Star Kitten (20 page)

However, Solomon was the kind of man who
could handle this. He wouldn’t just blindly follow the directives
of the Confederation and merely try and rely on their naïve
assumptions. That’s what made him the right choice for Terminal
Chief from the beginning.

Solomon after all had been the one who
commanded the highly lauded supply distribution division during the
rebellion. Solomon had been the one who devised the diabolical
backup plan where Naustie Spleefs and Zorgs would climb up and down
the service ladders of the elevator shafts wearing backpacks filled
with water bottles, ammunition, and food rations. If it had come to
this, Solomon would have ordered his plan to be implemented.

And above everything else, Architeuthis
trusted Solomon implicitly. That was why Architeuthis went into
hiding and accepted Solomon’s protection during the planetary Civil
War. That’s why Architeuthis suggested to the Tribal Confederation
selection committee that they put Solomon in charge as Terminal
Chief.

Few, if any, objected.

Solomon had said quite enough now. He just
needed his staff members to speak up and engage in a debate on the
matter. A good leader knows how to do that: get his people to kind
of talk themselves into it a bit first, before issuing the orders
he already intended for them to carry out.

First, one of the Earthers spoke up, a man
named Bui Hoang Oh. He was from the Earth region of China, and at
one time ran a large Asian organized crime syndicate. Bui spoke up
first, using language that was quite shocking to his Slart
colleagues, but quite frankly and truly echoed the sentiments of
the other Earthers on the staff.

Bui leaned back in his
chair, unfolding his arms and cocking an eye suspiciously as he
said, “Right Commander… My colleagues and I have often wondered
this. How does the Confederation really expect us to TRADE with
other planets? We’re criminals, as you say. They sent us here to
die. So now why would they trust us or even talk to us?” Another
human, a former mobster from New Chicago named Nicky Ciancio,
chimed in rather brashly, “Yeah, boss… da Chink is right. Diss
is
frickin’
nuts.
How the
hell
do
dey teenk weeuh gonna just show up on Porkonji and tell doze
frickin’
Porkos, 'hey we
got
frickin’
iron
oah fah sale'. Dey’ll lock us up da moment we step off da
frickin’
ship.” Bui
chuckled. He and Nicky were old friends and the racial slur “chink”
didn’t bother him in the least—at least not when Nicky said it of
course. Anyone else and they’d have gotten a knife shoved up under
their ribs!

Solomon spun and looked at all the staffers
sitting around the conference table. “Most likely yes,” said
Solomon with a humorous but serious glare. He then crossed his arms
and waited patiently for more feedback.

One of the Slarts, named Decapodifor,
interjected, “But Commander, the Confederation has ordered us to
travel to Porkonji and trade for food. Is that not what we have
been working on all this time?” Solomon stood calmly and nodded,
saying, “Yes, they did. That’s what they ordered us to do.”
Decapodifor sighed and fluttered his facial tentacles in the way
Slarts do when they’re flustered. He clarified, “And so… we’re NOT
going to Porkonji… or are we?”

Nicky scoffed at Decapodifor’s naiveté’,
still looking at Solomon with a sly grin, “Ah, hell no ya’ dumbass…
da Chief’s got a bettuh idea… don’t ya’ Boss?” Solomon’s eyes
drifted over to Nicky, then back to Decapodifor. “Maybe…,” he
grinned. Then his face went cold. Solomon slowly stepped back to
his chair and sat back down, leaning forward and resting his elbows
on the table. He clasped his hands together, and added with a
serious look on his face, “But we know what our primary task really
is, and that’s to get food for New Australia, isn’t that right
comrades?”

Solomon left that question
floating about the room for a moment. No one commented further. The
Slarts seemed to be pondering the very blunt honest question. The
Earthers all nodded and even grinned like they were getting the
point. “Our job is not to send off the
Anarchy
into deep space and never
see it again. Our job is to get it back again, too…. And if we
don’t do that, we have failed,” added Solomon powerfully. The
Earthers all murmured with sounds of enthused agreement.

