The Trilisk Supersedure (18 page)

“What?
Telisa. Where is Telisa?”

The
display didn’t change. Cilreth looked at the creature. It was disgusting. A
living carpet with a hundred crab legs. It had four foldable antennae on top
and two long, sharp-ended drinking tubes tucked underneath its body like huge
fangs.

That is
nasty! It must be one of our Konuan.

“Show
me Cilreth,” she said as a test. The Terran brain display returned. There was
no discernable change in the display. The brain continued to hum with activity.
A few diagrams flashed by too quickly for her to understand.

Cilreth
tried to reach Magnus. She couldn’t get through. She prepared a message and
told her link to send it as soon as any connection opened to Shiny or Magnus.

“I’ve
found a series of complex metal tube machines. They are large enough to be used
as a hiding spot. Telisa could be inside one. We should deploy some scouts to
search for more of them,” she recorded. Then she attached a target signature
and coordinates of the device before her.

Shiny
can’t get our links working too soon,
she thought.

Chapter
16

Kirizzo
lurked within his enormous space fortress and spied on the Terrans thousands of
kilometers below. His powerful sensor arrays allowed him to see a good part of
the activity, though he couldn’t see into the tunnels below the city, as they
somehow blocked his scans. He believed the lower tunnels were most likely built
by Trilisks. The Konuan buildings blocked some of his information, but not all.
He watched both the small group allied with him and the larger group he had
discovered later.

The
small group was easy to observe. They had twenty scout robots that he could use
to keep tabs on them even inside the surface buildings. Everywhere they went,
there were always a few of the scouts nearby. The Telisa-Magnus bond remained
unbroken, and in fact, Magnus refused to initiate any pairing rituals with the
new Terran female. Kirizzo felt this was likely due to her age, which was at
the twilight of Terran fertility.

This
group’s loyalty had become almost agonizing. At this point, Kirizzo hadn’t
invested as much as he could have in the relationship. Had he known it would
last this long, he would have put more into it from the beginning. Yet doing so
now seemed to be an investment doomed to fail. In a way, the longer
cooperation/competition cycles Terrans used made the inevitable betrayal all
the more painful. Kirizzo would have to start all over again once someone
turned. And he kept putting off more investment, expecting the break to happen
any time now, yet the alliance went on and on.

He had
studied Terran alliances. He knew they fragmented and dissolved. Yet this one
endured. What was he missing? It was almost out of a masochistic sense of
morbid curiosity that he allowed it to continue.

Their
initial searches hadn’t uncovered anything of Trilisk origin. Kirizzo had
resolved to start looking for clues from orbit. Trilisk equipment would leave
clues he might be able to detect from great distances.

But
instead he had discovered the large group of Terrans sharing the ruins. Their
presence interested him, as the group was obviously interested in masking their
presence from orbit. Kirizzo would not have been surprised to see a small
settlement, but here was a group that hid by the ruins. Most likely it was
another band of smugglers.

A group
larger, more organized, and possibly better equipped than his current allies,
it was also harder to glean information about.

Oh, the
agony. Now he had a real reason to switch modes with the current Terran group.
He should make an overture, investigate subtly whether or not these new
smugglers might want to join him for mutual benefit.

What
were the repercussions of a mistake? He had no homeworld to lose, but Telisa,
Magnus, and Cilreth did know about his new base of operations and the Trilisk
AI he had left there. What resources could they bring to bear against it? If
they told the Terran space force about it, what might their fellow Terrans
commit to recovering his treasures?

The
larger group below seemed to be set up in a highly defensive posture. They had
a perimeter put up, guarded by war machines and mobile sensor units on a high
state of alert. This group expected trouble, or they had already experienced
it. The first thing that came to mind was that they had assumed this formation
upon the arrival of his sister ship holding the Terrans, but close analysis
showed that the perimeter had been up for a much longer time.

There
was movement in and out of the tunnels. This helped to confirm they were
smugglers. That and the lack of any presence of the stagnant Terran government
entity, the UNSF. These Terrans sought the same things he did—Trilisk
information and technology. Kirizzo modified some search parameters. His scan
picked up two interesting objects within the camp. Signatures almost certainly
Trilisk. So they had already experienced some measure of success.

Kirizzo
thought about other elements that might build a mutually beneficial alliance
with the larger group below. In addition to the desire to obtain artifacts,
their obvious lack of connections to the UNSF could be useful. Kirizzo had lost
a small empire under the surface of his homeworld. His industrial seed promised
the possibility of creating a new one. Should he attempt to create that new
empire here, among the Terran worlds? In the open? His technological advantage
carried a lot of leverage. With allies, might he hope to overthrow the UNSF and
rule the Terrans himself?

The
idea seemed possible. But it also sounded like a lot of work and danger for
modest gain. What did the Terran civilization have that he needed? Resources,
planets, yes. But knowledge? No, not really.

Kirizzo
found another anomaly. Something moved down below around the group of hidden
Terrans. Something with suspiciously Trilisk elements in the signature, yet it
wasn’t headed directly to the camp, nor were there any Terrans nearby. Was this
simply a Terran carrying and operating a Trilisk trinket? Then Kirizzo
considered the readings from another angle.

Could
this be the reason for the perimeter?

Suddenly
a big shift occurred in the lower-frequency electromagnetic environment below.
It suspiciously ended at frequencies of known use to the Terrans. Was the
anomaly responsible?

