M'tak Ka'fek (The T'aafhal Inheritance) (16 page)

“Well, Gretchen,” replied the installation's head scientist, “we really did not anticipate anyone actively trying to thwart the door locks on the secure areas.”

“In general, areas are restricted for safety reasons, not to prevent criminal activity,” added Chief Engineer Medina. “Obviously we need to take stricter precautions.”

“I think we all can agree to that,” Rajiv concurred.

“Good. Rajiv, can you and Jo Jo coordinate with the military security people and come up with better physical security measures for sensitive areas? The last thing we need is an insane person sabotaging one of the power reactors or poisoning the food supply.”

“We'll get right on it, Ma'am,” Jo Jo assured her. 

“I would also like to institute a series of interviews of all base personnel, to see if we have any other criminals lurking in our midst.”

“What do you mean, Ludmilla?” asked TK.

“We have a number of ex-law enforcement people here on the base—several policemen, at least one FBI agent, and others with experience in criminal profiling. I am thinking of having some of them sit in with a psychiatrist and a social worker to do the interviews.”

“I'm not real sure I trust all that psychiatric mumbo-jumbo, but having people interviewed by the police might set the population on edge, if you get my drift.”

“I am thinking we should do this without revealing the true reason for the interviews, TK. We can say it is to make sure everyone is being utilized to their greatest potential, and that everyone is happy with their assigned work.”

“Ah, a cover story,” said Gretchen. “Now you are being devious.”

“Trust me, Russians know devious.”

“You should include a bear on the interview panels,” Isbjørn added. “We can often smell fear on a person, and we can provide observations that might be overlooked by a human.”

“Good idea, Isbjørn,” TK chuckled. “If nothing else it will help make the interviewees nervous and more apt to slip up.”

“Da, good idea. I will have my staff work on setting things up.”

“I must say, this is quite unsettling. When it was just people associated with the project we never worried about such things. Why would people we saved want to harm us?”

“People are strange critters, Rajiv,” TK observed, drawing a snort of agreement from Isbjørn, normally the most tactful of bears.

“We humans are often irrational,” Ludmilla agreed, “It's possible that some of the people we helped really did not want to be saved, or feel guilty about not dying along with everyone else. Some may even blame us for the alien attack.”

“Captain Curtis quoted Commodore Perry after the Fleet's victory over the alien invaders,” TK added. “There's another version of that quote, from an old comic strip. The way Pogo put it was: 'We have met the enemy and he is us.'” 

Base Operations Center, Farside

A few days following the incident in the Ambassador’s quarters, Billy Ray ran into Beth coming out of Base Ops. Both officers had busy schedules, and given their duties their paths did not often intersect.

“Well howdy stranger,” Billy Ray said, as Beth came into hailing distance. “We never did get a chance to properly say good night the other evening.”

“Well 'howdy' yourself, Commander,” Beth replied, smiling. “No, we were swept away by the flow of events, I'm sorry to say. How is that woman who was attacked?”

“Melissa? She's doin' OK according to Dr. Tropsha. She's probably back at work already.”

“My goodness, she must be made of sterner stuff than most of the science staff.”

“Don't let Melissa's petite frame and girlish looks fool you, she was one of the original crew and has seen more strange worlds and space battles than most. She's one tough lady.”

“Well, if you see her give her my best, will you? I doubt that our paths will cross very often. In fact, I'm taking a squadron of new corvette crews out on a training mission in a couple of days and won't be back for a fortnight.”
Let's see if he takes the hint
, Beth thought,
or was that too subtle a clue?
 

“Out on a training cruise so quickly? Sounds like you are going to be busier than a one legged man at a butt kicking contest.”

“A what?” Beth replied, caught unprepared by Billy Ray's use of American slang, and southern slang at that.

“Sorry, that's probably considered politically incorrect. What I should have said was, given that yer going to be shipping out so soon, maybe you'd like to join me for dinner?”

Ah, he did get the message.
“This evening? It just so happens that I'm free. Where were you thinking, your friend Jesse's establishment?” 

