips and smiled. “It’s
going so well, I wouldn’t be surprised if I finished this wall today. We’ll know the answers soon.”
