The Dead Sun(Star Force Series #9)

-22-



The fleet crossed into the Eden System. I was glad to see that Captain Grass was back at his post, scaring the Blues with his outdated carrier.

Grass greeted me as I entered the system, and I turned down the audio until it was barely audible. Every now and then, he paused, and I made an appreciative comment. He seemed to like this and blew nice words about honor and the grand battles his people had fought alongside mine. He’d been talking about this for nearly a half-hour. I treated myself to a beer while he did so.

I was in a magnanimous mood. Marvin finally had a complete, feasible plan. Sure, it might not work, but at least we had something to work with. We’d try it, then send through a normal probe. If it didn’t come back, we’d failed. But if it did…I’d take my fleet through, and there would be hell to pay inside the Macro home system.

Jasmine came into my office and frowned at me. My boots were on my desk, and I knew that annoyed her even though the nanites took care of the dirt that sprinkled from them. There wasn’t much dirt on a spaceship anyway unless you landed to walk around on a planetary body, which we hadn’t done since leaving Earth.

I put my hand up and touched the mute button. Captain Grass was still going, but I didn’t cut him off. I wanted to let him get it all out of his system.

“What’s up, love?” I asked her.

She pointed to my com-link. “Are you still talking to that Captain?”

“Yeah. I planned to give him a full hour, but I’m getting bored now.”

“A full hour? What’s he saying?”

“Honestly, I have no idea anymore.”

Her eyes slid to the beer in my other hand. She nodded. “Well, you have another call. Something urgent is coming in from Eden-6.”

“Urgent? Who is it?”

“Professor Hoon.”

I frowned for a second, then recalled the name and winced. “Not that lobster we left on the water planet? What does he want?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But since you’ve given Captain Grass over thirty minutes, don’t you think you owe it to Hoon to at least find out?”

I sighed. Being the leader of a galactic alliance, or empire, or whatever it was I was running, wasn’t always a good thing. People were desperate to talk to you every day about something—and they were almost always a pain in the ass.

I begged off with Grass finally, having heard more than enough about the winds on lakeshores that had first ruffled his fur as a kid, or whatever he was telling me now. He sounded a little disappointed, but less so when I told him truthfully I had another urgent call coming in.

With trepidation, I switched over to Hoon’s channel. He was a Crustacean, a race of intellectual lobsters that we’d first encountered in the Thor System. When we initially met up with them, they’d fought alongside the Macros against us. Like many races, they’d been subjugated and served the machines.

I tried not to judge them too harshly for this. I’d sold our souls to the alien robots myself, once upon a time. But they hadn’t signed on to our rebellion too quickly. They fought us tenaciously at first. Then they’d given us platitudes and tried to be neutral. Only when they’d realized the machines weren’t going to allow their species to survive did they join us.

It had been a disaster. Trillions had died on the three lovely worlds they inhabited. Their scattered survivors had been transported to Eden-6, the native world of the Microbes, where they’d begun a new life on that planet of endless tropical seas.

“Hey, Professor Hoon!” I said, going with enthusiasm from the outset. “Great to hear from you. I understand your people are doing very well on your new home planet, and I want to congratulate you on your successful migration.”

Hoon’s translated voice was odd, and it burbled slightly when he spoke. “I find your attitude self-serving, Colonel Riggs.”

I rolled my eyes. “Just trying to be friendly. I’m always happy to take a social call from a friend. Now, what can I do for you?”

“You can return our true homeworlds to us.”

I squinched my eyes. “That’s going to be a little difficult. As you know, they’ve been irradiated and are now uninhabitable.”

“We are quite aware of that. We are also aware of your unauthorized removal of the crust of one of our worlds.”

I winced. So that was it. Someone had let the cat out of the bag on that point. I knew they were big on the sanctity of graves and birthplaces. I could only imagine how they felt about the steam-rolling of a billion hectares of their land whether it was irradiated or not.

“Your attitude has changed since the last time we met, Professor,” I said. The last time we’d spoken, he’d been servile, treating me as a conqueror.

“We’ve learned much about you personally, your species, your history and your culture over the last year. We now understand that your depredations were not clever and elaborate plots. The truth is an even greater humiliation. We’ve discovered that you, in particular, are nothing more than a lucky incompetent: An accidental prodigy, who somehow drifted to the top of your species’ social stratum during a time of unprecedented crises.”

His words were true enough to cause me pain. Under normal circumstances, I would have told him off and cut the channel. But, somehow, I found I couldn’t. This fellow, among all the annoying aliens I’d ever encountered, had some good reasons to chew me out. I felt compelled to listen to him.

“It was not enough that you oversaw the destruction of our species and all three of our homeworlds. In addition, you saw fit to remove a sizable portion of the mass of one of them for your own odd purposes. I can’t believe that—”

I got a bright idea about then, and I went with it.

