Solbidyum Wars Saga 4: Too Late for Earth (36 page)

It was only a short time later a message came in from Admiral Regeny stating that because of the information we had provided him, he was sending more ships to Plosaxen in an attempt to ward off any pending attack there.  He was concerned after hearing about the planetary attacks made by the Brotherhood, and with the aid of the Tottalax and their weapon, there would be several casualties at Plosaxen if the Brotherhood made a heavy attack.  He said that he was glad we were nearly at Megelleon; just knowing I was in the area made him feel more secure.  I had A’Lappe remind the Admiral that I was a civilian and not a part of the military; the Admiral said he understood, but he still felt better when I was around.

After taking the Admiral’s message, Kala and I spent a few hours in our secret garden.  She told me that her last medical examination clearly showed that the twins were a boy and a girl.

“You know what this means,” I said looking at her with a grin.

“What?  What does this mean?”

“It means we will have to name the girl Luinella; remember Lunnie said if we ever had a girl we should name it after her?”  I answered.  Kala stretched out her hand and touched my cheek as a tear ran down her face.  “I know,” she answered, “I was hoping you would remember, but if we are going to name her after Lunnie, I think it’s only right that we name the boy Reidecor.  He and Lunnie were close, and he died trying to save her, it’s the only proper thing to do.”

“Agreed; Lunnie and Reidecor it is.”

“Luinella!  We can call her Lunnie, but her name is Luinella.”  Kala said looking at me in mocked sternness.

“Luinella, then but she will always be Lunnie to me.”

When we left the garden it was nearly time for the evening meal.  Kala suggested that since we had spent the last few hours together away from the crew and others that perhaps we should dine in the main dining room where many of the ships company and the refugees dined.  Unlike mess halls on military ships or the crew dining on merchant ships, the dining rooms on the
NEW ORLEANS
were more like luxury fine-dining restaurants on Earth.  Fine table cloths adorned the tables at each meal (in different colors for each meal) and the lighting in the room and the colors of the walls were adjusted accordingly; but unlike Earth, where one was expected to dress in one’s finest, to dine in such an atmosphere, things were more relaxed dress wise, and various styles of clothing were seen about at the tables.  Waiting staff took meal orders and delivered the meal and saw to the needs of their table, just as one would expect in any fine restaurant, and just like any restaurant, the dining room had its evening specials.

Though Kala and I had dined in this room before we generally dined alone in our suite, or in the Starlight Dining Room under the transparent dome at the top of the ship with my senior officers or honored guests.  I noted on entering the dining room that a few of the refugees were actually working there. Kala informed me that some of them had come to her seeking employment on the
NEW ORLEANS
.  Mostly, they were Chinese women who had been on the Moon working in domestic services at the lunar base.  Others with engineering, technical skills or scientific backgrounds had either sought out positions similar to their backgrounds to apply for, or they were waiting until they reached Megelleon in hopes of finding jobs more suited to their skills.  While the décor and the food was excellent, it definitely wasn’t as fine as the TEZU LAGONG, but it was close, and dining around others provided a pleasant break from our daily routines.  We were just finishing up our meal and I was taking the last bite of an exquisite dessert, when Captain Slater from the Mars colony approached our table.

“First Citizen, I apologize for interrupting you during your meal, but I was hoping I might have a brief word with you.”

“Certainly, Captain, we were just finishing up, and you are not interrupting at all.  Please, have a seat.”  The captain took a chair between Kala and me.

“Now, what can I do for you?”  I asked.

“I’ve been hearing a lot from your crew about the problems the Federation military is having with their lack of military history in battle planning.  I was wondering if it might be possible for me to help out in some capacity, that is, if the Federation military might have me?”

“Well, I certainly think that the military would be glad to have your services; what area would you be interested in and what is your expertise?”

“For a while, I commanded a unit in Asia against China during WWIII, but I was asked to lead the Mars team to set up defenses, as it was believed that the Chinese might try to attack the Mars colony. Once the defenses were established, I was to be rotated back to Earth, but before I could return, the asteroid showed up.”

“I knew you were a Marine, but I wasn’t aware you had commanded a unit in action against the Chinese.”  I responded

“I was in the battle at Kusmi in India and also at Bhabua, where we defended a small landing strip the Chinese were trying to take.  We lost half our company at Bhabua; that’s where I got my Purple Heart.”  Slater replied.

