Solbidyum Wars Saga 6: Defeat of the Tottalax (49 page)

After the dinner was finished, and we all had a chance to chat and meet with everyone, Kala and I headed back to the
NEW ORLEANS
.  As soon as we returned, I checked in with Marranalis and was informed that our Cantolla Gate ships had reached the nebula where the Tottalax planet was located, and they had set up a temporary interstellar Cantolla Gate.  Also, the space tugs towing the Tottalax ship were about to pass through it into the nebula region.  He also told me that the tugs were reporting that the hull of the Tottalax ship had ruptured, as I had anticipated, and the ship was a solid block of ice.  The tugs sent back images showing the hull damage to the ship.

I went immediately to the
MAXETTE
War Room and pulled up the images to look at them.  There was a feature to the 3D holographic system that allowed you to feed in a series of 2D images, and it would extrapolate the information and create a 3D model of the images.  Using this feature, I created a 3D model that floated in the center of the room.  I scaled it up so the model was about three meters long, and then I walked about it and looked at the details.  The ship was indeed cracked and ruptured, but the ice expansion wasn’t nearly as great as I anticipated.  I had envisioned more ice being forced outside the ship than actually was.  At one place a large section of hull material was bent out, and you could see quite a bit of the ice.  It wasn’t clear in the 3D image, but it looked at one place like you could see the outline of a Tottalax frozen in the ice.  I called the bridge and instructed Captain Mareoparen to route the quickest course through the interstellar Cantolla Gates that would take us to the Tottalax nebula.  I wanted to get this over and done with and to know the Tottalax was going to be out of the war from then on.  It took us three and a half days to make the trip, and we passed through four gates before we arrived on the edge of the nebula where the Tottalax world was hidden.  I had Marranalis have some of the troopers bring Tot and Truath over from the
NEW ORLEANS
to help us find the Tottalax world.

When Tot was brought to the War Room, he was wearing his misting headgear arrangement that sprayed small puffs of moisture on his external gills.  I knew that he needed the moisture to be able to breathe easier.  Normally, we kept the air aboard ships relatively dry, although on the
NEW ORLEANS
we had some areas, like the atrium areas, which had very high humidity.  I instructed Marranalis to raise the humidity in the War Room to reduce Tot’s discomfort.

“Tot,” I began after Truath had donned her translating shirt device, “we have arrived in the area of space where your world is located, but this nebula is huge and there are many stars in it.  Where is your planet located?”  I asked.  As I spoke, Truath’s shirt flashed many patterns and colors rapidly as Tot watched. For a moment it struck me as funny, because I realized with all the colored and flashing patterns, it looked like Tot was staring at Truath’s breasts. 

I had to shake my head to get my concentration back as Tot began flashing patterns back and the translating device translated, “My planet does not revolve around a star.  It is alone in a cloud in space.”

“What?”  I asked, not sure what Tot was saying.

“No star, planets not have a star.  Alone in cloud in space,” Tot said.

“I believe he’s saying it’s an orphaned planet,” Marranalis said.  “I’ve never heard of one of those having life forms before.”

“If you have no star.” I began,” where does the light and heat come from to support life on your world?”

“Not dark, light and heat comes from the cloud in space.”  Tot replied.

“Wow, Marranalis said.  They must be deep into the nebula for it to be that light and hot.  There must be a lot of radiation in there.  I wonder how they avoid that.”

“How do your people survive the radiation from the nebula?”  I asked.

“Radiation only on surface, underwater no radiation,” Tot replied.

“If it’s an orphaned planet, it’s going to be even harder to find” I said.  “Before all we needed to do was to look for stars to find planets, but if the planet has no star, it could be anywhere.”

“Excuse me, Admiral sir,” Truath spoke up, “perhaps Tot can describe some aspect of the nebula as they see it from his home planet that will make it easier to find.  You know how some nebulas look like certain things, or have shapes, that remind us of something when viewed from a certain position.  Maybe there is something like that you can see from Tot’s world that will make it easier.”

“It certainly can’t hurt to ask,” I said.

Truath posed the question to Tot, but she had to ask it several times in different ways before he understood what she was saying.  Finally, he held up his hand with his webbed fingers spread and shook his hand in the air.

“What’s he saying” I asked Truath.

“I’m not sure.  I believe he is saying the nebula looks like his hand from his world.”

“Bring the nebula up in the 3D display and slowly rotate it,” I said.

A moment later, the display rotated in the room before us.  It revolved several times but nothing I saw looked like a hand.  I was about to give up when Marranalis suggested we try looking at the nebula from the inside looking out.

“Sure, what do we have to lose by trying that?” I said.

Marranalis expanded and shifted the view so it appeared we were inside the nebula looking out and once again began rotating it.  All this time Tot just sat there staring at the display, and I wondered for a while if the motion had possibly hypnotized him.  Then abruptly he moved and began flashing colors and patterns again.  “Stop!  Make sky turn this way,” he said as he spun his hand in the air in a counter clock wise motion, the translator spoke.

Marranalis rotated the display as indicated and Tot began flashing all sorts of colors and patterns.  “There,” he said motioning at the display, “There is (squeaking and squawking sound), but it is much bigger where (squeaking and squawking sound), see it.”

I stared at the display and gradually I began to see a region that looked like a hand with webbed fingers.

“Marranalis, zoom in on that section, I said.  “Tot, tell us when it looks like it does when you see it on your world.”  Slowly Marranalis began zooming in on the nebula; it kept growing larger and larger, until we were deep inside the nebula itself, and then Tot indicated for us to stop.

“This how sky look from my world,” Tot exclaimed.

“Marranalis. is there any sign of a planet in that area?”  I asked.

“No sir, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one there.  The data for this display is incomplete.  This region has never been explored by the Federation, and all our data is from far off observatories and deep space telescopes.”