“Professor!” I interrupted. “I understand your grievances, but I have some good news. I’d like to make you an offer.”

“An offer?” he asked suspiciously.

“I’d like to give you command of a Star Force ship. You might be aware of a certain Captain Grass who operates a carrier in this system. If you were given a command of a comparable nature, I’m sure you would—”

“Your suggestion is laced with insults.”

I frowned. “How so?”

“To compare me to the befurred fools that live on several of the planets in this system is beyond the pale, Colonel. We aren’t ignorant rutting savages that have barely risen above the status of hunter-gatherer tribes. Why would we be—”

“Participation in a joint military has no appeal for you?”

“When we rebuild our military, it will be wholly independent.”

We’ll see about that, I thought to myself, but I didn’t say it aloud. Let the crawdad have his dreams.

“I understand,” I said. “What can I do for you, then?”

Professor Hoon fell silent for several long seconds. I got the impression he was conferring with others. I hoped he didn’t ask me for something I couldn’t give, like another planet or a fleet of ships they could own and operate independently.

“Access,” he said. “I would like the status of an observer aboard your ship, Colonel.”

I made a face that I normally reserved for suddenly-encountered foul odors.

“What exactly do you mean?” I asked him.

“Let me come aboard your ship to observe you personally. I’ll avoid interference with your duties. I simply would like to be aware of fateful decisions you might make in the future.”


I mulled it over. I didn’t think for a moment he would “avoid interference”, at least not if I was about to scrape the topsoil down to the bedrock on another of his dead worlds.

“All right. I’ll send a small ship to pick you up. You can accompany me to your former home system. I’d like to show you what we’re doing out there—and why we’re doing it.”

“You seek to vindicate yourself?” he asked incredulously. “Very well. I accept your challenge. Send your minions to pick up my person. But keep in mind that we’re watching you, Colonel. We know now of your severe intellectual and judgmental limitations. We can no longer be fooled with simple distractions.”

“It will be a pleasure to have you aboard, Professor,” I said with all the false politeness I could muster.

He then proceeded to grumble a bit about the presumably substandard quality of his accommodations, even though he hadn’t seen them yet.

“I assure you, sir,” I said. “You’ll get a prime cabin with an aquatic ecosystem built in.”

After he’d finally signed off, I alerted my crew concerning the impending visitation.

Admiral Newcome objected with vehemence. “But sir, we can’t entertain a civilian at this time. We’re heading into a war zone.”

“Yeah,” I said. “And I’m hoping that after the experience is over, Hoon will appreciate just what it is we do for him and all the other biotic species in this part of the galaxy.”

“I’ve listened to him speak, sir,” Newcome said. “I would count that as a faint hope.”

It took two days for Hoon to arrive. I didn’t swing by his planet or slow down. I just had a fighter land, pick him up then accelerate after us at max burn to catch up. By the time we reached Welter Station, he’d finally reached my ship.

“Hoon!” I shouted, arms outstretched in greeting.

Hoon was a lobster and probably the least huggable-looking guy I’d ever laid eyes on, but I did my best to greet him as an old friend.

At my side were my command people: Jasmine, Marvin, Gaines and Admiral Newcome. Jasmine was tapping at her wrist tablet. The rest looked on with frowns or bemusement.

Hoon froze as he got off the fighter and eyed me with stalks that were enclosed in a liquid-pumping suit. Crustaceans had spacesuits that were somewhat different than ours as they were an aquatic species. Water is much heavier than air so they had to wear tight, formfitting suits with circulating liquids only around their gills and various membranes that had to stay wet to function properly. The rest of the suit was wet inside, I was told, but more like a thick latex skin than one of our suits that didn’t normally hug our skin so tightly. Ours were more like bags full of air.

“So soon you challenge me?” Hoon asked. “I had not expected this. Will the combat be between you and me alone, or do you require three back-up fighters, as well? I’m not sure if I should be honored that you fear me so greatly.”

I faltered, frowned, and lowered my arms. My com-link was blinking, and I tapped open a private channel from Jasmine.

“Lower your arms, Kyle!” she said. “That’s how Crustaceans challenge one another to a fight: they hold their claws upraised!”

My arms dropped fully to my sides immediately. I began to smile, but thought the better of it. Hoon was wildly suspicious, and anything I did might be misinterpreted.

“Sorry!” I said. “Humans often challenge one another as a way of greeting. When they’re comrades, it means nothing but respect between warriors.”

“You claim to be ignorant of the implications of your own actions?”

“No,” I said, becoming annoyed despite my firm vows not to. “I’m trying to explain cultural variations of behavior that might be misinterpreted. I’m sorry if your people are too provincial to comprehend that other cultures might behave differently than your species’ culture does.”

“Apology accepted. Let us proceed to the bridge. I will begin my inspection there.”

I paused, not sure how to take this guy. I was already quite certain I never should have let him come aboard.