“You were wounded in action!  Nothing serious, I hope?”  I said with concern.

“Actually, I’m a little embarrassed about it.  I was reliving myself in a secluded area when the attack broke out and I never got my pants pulled up and secured properly.  I was running back toward the airfield and the landing area when my pants fell down, tripping me.  I was trying to get up on my knees when I got shot in the ass.  My company never let me live it down and made jokes about me getting shot while mooning the enemy,” he chuckled.

I had to admit his story was funny; then Kala asked, “What is mooning the enemy?  Tib, you never used that expression that I know of.”

This got both Slater and I laughing as I tried to explain it to Kala.  “It’s a rude gesture made to someone or to a group of people, where you turn your back to them and bare your buttocks in their directions, more or less inviting them to kiss your butt.”

Kala looked puzzled, “Why in the stars would anyone want to do that?”

Both Captain Slater and I looked at each other a moment and then began laughing harder.

“I guess it’s a planetary thing,” Kala said.  “But I really don’t get it.”

I turned back to face the Captain and said, "I will be glad to recommend your services to Admiral Regeny.  He heads up all the military in the Federation.  You may find it a bit confusing at first, and ranks are somewhat mixed up compared to Earth, but unlike Earth, there is only one military force, not several like an air force, navy or army.  Actually, their entire military is fashioned more like the Marines in many ways.”

“Sounds to me like that’s exactly how it should be.  The Marines on Earth kept telling the other branches that for years, but the rest were too proud to admit it,” he said with a grin.

“Well, I think you will be a huge asset to the Federation,”  For several hundred years they haven’t had to fight a real war and mostly handled small planetary skirmishes by overwhelming brute force instead of planning and strategic actions.  Having someone with experience to help them with planning battles and teaching their ranking officers strategic planning will be a huge asset.”  I replied.

With the dinner over, Kala and I decided to take a stroll around the ship.  She was always pestering me that I didn’t know my own ship (and she was right), so this was an opportunity to get better acquainted with it.  We were walking through one of the transparent domed gardens on the upper level when I spied Regata sitting on a moss-covered rock by a small pool and waterfall, staring out into space.

“Good evening, Regata,” I said.  “Is everything all right?  You look rather sad sitting there.”

“Ahh, Man-Who-Speaks-for-Thumumba, and his mate, I am well.  I was just sitting here meditating and sending my thoughts and observations to Thumumba.”

“I’m sorry I haven’t been able to talk with you much since you came aboard the ship.  How is your search going for another like Thumumba?  Have you sensed another in any of the star systems we have passed?”

“No need to apologize, you have much to accomplish.  Sadly, I must report that thus far I have not detected another life force of Thumumba’s nature, but when we were at your home world of Earth, I did see signs that once an entity much like Thumumba occupied the sun there and did creative works on your planet.  However, it seems that this entity left your sun over 2000 of your Earth years ago.  I have no idea where or how it departed, nor what happened to it.”

“Do you think that it might have died?” I asked a bit too quickly; I realized it after the words had left my lips.

“There is no real death, not as you think of death anyway.  There are only transitions in life.”  Just then a butterfly-like creature that lived in many of our garden areas flew down and lighted on Regatta’s arm.  “Just as this creature goes through a metamorphosis, changing from a worm-like creature to this lovely winged one, so do all life forms make transitions through what you think of as death.  Life does not end, it moves on to another existence.  Somewhere out there,” Regatta said looking up and out the dome, “the Thumumba-like creator entity that resided in your sun still lives; perhaps in a similar nature as it did in your sun, or maybe in a new form like this lovely winged creature.”

I was taken aback by Regatta’s words.  I had told Kala when I first met her that I had more or less given up my ideas about religion and of gods and creators; but with things I had observed at Goo’Waddle, and my experience seeing Lunnie when I had died in the battle on the
DUSTEN
, it was causing me to believe there was an afterlife and creative forces in the universe.  Regatta looked at me as though he were reading my mind.  “One needs not to understand something to believe in it, Man-Who-Speaks-for-Thumumba.”  And then he made a slight bow and moved back into the shrubbery in the garden area, and suddenly he seemed to disappear in that amazing way that all the Goo’Waddle natives seemed so adept at doing, leaving Kala and me alone.

