Retreat And Adapt (A Galaxy Unknown) Read online

  * * *

  "Chairman Strauss has disappeared," former Lower Councilmember Erika Overgaard said to the council members assembled for the day's scheduled meeting. With Strauss's seat vacant, there were only seven members around the table. "Today's meeting is canceled, as are all meetings until a new Lower Council Chairman is selected. You'll be notified when that happens and meetings resume. I don't anticipate this taking longer than a week."

  "Is there going to be a service?" Councilmember Flora Iversen asked. "We had one for Chairman Andrei Gagarin when he disappeared."

  "No, no service. Chairman Gagarin didn't disappear. He— retired. Strauss has simply vanished. We have no idea where he is. He returned to his apartment after work on Friday and wasn't there this morning when his bodyguards arrived to pick him up. A lot of his clothes are gone, and he cleaned out his bank accounts last week. This appears to be a planned absence. That's all for today."

  Later that afternoon, Overgaard reported to the office of the Upper Council Chairman. "I briefed the Lower Council members. Have you decided on a new chairman, ma'am?"

  "Not yet. I've been too preoccupied with the search effort. This is so unlike Strauss— to just disappear like this."

  "He seemed pretty upset that he wasn't chosen to sit on the Upper Council."

  "We couldn't promote him. We need him to run the Lower Council. He's done a better job in that position than any other chairperson we've ever had. He was too good at what he did to promote."

  "I understand, but that kind of business policy often fosters ill will in the people not promoted for the good of the organization without regard for the career of the individual."

  "We doubled his salary and increased all his expense accounts. What more could he want?"

  "A seat on the Upper Council, obviously. Now that we have the Age Prolongation formulas, there will be almost no chance for promotion."

  "I want him found."

  "Yes, ma'am. He knows all the secrets and where the skeletons are hidden. We shall retire him with extreme prejudice when we find him."

  "Absolutely not! I want him found but not harmed. I want him returned to his job here. We need his firm hand on the Lower Council tiller. We'll find a way to make it up to him and make him want to stay in that job."

  "Yes, ma'am. We'll find him."

  * * *

  Chapter Thirty

  ~ March 26th, 2288 ~

  "We clobbered them again," Commander Katherine Jameson of the Ohio said during her debriefing session. "The warships were everywhere, milling around what was left of the mother ships and, I guess, trying to rescue trapped personnel. There were so many it made it hard to pick out a target. We've estimated that we took out at least four hundred warships during the day, but there were at least a thousand left. We might need three more trips to get them all."

  All of the officers echoed essentially the same message. They insisted that the main threat from the Denubbewa mother ships seemed to be over, and all they had to do was keep attacking until all of the Denubbewa ships were destroyed. The images provided by the bombing groups seemed to confirm their statements. Many of the enemy ships never moved during the bombing run, leading to speculation that they were already dead. Analysts would examine the images carefully before the next attack and try to determine if certain ships should not be targeted because they had already been destroyed by the Denubbewa's own small missiles.

  It was almost 0500 by the time the process was completed and the crews were allowed to retire to get some sleep after a very long day. The crews would stand down for the day and resume their bombing attacks with first watch tomorrow.

  Jenetta had remained awake and listened to all of the debriefing sessions, which had been conducted by teleconference, although she didn't participate and was off camera the entire time. The official log noted her presence even though she was never observed during the recording. So it was with a heavy head that she finally turned in. Sleep should have come easily now that everyone had returned safely, but she couldn't get the images of the Space Command and Marine personnel taken prisoner by the Denubbewa out of her head. She kept telling herself there was nothing she could have done to rescue them before the attacks began and finally drifted off to sleep after several hours of tossing and turning.

  "Going to feed the new kid?" Eliza asked as she encountered Jenetta in the corridor at the end of the first watch.

  "Yes. And you can't come," Jenetta said.

  "Why not? I want to see him."

  "I'll send you a picture."

  "I've already seen a picture. I want to see him."