Kirizzo
searched for the source. He pinpointed it to machines within the larger Terran
perimeter. He quickly linked the electromagnetic disturbance to a new pattern
of movement within their camp. Kirizzo realized it was an attack.

The
group had suppressed communications likely used by other Terrans using several
transmitting devices placed on high ground around the ruins. Then they had
organized into armed groups, accompanied by machines of war, and set out on
foot. There were many more of them than his three allies and their scout
robots, but still, these smugglers were a pathetic force even by Terran
military standards. It was almost as if they had scavenged their equipment or
perhaps bought old surplus from the last Terran interplanetary war.

Rather
than help them, he decided to test their abilities. If they were very capable,
then that made them more valuable as allies. If they took losses or did not
handle opposition well, it might make them more amenable to negotiation.

Kirizzo
considered direct interference. His new ship possessed weapons that could
disable the Terrans’ surface equipment, but unfortunately the power plant
providing energy for the jamming had been brought underground.

Kirizzo
preferred a more indirect approach. He had analyzed and solved the mathematics
of the Terran scrambler, despite the fact that it had been designed to be
unpredictable by enemies. Given the ability to predict the scrambler and
knowledge of the target he wanted to speak with, he could alter his own signal
such that the message would get through. One-way communication became possible.

He
contacted ten of the scout robots and organized them to oppose the attacking
Terrans. They took up sniping positions along likely routes to the east. He
left a system running to allow the scouts to coordinate with each other by
sending regular messages telling them of the positions and status of all the
others.

Then
Kirizzo resumed his agonized decision making.

He considered
the large group of Terrans again. Perhaps he should negotiate an alliance with
them. On the front leg, they were organized into a clear hierarchy, meaning
Kirizzo would only have to deal with the leader; he could wield the entire
group with a single handle.

On the
rear leg, these Terrans were organized for military purposes, meaning they were
more likely to use force for their own gain. Kirizzo would have to expend more
energy in protective countermeasures working with such a group. Besides, if
they sought Trilisk artifacts, and already had some, that put them in
competition with Kirizzo, unless they were as easily satiated with baubles as
Telisa and Magnus were.

Given
their advance against the scouts and his allies, Kirizzo was running out of
time to decide.

Kirizzo
saw a launch from the surface. Terran ships. His own ship notified him of the
event. Kirizzo directed it to gather more information.

He
focused in a scan. Military vessels, though out of date for the Terran space force
current standards. They were multipurpose assault ships, designed to carry
troops from planet to planet. They looked to be more focused on landing
missions rather than space superiority weapons.

Not
that it would have mattered. Kirizzo had the upper hand here. His computers
analyzed the scans and found the weaknesses of the ships. He would be ready if
the Terrans decided to attack without provocation. Kirizzo expected they would
attempt to negotiate once they saw his ship. He allowed them to find him.
Perhaps now he could enter into an agreement with the new group.

The
Terran ships reached orbit. Their sluggish systems seemed to have finally
located Kirizzo’s vessel. The Terrans were activating weapons systems. That
much, he had expected. Then they launched a wave of missiles at him.

Aggression.
Kirizzo recognized it immediately, like a scoop of fresh sand in a long-stagnant
cave. His decision had been made for him. He would remain allied with his
current team. He started a new planning phase for the destruction of the
aggressors.

Chapter 17

Arakaki
put a round into her grille puncher and placed the hook around one bar of the
grille in front of her. Then she placed the press plate against the wall above
the opening and activated the puncher with her link. The device jumped sharply
as it applied the force between the grille bar and the wall, breaking the
grille free. She pulled the obstruction out with the hook then dumped it aside
with a practiced motion.

Her
link said that was the 1434th grille she’d pulled.

I’ll
take apart this entire city hunting you.

Suddenly
a voice addressed her link. “Neat trick. What do you want here?”

Her
link was configured to only carry messages from strangers straight through if
they were in close proximity. After all, anyone that close could just speak out
loud if they wanted.

Arakaki
jumped to one side. Placing her back to the wall, she trained her weapon on the
grill to her right. Then she drew a laser from her belt with her left hand and
pointed it the other direction.

“My
name is Magnus. I’m hunting an alien creature. It is very dangerous. I suggest
you leave right now.”

“Wheretheflip
are
you?”
she said out loud.

“Shhh.
I’m not coming out to get shot, if that’s what you want. Are you hunting me or
the Konuan?”

He must
be from that ship.

“The
Konuan,” she replied over her link. “Are you with the space force? We saw you
land.”

“All
you need to know is I’m hunting the Konuan and it’s in this building with us. I
have robots stationed around the exits.”

“Those
little scout robots? It’s more dangerous than you think.”

“Just
tell me how to kill it.”

Arakaki
recognized that edge to his voice. The man who spoke to her was angry at it.

Like
me.

“It’s
fast,” she said. “It can sense us from farther away than we can sense it.
Hearing, I think. It has technology, too.”

“It has
tech? How? These ruins—”

“Are
built on top of a Trilisk outpost,” Arakaki finished for him. “Now that I’ve
given you valuable information, how about you tell me who you are?”

Magnus
materialized before her. He was a soldier. Arakaki could tell that right away.
He was strong, with blonde hair. He wore Momma Veer and held an older rifle in
his hands. His rifle was pointed at her heart. She doubted her skinsuit could
save her at point-blank range.