In the back of my mind I was expecting some trouble from Ming, and he didn’t let me down, but the magnitude of what he did next took everyone by disbelief.

It was about mid-morning of the next day when Dr. Danjuma called for me.  “First Citizen, could you and First Citizen Kalana please come by the med unit, please?  We have a small crisis here.”

Kala and I immediately headed to the med unit and entered to find one of the Chinese women in hysteria and Dr. Danjuma trying to calm her down.  Kala immediately went over to the woman and tried to comfort her, but with little result.

“What seems to be the trouble?” I asked the doctor.  “What is this woman so upset about?”

“I don’t know, I told her that her child was due any day now and at any time, and suddenly she became hysterical and started screaming and acting like you see her now.  If I were to let her leave here I think she would try and kill herself.”

“Has she said anything intelligent at all?”  I asked.

“Nothing that makes any sense; she mumbles about drinking blood and eating sick meat and that she cannot…and then I don’t understand anything after that because she is sobbing so hard.”

Suddenly, the woman Kala was trying to calm broke free and ran to the door, straight into the arms of Jenira, who had mysteriously appeared at that moment.  The woman was sobbing wildly and hugged Jenira as though she was relieved to see her.  Jenira held her a moment and then pushed her back and began signing to the woman.

“What is wrong, why are you so upset?” Jenira signed.

The woman sobbed.  “Please, Nǚrén De Dāopiàn, do not let my baby be eaten!”

“What!”  I exclaimed when I heard this, nearly missing what Jenira signed back.  At the same time I realized that in Chinese Nǚrén De Dāopiàn translated to Woman-with Swords.

“No one here will eat your baby,” Jenira signed as she looked accusingly around the room at us.

I raised both my hands in a surrender position as I responded,”  Certainly not I, and I don’t think Kala or Doctor Danjuma would do something like that.”

“Oh my god no!” Dr. Danjuma exclaimed suddenly.  “Don’t you see?  It all makes sense now.  She’s not talking about us or the crew of your ship!  She’s talking about MING!!!”

I was floored. “Surely you don’t think Ming would eat a child?”  I exclaimed as the Chinese woman began to wail even louder as she clung tightly to Jenira.  “I know he’s an arrogant bastard, but to eat a CHILD?”

“But don’t you see, it makes sense.  Ming, Yǎnjìngshé, and Láng are the only ones whose B12 levels were high; all the rest were deficient.  The three of them had to be getting meat from someplace.  The pregnant women are all spaced at about 4 to 6 weeks apart in their pregnancies.  Ming was breeding them like cattle to keep a supply of meat going for himself and his friends.  He didn’t want to eat his own children, so he put the breeding duty on to Láng, Yǎnjìngshé was the caretaker and overseer of the operation.”  Behind me I heard retching and looked to see Kala doubled over vomiting on the floor.  I was feeling a bit ill myself at that point.  I looked at the woman in Jenira’s arms with a questioning look, and with tear filled eyes she nodded affirmative to what the doctor was saying.  Suddenly I saw Jenira’s eyes fill with rage and she pushed the woman away and started out the door, her hands reaching for the hilts of her swords.

“NO! Jenira, STOP…!” I shouted, but to no avail, as she sped down the hall ahead of me towards Ming’s suite.  I knew there was no way I could catch her, but I also knew it was a long way to Ming’s suite.  I quickly called to Kerabac on the bridge.  “Kerabac, I need you to seal off all the accesses between the med units and Ming’s suite.  Do it immediately!”

“Okay, Tibby, it’s done.  May I ask why?”

“I’m trying to keep Jenira from killing Ming, although after what I just learned I’m not sure why I am trying to save him.  Can you locate which area Jenira is trapped in at the moment?”

“Yes, I can see her on the vid screen right now.  She is trying to pry a hatch door open with one of her swords.  She looks madder than an Izurian mindat with its tail on fire.”

“Is there a way you can route Marranalis and a security team around her and get to Ming’s suite?”  I asked.

“Hmm let me check.  You’re in luck--Marranalis is not far from Ming at the moment.  It won’t be hard to get him there.”

