Kelly Blake 3: Where the Stars Are Few and Far Between (22 page)

Kurin asked politely if Kelly and the ambassador were normal height for their species or were they taller than average. Thorson replied that they were about average for Human males. He also pointed out that the translators were females of the species and generally were shorter than males on average.

Kelly told Kurin Dunit, “Humans were evolved from early ape-like creatures. Do you know from what species your people were evolved?”

It took a bit of explaining by the translator, but Kurin Dunit finally comprehended Kelly’s question.

“Our prehistoric ancestors were mammals that left the land for the sea, existed in the Great Ocean for eons and returned to the land. If you are truly interested, I could arrange a tour of the cultural museum, which has dioramas and fossils from our predecessors. It would be most enlightening.”

He asked, “Do you have similar museums like that on your worlds.” Kelly answered, “We do. On our mother world, we have a creature similar to your predecessors, and it still lives in our great oceans. It is considered by many scientists to be the most intelligent sea creature.”

Kurin Dunit practically beamed at Kelly’s statement, and was smiling that sharp inward-pointing toothy smile when they arrived at their destination.

The Palace of the Republic was an enormous multi-storied glass and metal structure. It was shaped like a plus symbol and had a large central atrium, which could be seen through glass panels surrounding the doors. The ground car drove through a vehicle door that opened as they approached and closed immediately behind them. Kelly, the ambassador, and the two translators were let out and led through a side door in the vehicle passage way. They were led through a maze of stairwells, dimly lit back passages lined with stored chairs and unused tables, until they came to a guarded door. The guard opened the door for them and passed them through. They came into an unoccupied medium-size reception area.

Kurin Dunit apologized for the long circuitous path, but they wished to keep details of their visit from the public until the High Minister had a chance to communicate with them. He led them to a table set with Angaerry drinks and food and offered for them to help themselves. This caused a moment of awkwardness, until Kelly requested that they be given samples of the food and drink to take back with them to test and ensure it would cause them no ill effects. Kurin Dunit was obviously embarrassed that something so obvious had not occurred to them. He promised to get them labeled packages for when they returned to their ship.

Doors on the other side of the room opened and an obvious security man came to Kurin Dunit and spoke quietly to him. The two spoke quietly in Angaerry for a moment and the security man left. Kurin Dunit turned back to them, obviously discomfited, and apologized, but the High Minister had been momentarily delayed. He would be right with them.

In a few moments, the doors opened again and an Angaerry in fancy robes walked into the room, followed by a large retinue. The robes were quite ornate, trimmed with brilliant blue and white embroidered views of waves crashing on a beach. The robes were more impressive than the creature wearing them. He was short, even by Angaerry standards, so much so that the robes dragged the ground.

He walked slowly up to them and made a peculiar hand wave gesture that Kurin Dunit had explained was the Angaerry greeting and sign of respect. Kelly and Thorson made a clumsy attempt to emulate it, eliciting much appreciation by the minister’s retinue. Kurin Dunit handed the two human translators each a small electronic tablet. They contained a copy of a speech in K’Rang standard.

The High Minister held a similar device and began to read from it. The translators read along and translated for the captain and ambassador.

“Exalted visitors from far away, I greet you today on behalf of all the Angaerry race. Welcome to our home world of Gronir. We hope that your visit will be fruitful and will result in development of friendship and understanding between our two peoples. May our two people unite in fellowship, culture, economy, and mutual attitudes toward those who would wish us ill.”

“May the great waves of life wash over us and provide their warmth and comfort. May we be prosperous in our common dealings. May our societies gain from a mutual sharing of our advances in technology and culture. May our foes fear and respect us.”

“Allow me to introduce my Minister of Diplomacy, Hotaa Watal, who will be my representative in our mutual talks, which I hope will be mutually beneficial to both of our races.”

The High Minister again made the wave. Kelly and the Ambassador made the wave in response and more closely matched him, eliciting applause from the Minister’s followers. The Minister whispered something in Ambassador Thorson’s translator’s ear. She whispered it to the Ambassador and he turned to Kelly.