“Naw, Jesse's is great but she really just serves snacks and bar food. I was thinking of a new place that just opened up, unless you're opposed to French cooking.”

“A French restaurant would be fantastic! I'm off at 1830 hours and will need to nick home for a quick freshen up—call me around eight?”

“Yes Ma'am,” Billy Ray smiled. “That's a date.”

Kuiper Belt, the Solar System

More than a week after Task Force Alpha headed for home, an alien messenger probe that had been quietly drifting away from the site of the battle came fully alive. It carried within it the last report from the
Destroyer of Worlds
and sensor recordings of the battle that brought its captain and crew to ruin. It documented the boarding by the Earthlings and the final attempt by the captain to scuttle his ship.

 Sensing that the Earth squadron was well away, the messenger powered up its drive and headed for the nearest alter-space transfer point. Not a course back to the Destroyer's home world, but back to the Dark Lords who sent it. A long, shallow transit to a destination not much more massive than Jupiter, it would take the probe months to report what it had seen. The dark ones would then have to decide on the next step in this escalating war, and how to eradicate this troublesome planet filled with warm life vermin once and for all.

Part Two

Look Upon My Works Ye Mighty And Despair

Chapter 9

Maison de la Belle France

The French restaurant that Billy Ray escorted Beth to was off the beaten path, as many good French restaurants were. Several levels below the main atrium and down a long hall leading to one of the agricultural areas, they came to a nondescript door. A simple sign hanging above it read “Maison de la Belle France.” Stepping inside they found themselves in a warmly decorated room with the atmosphere of a country farmhouse.

The hostess hurried up, clutching a stack of large menus to her bosom. “
Bonsoir, mademoiselle, monsieur. Une table pour deux?
”

“Good evening yourself, Kim,” replied Billy Ray. “I didn't know that you were working here, or that you talked French.”

“Hi, Billy Ray,” the attractive young blond woman said, obviously relieved to be speaking in English. “I still work for Prof. Gunderson in Science Section, but I'm helping out until Jean-Jacques gets his restaurant off the ground. You just heard about 50% of my French, but Chef de Belcour insists I greet people
en français
to set the proper atmosphere.” 

“Beth, this is Kimberly Lawson. She was Dr. Olaf Gunderson's assistant on the second voyage. Kim this is Beth Melaku, commander of the Farside corvette squadron and pilot extraordinaire.”

Beth shot Billy Ray a sideways look for the over-the-top introduction. “It's very nice to meet you, Miss Lawson. I'm still envious of all you who have traveled to other star systems. I hope to go on such a journey myself someday.”

This time it was Kim who looked away momentarily before replying. “I hope that your trip works out better than mine. Please come this way, I have a nice table for two near the windows.”

They followed the hostess to a table covered with white linen, flanked by two real wooden chairs. Out of the large window next to the table was a holographic scene of rolling country side covered in vineyards—obviously a panorama taken on Earth before the alien attack. A view of a France that no longer existed.

Kim seated them and handed each a large, hand written menu, saying, “let me take your drink order and I'll come back and tell you about tonight's specials.”

* * * * *

“I seem to have said something wrong earlier,” said a concerned Beth, as Kim hurried away with their drink order—a Manhattan on the rocks for him and a Hendrick's martini, up, no fruit, for her.

“My fault, I shouldn't have brought up the voyage without warning you first. You see, Kim and Jean-Jacques, who you will probably meet later tonight, and several other people were part of a diplomatic party that was bushwhacked by the hairy crickets.”

“My goodness! Was anyone hurt?”

“Yeah, one of the delegation died, and a couple were badly wounded, including Jean-Jacques. Doc Tropsha spent ten hours putting him back together afterward. Kim was wounded but not nearly that bad.”

“Still, it must have been a horrifying experience, being attacked by aliens on an alien planet far from home. No wonder I upset her.”

“She'll get over it, but there are a couple of other things you should know. First is that Jean-Jacques is French, I mean really French. And he used to work for the UN.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he was a total douche when he first joined the crew. In fact his being aboard was because he tried to turn Ludmilla over to some Russian agents at the UN's Vienna headquarters.”