“Great!  Have him go to Ming’s suite.  I want both Ming and Yǎnjìngshé taken into custody and placed in a cell.  No one is to get to see them until we get back to the Federation, especially Jenira; we may have to lock her up to keep her out.  Once we reach Megelleon, I want Ming, Yǎnjìngshé and Láng turned over to the proper authorities for prosecution.”

“By the stars, Tibby, what have they done?”

“I’ll tell you later.  It’s a very long story and it’s more important we get Ming and Yǎnjìngshé isolated before anything else happens.”

Jenira was furious by the time I had Kerabac unseal the corridor she was in; but with a little effort on Kala and my part, we were able to calm her down, although she still wanted to go slice Ming up into pieces.  We had not been able to locate Yǎnjìngshé; Marranalis said she was there one minute while they were taking Ming into custody and the next minute she was gone.  We checked the security cameras and she was seen leaving Ming’s suite, but none of the other security cameras picked her up.  Marranalis theorized that somehow she had gotten hold of one of our cloaking wrist bands and used it to get away and that she was hiding somewhere on the vast ship.  We had everyone on the ship searching for her, but were unable to locate her.  Although we had gotten Jenira to promise she would not harm Yǎnjìngshé if she found her, I was worried that she would kill her if she found her first.

With Ming and Láng both imprisoned and under guard, the Chinese women were more talkative and seemed less tense; they even smiled and laughed a little, but they tended to congregate around Jenira, apparently feeling safer in her presence.  I had a difficult time getting Commodore Stonbersa and Captain Kerabac to believe that Ming, Láng and Yǎnjìngshé had been killing and eating the babies born to the women on the lunar colony, but once convinced, Stonbersa was all for passing judgment on Ming and his cohorts and dumping them into the vacuum of space.  I was reluctant to do so, as I felt that judgment of the Federation would be better suited to the situation.

I didn’t get to meet with Dr. Hughes the following two days, as he felt he needed to spend time with the Chinese women discussing what had happened to them and to help them to deal with the feelings they had about it.  At first they were very reluctant to speak with him, but finally they agreed as long as Jenira accompanied them.  Reluctantly, Dr. Hughes agreed, but he was afraid that Jenira would interrupt the sessions with her own thoughts, which he didn’t want her to do.  He was very surprised when Jenira didn’t say anything at all but simply sat silently in the room while he worked with the women.

In the mean time I was busy with search teams trying to find Yǎnjìngshé.  She managed to disappear and stay hidden without a trace of her whereabouts.  I had anticipated that after a few hours when the power in her cloaking device wore down that we would find her, but she had apparently found an area not under surveillance on the ship and was staying put.  I turned to A’Lappe in hopes that he would be able to locate her, as he knew the ship better than anyone and had avoided us finding him for weeks, even after we became aware of his presence on the ship, but he was as much at a loss as to where she could be as we were.  We were still about two days out from Megelleon when Yǎnjìngshé came out of hiding.

Kala and I had been lounging in our suite listening to some of the classical music retrieved from the data cubes the Mars team brought with them from Earth.  Kala was enthralled by the works of Tchaikovsky; on this particular occasion, we were listening to Concerto No.1 in B-flat minor Op.23. Kala was enchanted by the piece, and I must confess that I enjoyed it also. However, I was more of a Beethoven fan, possibly because I had more exposure to him in high school music and found myself fascinated when I discovered he wrote most of his best music when he was deaf.

Kala was lying on the floor on some large throw pillows in front of the fire place deeply engrossed in the music while I lay there admiring her now bulging stomach that left little doubt as to her pregnancy.  She noticed me looking and smiled as she took my hand and placed it on her abdomen.  Abruptly I felt a thump against my hand, and then another.

“Is that them kicking?”  I asked in astonishment to think that inside her two small human babies grew, receiving nourishment from her body.

“Yes, that’s them, they have been quite active today for some reason.”  The fact that they shared Kala’s and my DNA made it even more exciting and amazing to me.

The particular rendition we were listening to was an old recording that had been performed by Van Cliburn and had been recorded during my lifetime on Earth; I had heard it several times in my life; it was during one of the mellower and more romantic parts of the rendition when my com link beeped.

“Tibby here,” I answered.