Decapodifor was still
confused. But he sighed again and tried to accept the logic of the
Chief’s comments. “So Commander… we must disobey Confederation
orders to accomplish our task? Is that what you’re…
suggesting
?” Solomon
eyed the honorable and intelligent Slartigifijian calmly. It was
vital that his entire staff be totally on board with his thinking.
And he most certainly had a plan in mind all along. After all, the
Slarts had learned quite a lot both from and about humans since
they’d been incarcerated on Rijel 12.

In a Slart’s intelligent
mind, things like ruthless military deception, financial fraud, and
hollow political promises were impossible to understand. But what
about the
results
? Now that was something a Slart could grasp
completely.
Results
trumped everything for a Slart.

Decapodifor and the other Slarts just needed
one more piece of the puzzle to connect it all together for them.
To see how it all fit into place. The greater purpose had now been
stated; the goal had been defined specifically. That’s what they
needed to see. The GOAL was to bring back food; and that’s
basically what they’d been charged with accomplishing.

Several squid-like heads
began to nod among the Slarts at the table. Solomon then added,
“You see, Decapodifor, it is my
responsibility
as Terminal Chief to
send out the
Anarchy
for food… and to get it back full of food for our planet to
eat and survive. That’s the task I’ve been put in charge of, and
that’s what I’m ordering the crew…that’s what I’m ordering all of
you… to accomplish.”

Now that was something
Slarts could understand:
responsibility
….

In Slart culture, to take responsibility for
something—to take charge of an operation or to lead an organization
to reach a goal—that meant a Slart’s own personal honor and
reputation were at stake. Failing in accomplishing the task, or
failing to protect those you were responsible for, meant disgrace
and ostracism from one’s own community. One either achieved his
goal or not. There could be no blaming of subordinates or making
excuses about unexpected obstacles. What Solomon was telling the
Slarts was this: HE was taking full responsibility for the task of
bringing food back to New Australia; so therefore HE must succeed
or face the consequences if he did not.

Once he put it that way, the Slarts had no
further compunctions about following his orders….

With that, Solomon relaxed and sat back in
his chair, his hands still clasped much like a man praying to God.
“Now… let me show you all what I have in mind,” said Solomon as he
heaved a deep sigh. The Slarts continued to flutter their facial
tentacles pleasantly and share glances with each other confirming
each other’s adherence, while the humans all sat forward in their
chairs with excited anticipation….

Long before this day’s meeting of course,
Solomon had taken the time and effort to do a little recruiting
among the prison population and managed to enlist a crew of former
pirates and cutthroats who knew all about things like raiding ships
in deep space. And what better place to look, than New Australia?
In a former prison, after all, experienced pirates were quite easy
to find… and plentiful!

His staff in the Terminal
command center had never known about this. They just saw him
recruiting a crew, and thought nothing of it. But Solomon wasn’t
just looking for sailors, crewmen, or merchant fleet men. He wanted
bloodthirsty killers who just happened to know how to fly a space
ship. His plan was actually to turn the captured ship
Anarchy
into a pirate
ship.

The tactic Solomon
envisioned employing, he told his staff, was a very ancient one
indeed: the disguised official transmission, or “false flag”. He
just needed to find the right beings to carry it out, that’s all.
Solomon knew that the
Anarchy
was once an Earth ship called the
Unity
, and all its
automatic transponder codes would be picked up on inter-space
communications as coming from the former
Unity
, and its crew. The
Unity
was once an Earth
merchant vessel, and a long time had passed since its capture. By
now, few would even remember the name, he assured
everyone.

Solomon said he figured
his first recruit had to be the Captain of the ship. Based on that
crucial choice, the rest would be quite easy because the Captain
would know whom he really needed to recruit to get the job done.
And he’d need a good First Mate too, if he found the right being
for that job as well. The next task would be even more diabolical:
hiding an entire brigade of Pumalar and Earther assault troops in
the ship’s hold. The basic idea he had was to lure another ship
close enough to dock with the
Anarchy
, then board the other ship
with his troops and slaughter the crew. Pillage the enemy ship for
supplies and hand weapons… use the new ship with its full
complement of missiles to slowly form an entire fleet of marauding
pirate ships for raids.

