Solbidyum Wars Saga 9: At What Price (37 page)

“Admiral, I’m not going to lie to you.  People are becoming very upset and fearful.  They’re demanding action and they aren’t seeing any progress.  This kind of frustration can lead to civil unrest.”

“I’m aware of that and we’re doing all we can, but frankly, sir, we are having no success with this disease of Ming’s.”

“Admiral, I can’t guarantee what the people will do if you don’t come up with something soon,” said Pheosa.  “They’re used to you saving them and they expect it again now.  Some are starting to claim you don’t care about them anymore.”

“Leader Pheosa, I understand, but there is only so much we can do.  It may be possible that there is no cure for this disease and no defense to keep the Brotherhood from continuing to use it.  I have every expert in the military and on my personal staff working on the matter.  With all due respect, sir, any layperson who has pertinent education or experience in the matter should be offering their assistance rather than their complaints and threats.  And as far as those threats against me are concerned, whether they come from the citizens or the Senate, they are welcome to petition that I be removed from my post, if that’s what is being insinuated, but that won’t stop me from doing everything I can to cure this pestilence and destroy the Brotherhood.  Everyone seems to forget that this is my home too.”

Leader Pheosa sat in silence, somewhat stunned at my response.  I calmed my tone somewhat as I continued my explanation.

“Sir, I truly don’t believe there is a cure or vaccine for this pathogen.  Don’t think for a moment that Ming isn’t above sending his own subjects to their death in order to collect and package this stuff on the moon where we have learned that it thrives.  Life, be it friend or foe, means nothing to Ming at all.  The death of one of his subjects means as little to him as that of one of the Federation’s.”

“By the stars,” Pheosa muttered.  “How does he keep his minions from rising up and killing him?”

“Well, we’ve talked about the slavery and blackmail, drugs and brainwashing, but really it begins with the introduction of fear – absolute, primal fear like you and I have never known,” I replied.

Finally, Pheosa exclaimed in frustration, “Do what you can, Admiral, and may the stars be with us if we fail.”  With that he terminated his call and the vid screen went blank.

All human life on Agraious and Frandee was now gone.  The crews on the few ships that had escaped into orbit had been infected, even though they were unaware of it when they left the surface, and had since died in space.  On my orders their ships were destroyed to prevent anyone from inadvertently boarding them and becoming infected in the future.  No one knew how long the pathogen remained infectious and until we knew, we couldn’t take any risks.  On Dandcay the disease was now in full plague state.  Its rate of dissemination defied explanation.  It seemed that the organism reproduced or propagated by every known means and wasn’t limited to transmission by way of contact, inhalation or ingestion.  It was almost as though the pathogen was ambulatory and could seek out and direct itself to victims.

Everyone across the entire expanse of the Federation was concerned about the germ warfare attacks.  The government set up large rewards for anyone who came up with positive ways of dealing with the attacks that protected the citizens.  Millions of suggestions were submitted.  Most of them were completely impractical and provided only temporary protection, consisting essentially of trapping an uninfected person inside an isolated chamber with no possibility of being rescued safely.  No one had been able to present a viable means of dealing with the infectious disease once it was contracted, nor had anyone come up with a cure.

The day after my meeting with Pheosa I was sitting in my office on the
GLOMAR ROSA
going over the reports of deaths and illnesses on Dandcay, when Marranalis entered to tell me that Admiral Nugallie wished to see me.  Nugallie was one of the new admirals serving in the Fourth Fleet who had risen rapidly through the ranks.  He seemed to be well-liked by his men, even though he was somewhat aloof in the social sense.

“What does he want?” I asked Marranalis.

“Sir, he said it has to do with detecting the enemy before they attack and drop canisters on Federation planets.”

“Hm.  Bring him in.  Let’s hear what he has to say.”

When Nugallie entered I had to blink my eyes to make sure they weren’t playing tricks on me.  Nugallie appearance was like that of a younger Stonbersa.  He had the same tan skin and white hair.  Even his eyebrows were white.  I had always assumed Stonbersa’s white hair was from age.  It never occurred to me that it might be a natural hair color for some people on his home world.