“Tibby, this is Kerabac. We have a problem.  Ming and Láng both have escaped and are on the loose in the ship someplace.  We found the guards to their cells dead outside the compartments they were confined in.  They were killed by some small poisonous darts, but we have no idea how they were delivered.  We just checked the vid cameras in the corridor where Ming and Láng were confined and we can see the guards fall and then Yǎnjìngshé appears and releases both Ming and Láng.  You can see Ming and Yǎnjìngshé appearing to argue briefly and then Ming and Láng go off in one direction and Yǎnjìngshé goes another.  Marranalis and our security teams are headed to the area now, and doing a sweep as we go looking for them.  We are issuing a ship wide bulletin alerting people to their escape and telling them that if anyone sees any of the three to let the bridge know immediately.”

“I’m on my way,” I replied.  Kala looked at me questioningly.  I was sure she had heard the conversation, so I said to her.  “You should stay here.  You’re not in any shape to be out chasing down the bad guys.”  Kala nodded and lay back on the pillows.  “You better arm yourself before you go out there,” she said.

“Right,” I said as I backed away from the door and went to the small arms locker in the wall and retrieved several weapons.  “I think it would be best you stay here in the suite until I return, or until you hear that we have our prisoners in custody again.”

“I’ll be right here,” she answered.  I turned and walked over and gave her a kiss.  “I’ll be back shortly, after all, where can they go?”

“Ha,” Kala laughed.  “Look how long A’Lappe and Yǎnjìngshé managed to elude you on this ship.  It could take you months to track them down.”

“Not this time,” I answered, “we’ll find them pretty quickly I’m sure.”

I headed out and started back to where the holding cells were that Ming and Láng had been held in.  I was pretty angry; several of my crew had been killed by Yǎnjìngshé; she, Ming and Láng had been breeding women like cattle and harvesting and eating their children. Why was I allowing them to live to stand trial, I asked myself.  I hadn’t gone far when I encountered Jenira hastily coming down the corridor toward me with a look of concern on her face.

“Where is Kalana?” she signed rapidly, “is she safe?”

“She’s in our suite listening to music,” I signed, “She’s fine.”  I started to head on and then on an afterthought I said.  “I’d appreciate it if you went and stayed with her until this is all over.”

Jenira didn’t answer but turned and headed toward Kala’s and my suite at a rapid pace.

I called Marranalis on my com link as I headed toward the prisoner holding area.  “Are you making any progress?  Any signs of Ming?”

“Nothing so far, Tibby, we suspect that he will try to get off the ship, so we are concentrating on the hangar and the space between there and the prisoner area.”

“Well unless he has one of our crew to pilot one, he’s going nowhere.  All our ships are coded for entry and only their assigned pilots and crews can access them.  Besides, neither Ming, Yǎnjìngshé, nor Láng know how to pilot any of our ships, so where do they think they are going?  This doesn’t make sense, it’s a very poorly conceived plan,” I said.

“You’re right, Tibby, we’ve just covered the space between the hangar and the prisoner area and there has been no sign of them.  All the space suits are still in place, so they can’t be in the hangar, but just in case, I’m having a team suit up to check out the ships and make sure that somehow they didn’t get out there and aboard one.  Tibby, you don’t think they may have found the
ALI
and headed to your personal hangar?”

“If they know about my personal hangar, then they most likely know about the maintenance tunnels throughout the ship.  That would explain why we couldn’t find Yǎnjìngshé earlier and why we can’t find Ming and Láng now.  They’re in the tunnels or at my personal hangar trying to get into the
ALI
.  I’m on my way there.  Meet me there as soon as you can.”

Once I had gotten down in the maintenance tunnels I moved slowly.  I had been there before with A’Lappe and sort of knew my way around, but there were so many trunks and tunnels that veered off the main tunnel that it was easy to get confused.  The cables and pipes and the spaces in and around them offered lots of hiding places as well, so I moved with caution looking right, left, up and down everywhere trying to spot any of the escapees who might be hiding there.  I was getting close to the
ALI
hangar area when I started picking up the sound of Ming's cursing.

“Yǎnjìngshé didn’t tell us how to board this ship!” he fumed.  “Where has she gone?  Why is she not here to get us out of this place?  Soon their guards will think to look here and we will be captured again.”