“Do you have any objections to being on the evening news? They want to bring in the media for a quick news conference. I recommend we keep mute for now.”

Kelly nodded in agreement. The ambassador spoke to his translator and she spoke to Kurin Dunit. Kurin Dunit returned to the High Minister and spoke quietly to him. The High Minister bowed in their direction and motioned for the press to be let in.

The press came in a rush to a short barrier that had been erected in the middle of the room, all jockeying to be in the front row. The High Minister called Kelly and the Ambassador over to stand next to him. Their translators stood behind. The High Minister made a shortened version of the earlier speech and turned to Kelly and the Ambassador and made the hand wave. Kelly and the Ambassador waved back to him and the press went wild, shouting question after question. The High Minister told the press they were not prepared to answer questions at this early stage of the process, but later, other press conferences would be called to cover progress in the talks. He thanked the press for being there and had them ushered out.

The Minister passed them to his Minister of Diplomacy, and waved to them as he left the room with his entourage. Kelly made a note to research this hand wave to find out what it actually represented. A little voice in his head said there was a nuance there they were missing.

* * * * *

Admiral Thomas brought the Reserve 18th Battle Fleet into formation behind hers. Her scout ships were sitting far off her right flank, monitoring the top K’Rang fleet approaching the top of its patrol route. Soon it would be farthest from any support. She moved hers and the 18th’s ring ships to the left flank of both formations in preparation.

When both rings were fully open and the K’Rang were just entering the kill zone, she launched all her A-76's and half her F-53's at the K’Rang fleet. The other half of her fighters stood CAP over and around the two formations.

Two wings of A-100's exploded from each ring ship and flew as a second wave against the K’Rang fleet. A third wave of two wings each of A-120's came through the rings and headed down the handle toward the K’Rang fleet at the middle of the handle.

The A-76's flew well into the defensive missile engagement range of the handle top fleet and launched. The K’Rang missiles switched from homing on the small attack ships to the incoming missiles when the attack ships turned away. The F-53's stood just out of missile range and provided CAP for the incoming A-100's.

The A-100's flew well into the K’Rang’s defensive missile range and launched their missiles. As the A-100's withdrew, the F-53's followed to protect them, but there were no K’Rang fighters for them to fend off.

The K’Rang fleet fought off the majority of the missiles from the A-76 strike, but some leakers still got through. They exhausted their defensive missiles against the first strike, but rapid reload drills practiced for days on end with the support ships resulted in half the cruisers reloaded in time for the second wave of missile. The missiles from four wings were just too many for the reloaded cruisers to stop. Leakers from the first wave and unopposed missiles from the second wave destroyed ship after ship, until only a few damaged ships were still able to make headway.

Reloaded A-76's from the two battle fleets flew in and finished off the wounded K’Rang ships, while A-120's took out 19 leading ships of the middle K’Rang Fleet as they came to the rescue of their doomed companions. A third sortie by the A-76's reduced the remainder of the middle fleet by another two dozen ships.

The Leonov ring suffered a breakdown and was unable to support further planned heavy and medium attack ship sorties from there. This reduced her attack ship support by half. A slightly disappointed Admiral Thomas pressed her advantage by reloading her fighters with anti-ship missiles and launching them against the remainder of the middle fleet. She directed the attack ships transiting her ring ship to follow the F-53 strikes. The F-53's were in and out before the arrival of the bottom fleet in support of the 14 remaining ships of the middle fleet, mostly frigates and support ships.

Sue withdrew her force before the bottom fleet could organize and find her. She would call the A-100's and A-120's back tomorrow. She considered today was a job well done.

* * * * *

Kelly had his sensor section research into the Angaerry hand wave. It took some ingenuity and innovation, but they were able to hack into the library of a K’Rang institute of higher learning. They stumbled around trying to understand the Angaerry file structure for the better part of the night, before they found a text on Angaerry cultural gestures with an associated video.