“Is it possible for us to locate this spot and fly to it?”  I asked.

Yes, I can give you the coordinates of the location where you would see this view.  All we need to do after that is give the coordinates to Captain Mareoparen, and he can fly us to this exact location.”

“Very well, do it.  Tell the ships towing the Tottalax ship to follow us.”

It took us nearly five days to find the Tottalax home world deep inside the nebula.  True to Tot’s description, the planet was an orphaned planet spinning alone in the heart of the nebula.  Shortly before we arrived at the planet, we received a message from one of the towing ships that something strange was happening to the Tottalax ship, and it seemed to be emitting a trail of smoke.  I sent a patrol ship out to check, and it turned out the heat of the nebula was causing ice in the Tottalax ship to start to melt and vaporize, and the ship was emitting a tail much like a comet as it was towed into orbit around the Tottalax world.  In the reddish light of the nebula, the tail looked like a trail of flame.  After it was in orbit the vaporizing water began to form in a ball around the Tottalax ship, making it look like it was inside a glowing red ball of gas.

I had Tot brought back to the
MAXETTE,
again preparing to broadcast a message to the planet.  At the same time, I had nearly a thousand fighters and patrol ships from the
MAXETTE’s
hangars fly out and take up space around the
MAXETTE
and the Tottalax ship.  To anyone looking from the surface with telescopes or any instruments, it would create a menacing sight.

Tot’s first attempts at reaching someone on the surface seemed not to be working.  For several days, he broadcasted different messages telling whoever was listening, or in his case watching, that their ship had been destroyed and that unless the Tottalax agreed never to help the Brotherhood again and to stay on their own world, their planet might also be destroyed.  Finally, I decided to take more drastic action; I told Tot to warn his people we had grown tired of their refusal to communicate, and that we were going to demonstrate our willingness and ability to carry out our threats if they didn’t respond.  There was a small island near the equator of the planet that Tot said was regarded as a favorite place for the Tottalax.  I told him to tell his people they should evacuate the island, as it would be destroyed in one day.  We watched from space and saw some activity on the island, but it appeared only a small portion of the Tottalax heeded the warning.

“Admiral, you’re not really going to destroy that island with all those Tottalax on it, are you?”

“I don’t see that I have any choice.  We must have an understanding that the Tottalax will not be helping the Brotherhood in the future, and until we have that guarantee, we are at risk.  Besides, they gave no warning or chance before they killed everyone on Earth.  We’re giving them more than they deserve.”

“I had Tot broadcast one last warning to his people with a countdown.  As the clock ticked down we could see more people fleeing the island.  Finally when the time ran out, and we still had no response from the Tottalax, I had Captain Mareoparen fire a single missile at the island.  We still had the RMFF shields up, and I knew that once the smoke and debris settled, there would be no island there.

I had a sick feeling in my stomach as I watched the torpedo go, but it was too late now.  Seconds later, we watched as a huge mushroom cloud ascended into the air over the island location.  A few minutes later, we saw hundreds of small ships rise into the air flying toward us.  I asked Tot what they were, and he replied.  “They are our transport ships, most likely,” he said.

“Are they armed?”  I asked.

“Yes,” he replied, “they carry some weapons.  They are not as dangerous as the ones you possess.”

“Marranalis, give orders to our fighters to hold their positions as long as the Tottalax don’t fire.  However, if the Tottalax fire on them, tell them to cloak and return fire.  Let’s see where this goes.”

It was very obvious the Tottalax ships were much slower than our fighters, and they got very close before they started firing.  Two shots were fired, almost at the same time by the Tottalax, and then it was nothing but laser flashes and exploding ships, as the Federation fighters returned fire.  Just minutes later the few remaining Tottalax ships were in a speedy retreat back to the surface.  I ordered our ships to hold station and not follow.  By now, the area of the missile hit on the planet was starting to clear off, and we were not able to see any sign of the island.

“Tot, try to contact your planet’s leaders again; tell them we will start blowing up places like the island every hour until they start responding to us.”

Once again, Tot made his broadcast.  Minutes ticked by as the hour slowly was drawing to a close.  In my mind, I was wondering what to target next, when the vid screen unexpectedly came to life, and the image of a Tottalax came on the screen.

“We do not see you (squeaking and squawking sound)… why have you returned?  You are no longer (squeaking and squawking)… we no longer see you,” the image on the screen flashed his message.  I was wishing the translator was better than it was, as I was starting to realize it was translating a lot of different words in the Tottalax vocabulary to “see” and they didn’t all have the same meaning.

Tot replied, and I listened to what he was saying, as Truath’s translator converted his patterns and colors into words.  “I warned you of the danger when the (squeaking and squawking) came to us and began giving us the (squeaking and squawking) that causes our females to desire to reproduce.  You did not see my word then and removed me as (squeaking and squawking), and had the (squeaking and squawking) take me away.  You used our ship for bad things so the (squeaking and squawking) would give you the (squeaking and squawking); now our ship is in ruin, never to be used again.  These men who bring me here are of a family unit bigger than all the (squeaking and squawking) in our seas.  They fight the (squeaking and squawking) that used our ship for their war; now it is returned to you, useless.  If you do not submit to their wishes, they will destroy our world and all that live on it.  It is because of you, and the (squeaking and squawking) that it is brought upon us.”

“You say our ship is destroyed,” the figure the screen replied in flashes of color and designs.  “We see the ship, but we do not see that it is damaged.  We receive no messages from it telling us it is damaged.  We think this is not our ship.  Now go away.  We do not wish to see you anymore.”

“Come and see the ship, the (squeaking and squawking) will not hurt you, if all you wish is to see the ship.” Tot replied.  The figure on the screen paused for a moment and then looked off camera before he replied.