“Obviously that didn't work, but how did he get to the ship?”

“Ludmilla Tropsha has a quick temper and a wicked sense of humor. She decided that turnabout was fair play—the Frenchman tried to get her kidnapped so she kidnapped him. He was lucky the Captain didn't clap him in irons.”

“By the captain you mean Captain Jack?”

“Yeah, Capt. Jack Sutton, the Peggy Sue's original captain and the leader of our happy band until we lost him and eighteen other crewmates at Sirius.”

“Almost no one will speak of him, do you really think he and the others are lost?”

“Captain Jack? Aw hell no. Not lost as in dead and gone, I meant lost as in incommunicado. A man like Jack Sutton does not go gentle into that good night.” 

“Interesting, and you managed to slip in a snippet of Dylan Thomas. I've heard you're quite literary, despite your cowboy patina. So tell me, what did happen to the Captain?”

“The Peggy Sue was running for her life from a flotilla of alien ships with weapons as powerful as our own, 'cept that there were thirteen of them. We took out four or five, but our shields were almost down and we were out of torpedoes and ammo for the railguns. Our only chance was to get into alter-space before the aliens blasted us into plasma.”

“My God! How did you escape?”

“Captain Jack and his skeleton crew managed to get this derelict alien battle cruiser we had found up and running—at least we're pretty sure they did. Because all of a sudden hostile alien ships started going off like fireworks on the fourth of July. We knew we weren't doing it, we didn't have anything left to throw at them. It had to be the Captain and the M'tak Ka'fek.”

“M'tak Ka'fek? What is a M'tak Ka'fek?”

“That's the name of the old T'aafhal battle cruiser we found. It was built by a long dead alien race and left adrift in a graveyard of ships in the Sirius system after some ginormous space battle long, long ago. In any case, the Peggy Sue made it safely into alter-space but no one knows what happened to the Captain and his crew.”

“My goodness, no wonder everyone cringed when I mentioned Captain Jack to Ludmilla the other evening, I wish I had known.”

“Yeah, I seem to keep putting you into situations like that without a briefing ahead of time. Sorry.”

“Just promise me you will keep me briefed in the future.”

“Sure, be more than happy to. Look, here comes Kim with our drinks.”

NatHanGon's Quarters

The inner airlock door slid open and Melissa stepped into the alien light of the Triad Ambassador's habitat. Livid blues and purples could still be seen in the bruises on the left side of her face. Melissa seldom wore makeup and never thought to camouflage the damage from her assault. As the door slid shut she could hear the tinkling of bells, like a flight of faeries come to greet her.

It was early morning, before most base personnel had crawled from their beds, but Melissa had been raised on a farm and was used to rising before the Sun. The odd hours of her visits did not inconvenience the Ambassador, they came from an ancient planet that was tidally locked to its star—their world had no day or night in its habitable zone, just a perpetual sunset.

“Hey there, NatHanGon, how are y'all today? I'm sorry I missed comin' by yesterday but Dr. Tropsha insisted on keeping me in the medical section for observation; I hope havin' all those people traipsing around in here the other day didn't upset you too much.”

“Our roots tingle with happiness to see you up and mobile again, MelissaScottHamilton; Having no way to judge the severity of the damage you sustained, we feared for your continued existence when the members of your conclave took you for treatment; After the flurry of activity things returned to normal and we were left to meditate on our own.”

“It's good to see you again too; I was just a little shook up is all, we humans are tougher than that; I'm sorry, I should have asked someone to come by and visit with you while I was bedridden.”

Melissa examined the ground cover around the Ambassador's roots and shook her head. There were gouges in the moss and a number of the low cover plants were crushed and broken.

“Oh my, look at all that damage; I am sorry, I probably caused most of the damage myself; It will take just a jiffy to fix this up so the plants can grow back right.”

“We are less concerned with the ground cover and more worried about you, are you fully functional again? We wondered if such behavior, as demonstrated by the human we killed, is normal in your society? Have our actions caused any reaction among the members of your conclave?”