They found that the wave meant different things, depending on how it was answered. Answering it in the manner it was given signified subservience and a lower position. Kelly and Thorson practiced the hand wave for equality and one for superiority until they could do it without thinking about it. Thorson thanked Kelly for that catch. Kelly replied that when the entourage and press went all happy when they waved back, it didn’t seem right. He figured there was more to the wave than just a greeting.

The sensor section also found a text on the K’Rang-Angaerry conflicts. The K’Rang found the Angaerry twenty years ago and came in with a large armada, demanding six Angaerry worlds on their common border. The Angaerry said no and the K’Rang occupied them and expanded their borders into Angaerry space, anyway. They gave the Angaerry three months to evacuate the population from two inhabited planets or they would start terraforming over them. The Angaerry deployed every ship in their inventory to evacuate the populations and barely made it before the automated terraforming equipment removed all trace of Angaerry civilization. Kelly thought the Angaerry might have the will, but not the capability to oppose the K’Rang.

They prepared for the day. Kurin Dunit appeared with a larger vehicle this morning, meeting them at the gangplank with paper or paper-like copies of the day’s agenda. Kelly insisted on hard copies of all documents when Kurin Dunit had tried to present them with an electronic tablet. He told Kurin Dunit that the device might interfere with the ship’s delicate navigation system and he couldn’t allow it on board.

They went to the Ministry of Diplomacy. The ministry was an older, squatty, stone building, not the soaring glass and steel structure of yesterday. They were taken to the front door, where Kelly saw press and spectators lined up behind a police line, expectantly awaiting their arrival.

Kurin Dunit got out first and opened their door for them. Kelly got out next and noticed a security force line forming up shoulder to shoulder to his right. Were they there to stop the Humans from going that way or as a shield? Kelly helped his translator out of the vehicle and stood aside for Thorson and his translator to climb out. When all four were at the entrance, the minister came out, gave them the hand wave, which Kelly and Thorson answered with the equality symbol. This caused the minister to make an open toothed smile and laugh.

He came up to them and said through their translator, “I suppose we should have told you about that yesterday, but it had such an effect on the people that we let it go for then. There is a wave to signify superiority. I’m just glad you didn’t give that in reply.”

The Minister led them inside and into a central conference room with a table that looked to be made of polished coral of some type. He told them it was symbolic of their origins in the great ocean, but wildly impractical for diplomacy purposes. They would only use it for some press coverage later in the day.

He led them through a panel that opened in the far wall into another just as ornate conference room, but with a wooden conference table with monitors inset in the wood. The minister, his two assistants, translator and recorder sat on one side of the table. He waved Kelly, the ambassador, and translators to the other side. As they sat down, the screens in front of them activated. The screens welcomed them in K’Rang standard. The minister said the screens would contain the agreed text of any agreement they reached.

Ambassador Thorson broke the ice. “Minister Hotaa Watal, we appreciate this opportunity to sit with you and discuss our common goals, aspirations, and needs. We have known of your race for five years, but were unable to contact you until now. We knew, from the K’Rang description of you as a troublesome race (a description they also apply to us), that we may be allies in search of each other. I do not know of your experience with the K’Rang, but we have beaten back their attempted predations for too long. They currently occupy our territory and four of our worlds in an unprovoked attack.”

“We have decided enough is enough. The K’Rang Empire is being attacked by several of our Fleets, with the objective of dividing the K’Rang Empire and depriving them of faster than light technology and capability. We are committed to removing their capability to be a spacefaring race.”

While Thorson paused to allow his translator to catch up he could see the look of amazement in the ministers’ eyes, bordering on the fringes of fear. He took a drink of water to wet his throat and continued after his translator finished.

“You may be asking, if we can do all this, why are we here? We are here because even though we are convinced that we can accomplish our goals, any assistance would be beneficial and may save both K’Rang and Human lives. Besides, can you turn down an opportunity to retrieve your six worlds?”