He told his staff how he went through about
twenty decent candidates before he finally found one rather aged
Zorg, named Kcsheeech. This older Zorg was perfect…but far too old
to be a Captain anymore. Nevertheless, he would make for an
effective First Mate, Solomon surmised. Knowledgeable and
experienced, Kcsheeech had ironically once served with Warden
Ggggaaah in his own bawdy pirate days many years ago! But whereas
Ggggaaah had gone “straight” and went on to become a respectable
Zorg galactic Commander (before retiring from Galactic service to
run the New Australia Planetary Prison), Kcsheeech had remained a
pirate.

Oh, how Kcsheeech resented his old former
friend too! Once the best of friends on board a Zorg Marauder
raiding merchant ships all across the galaxy, they parted ways when
Ggggaaah’s rich family basically bought his way for him into Zorg
Fleet Academy. When Kcsheeech was finally captured several years
later during a pitched battle with a Zorg patrol craft, Ggggaaah
didn’t even lift a finger to help him. Kcsheeech of course now
realized after all these years since then that Ggggaaah’s family
most likely overruled any good intentions his old friend might have
had about petitioning the court to pardon Kcsheeech. Still:
Ggggaaah had the power personally to at the very least bring him on
as a crewmember and save him from a death sentence on Rijel 12. He
did nothing to help Kcsheeech, and it still saddened him all these
many years later.

Kcsheeech knew quite a lot about pirates and
tactics. He told Solomon that Pirates in deep space often found it
convenient to give out false names and identification signals when
making raids, particularly when approaching a space station. Many
pirates experienced in attacking outposts preferred to use captured
ships for the initial approach. Captured ships were rarely used in
traditional ship-to-ship actions, however. “A shooting battle with
another ship is-sss far too dangerous-sss,” said Kcsheeech in his
Zorg accent. Solomon could imagine why, too.

The reputed faked distress
call? It rarely worked, Kscheeech argued. Merchants on tight
schedules frequently ignored distress signals and simply relayed
the message more often than not to attract further investigation by
nearby patrol vessels. That could be disastrous. “Besides-sss,”
said Kcsheeech, “distress-sss signals would most likely attract
other scalawags seeking to make an eeezy score against a damaged
and helpless ship.” But that’s ironically when the idea
really
began to appeal
to Solomon!

Solomon liked this idea
best: lure another pirate vessel to the
Anarchy
and trick them into
boarding. Capture their ship and press their crew into service of
the Nausties.

It could work! An
unsuspecting pirate vessel would believe them to be the
Unity
, and cruise right
up, thinking they were easy prey.

“But could our warriors really overwhelm a
crew of seasoned pirates?” asked Solomon. Kcsheeech just laughed.
“Oh yes-sss, Chief. They’re just pirates-sss after all, not
warriors-sss. They’ll be expecting helpless crewmen who’ve rarely
even fired an EIC. Go ahead. Let them on board, the s-ssscum.
They’ll be completely unprepared for a real fight.” Solomon grinned
and chuckled. He knew he’d truly found his First Mate.

Then the next task was to
pick the right Captain. And Solomon enlisted the help of his newest
recruit. For Kcsheeech that was easy. He already knew exactly the
right choice for the job: Snout Epididymis.
Captain
Snout Epididymis, that is… a
Porko he’d befriended during the ramp construction.

Snout was a rather enormous and intimidating
creature. Most Porkos were, for that matter. Porkonji usually stood
about six feet tall, and some were even taller. Their haunches were
slightly crouched, but the power in their legs was incredible. They
had to be strong there too, because their arms were relatively week
by comparison (just like with humans). They walked much like a
hunched over fat old man, but their heads were enormous and their
bite was terrifyingly vicious in close order combat. A spear and
shield or a hand weapon fired at a distance were all they needed to
compete effectively in a fire-fight, but close in, they could
simply bite off limbs or chomp the neck of an enemy rendering him
helpless.