“Have a seat, Admiral,” I said, once we had dispensed with the formalities of military greetings.  “Admiral Marranalis tells me you have some ideas about developing some new planetary defenses against these canister attacks.”

“Well, it’s not really a new idea,” began Nugallie.  “It’s more of a question as to why we aren’t doing more to detect the Brotherhood before they attack the planets.”

“Go on,” I said, when he paused longer than I thought necessary.

“Well, sir, we know from our own experience that it takes time to set up a Stellar Cantolla Gate.  If we focus our efforts on locating those gates when they go operational we’ll have a small window of time to respond and destroy any ship that comes through.  If we’re lucky, we may even be able to slip a ship back through their gate before they close it.”

I sat frozen in my seat staring at him.  He was right.  We'd been busy focusing on the problems on the ground after the infection was already doing its damage and we were totally neglecting how the Brotherhood got the canister-bombs there in the first place.  If we detected the Brotherhood ships before they could reach the atmospheres of these worlds, we could destroy them and vaporize the canisters.  If the gates were still open, we might be able to get a cloaked ship or two through their gate and to their staging area.  Once there, our ships could stealthily retreat to an adjacent area and set up our own stellar gates that could be used to attack them on their home territory as we had been trying to plan all along.

“Admiral?” Nugallie’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts.

“Oh, sorry, Admiral,” I said.  “I was thinking about what you just said and your right.  We should be focusing on the preemptive strikes.  I’m afraid we’ve all been so terrified of this disease and trying to deal with it on the ground that we haven't given this approach the attention we should.  Stellar gate tracking is something we have the technology to do, but it's not well defined.  I think our methods could be enhanced to make them more accurate.  It would require cloaked fighters and patrol ships in outer orbits ready to respond quickly to any threat, but I think we could manage that with the joint cooperation of planetary forces.  Tell me, how much thought have you put into this?  Have you developed any specific ideas or strategies as to how this should be done?”

“I’ve given it a fair amount of thought and I’ve come up with some ideas as to how to implement it,” he said with an air of confidence.”

“Good, because as of now I’m reassigning you to work here on the
GLOMAR ROSA
with some of my staff and a team of scientists to develop a procedure for quickly identifying a new Cantolla Gate as it is being set up and implement a plan of attack for destroying enemy ships that come through those gates.  I also want a plan developed whereby we might be able to slip the necessary cloaked patrol ships through their gates with our own gate components.  Admiral Marranalis will help you get things set up.  Oh, and well done, Admiral.”

Once Nugallie left.  I called A’Lappe. 

“What can I do for you, Tibby?” he asked as soon as his image appeared on the vid screen.

“I’m hoping you and Rory can find a way to enhance the detection capacity of the devices we use to discover a Cantolla Gate.  I need it as quickly as possible.”

“That’s more Cantolla’s department than Rory’s and mine,” said A’Lappe.

“Yes, but it can be done, can’t it?” I said.

“Well, theoretically, yes.  However, I don’t know how long it will take, especially with all the other ongoing projects of priority.”  I knew that A’Lappe was referring primarily to the manic search for answers that would halt Ming’s deadly pathogen, as well as his and Cantolla’s search for a lifesaving treatment that would restore my nervous system.

“I understand,” I said and then went on to explain Admiral Nugallie’s idea.  I finished by saying, “Delegate as many aspects of the projects you’re working on to others so you and Cantolla can focus on the most difficult parts.  All I know is, if we can detect and stop the Brotherhood as they come out of their stellar gates, maybe we won’t have to worry about them dropping any more of those damned canisters.  I know I’m asking a lot of all of you, but we’re at a pivotal point in the war with the Brotherhood and victory or defeat hangs in the balance.  Do all you can.”

“We’ll give it our best effort,” said A’Lappe.  “But I can’t make any promises.”

I was about to get a bowl of noodles from a food synthesizer, when Marranalis bounded through the door.

“Sir, we’re currently getting reports of asteroid-ship attacks on four worlds.  In addition, there are reports of aerial attacks and body-bombers at gate hubs on about a dozen worlds.  They all began simultaneously.”

“What about canister attacks?” I asked apprehensively.

“None reported thus far.”

“Were any of our ships able to respond to the attacks from space?

“We had ships in the area, but by the time they got to the attack sites, the enemy ships had already slipped back through their stellar gates and closed their gates.”

Something about these Brotherhood gates bothered me.  “Where do you think they’re getting the power for their gates?” I asked.  “It takes a lot of power to operate a stellar gate.  We’re using solbidnite for ours, but I don’t believe the Brotherhood has any, except for the few grains they may have recovered when capturing Federation ships, I suppose.  A’Lappe is the only one who knows the location of the solbidnite field, so what are they using?  Have we ever been able to retrieve one of their gate nodes? I asked.

“We’ve generally been destroying one of the three nodes of any gates we can locate, so the Brotherhood can’t use them to return a second time,” replied Marranalis.  “But we have yet to recover a primary node that carries the main power source.  We’ve been trying to retrieve one of these nodes since the Brotherhood started using their own gates in the Malpy System.”

“Okay, good.  Make sure those efforts continue and keep me informed.  We need to find out what they’re using for a power source and where they’re getting it.”

My stomach growled.  I had been planning on a simple meal of noodles for lunch, but now I was famished.

“Have you eaten since this morning?” I asked Marranalis.

“No, sir.  I’ve been too busy,” he replied.

“Same here.  How about I have Pieamar prepare some fubalo steaks?  He can serve us here while we go over the details of the new attacks.”

“That sounds good to me,” Marranalis replied with a grin.  “I’m never one to turn down a fubalo steak, no matter what the time of day.  Would it be possible to have a few afexes with it too?”

I had to laugh – not that Marranalis’s request was funny, but the almost childlike way he made it was completely incongruent with his hulking, muscular figure.

“Yes, I am positive we can have a few afexes too,” I said, grateful for the moment of laughter that broke the stifling darkness of war and death that had become our daily reality.

Marranalis and I had just finished the last bites of our fubalo steaks and reviewed the latest statistics of the synchronized sixteen-world attack, when an aide delivered a new report of an outbreak of Ming’s Disease on Quindatte.  This was odd, in that there were no reports of Brotherhood ships appearing in the area nor of any canister aerial drops.  Patrol ships were sent out to scan a one-thousand-square-kilometer area around the outbreak area to see if any canisters could be found.  The search produced no evidence.  Time-lapse satellite images of the area were digitally analyzed to identify anomalies and changes as small as a coin on the ground, but again, the findings were negative.

“Sir, do you think they used a new means of infecting the planet?” asked Marranalis.

“I’m beginning to think so,” I said.  “It’s possible they shipped something contaminated to the planet and when it was opened, it released the deadly pathogen.  It could have arrived on a freighter or it could have even passed through a planetary Cantolla Gate.  Shipping and gate security has been redoubled, but it’s impossible to account for every scenario when it comes to this pathogen.  Whatever means they used, we need to figure it out fast so we can avert a similar method from being employed on other worlds.  Where was the first person found who showed symptoms?  That might give us some clues.”

“I’ll check into it, sir.”  Marranalis dabbed his mouth with a napkin and rose to return to his station in the War Room.

I watched him leave my office and thought about what an incredible officer he’d become.  If the time came that I needed to step down as Rear Admiral, I wanted Marranalis to be the man who succeeded me.  I knew that there would be those within the military who wouldn’t like that idea at all.  They would be the same individuals who would feel that no Rear Admiral should be a soldier who had risen through the ranks like Marranalis, someone who lacked a family name or some other social prestige.  But in my mind, there was no one better to lead the Galactic Federation Military.  Nothing Marranalis said or did was motivated by pride or desire to elevate himself.  All he wanted to do was serve and protect the Federation to the best of his ability by making decisions that were sound, objective and well-informed.