  "It's too early. I don't want to confuse him. I've barely begun to bond with him myself. He seems to trust me now and does whatever I tell him, but I want a little time to reinforce that before he meets someone who looks identical to me."

  "You’re afraid he may not know the difference?"

  "Of course he would. My girls always know which of us is which. And he'd certainly know why one of us seemed different if he saw both of us at the same time."

  "Well, when can I see him?"

  "Perhaps in a couple of weeks. I'll let you know."

  "Have you decided who's going to get him?"

  "Is that what this is about? You want Thor for yourself?"

  "Yes, I'd like to take him. You can't keep three of them for yourself."

  "Who says?"

  Eliza simply made a face at that remark.

  "Okay, I agree. I can't keep all three on a continuing basis. But until I make a decision and I trust Thor to be around other people, I'm going to keep him isolated. I, alone, feed him twice a day, and my girls haven't even seen him since the first day he came aboard. I'm sure Thor smells them on my clothes, and they must detect his odor on me also since I groom him regularly. But neither has made a fuss yet. In time, I'll bring them down to see him again, and then you can see him."

  "Okay," Eliza said with a grimace. "But make it soon, okay?"

  * * *

  The bombing groups left again the next day at 0900 with a full rack of standard payload bombs in their cradles. Fifty minutes later a message arrived from the bombing leader, Commander Jameson of the Ohio, that the battle site seemed to be clear of all ships still able to travel.

  The one-half light-year distance meant that messages on the IDS band took just over ten minutes to travel between the RP and the battle site, so an interrogatory communication was impractical. Gavin, on instructions from Jenetta, immediately sent a message to the Ohio to have all ships begin a search for the missing enemy ships. The message also stated that the other five SD's and the Duluth would join the search as soon as they could reach the site.

  The first report from the searchers was received seven hours after they began their efforts to track down the missing alien ships. The Zambezi had located a group of thirty-six Denubbewa warships headed away from the battle site at their top speed of Light-462. The Zambezi was ordered to perform a flyby every hour to verify their continued flight and course.

  The next report came from the Purus. It had located another forty-three Denubbewa warships. As with the ships in the other group, they were not headed out of GA space.

  Over the next twelve hours, the search teams located a total of seven hundred forty-two warships. Estimates from analysts aboard the Ares who had studied images of the battle site were convinced there could be as many as seven hundred more that were unaccounted for, but all available ships other than the Ares and the Ferdinand were busy tracking the groups they had found.

  A tactical team put together aboard the Ares formulated a plan of attack that would produce the highest possible number of kills with a minimum waste of time and resources. Jenetta issued orders for the ten bombing groups to rendezvous and commence the attack on the first group whenever they were ready. The ships that were not part of the bombing groups were assigned to watch the largest six groups not targeted for the first attack. When every ship was in position, the attacks began.

  Six hours
later, the Ares received a message that the first group had been completely destroyed. According to the report filed, ten Denubbewa warships had been destroyed during the first run, but then the others had scattered in every direction. It had taken hours to chase them down and destroy them, but the final count was one hundred sixteen enemy warships destroyed.

  The bombing groups headed to where the next closest group should be, but they had changed course and were nowhere in the area. That was consistent with what the six ships still trailing Denubbewa warships reported. After the bombing group had made their first run, the enemy ships being tailed had changed course, no doubt the result of communication messages from the attacked group.

  Since there was no danger of losing the six alien groups being watched, the bombing groups took a break to eat and relax a little before attacking the next group.

  Over the course of twenty-eight days, the Space Command bombing groups destroyed seven hundred three of the Denubbewa warships that had fled the battle zone. A full day had been spent with the Ares and Ferdinand while the bomb cradles were reloaded, and the bombing groups had been allowed to stand down for two days while the Duluth and five SD's searched for new targets. When several more groups of Denubbewa warships had been found, the bombers went back to work.

  After two full weeks had passed without locating any more enemy ships, Jenetta ended the searches. The Artemis, the newest Ares-class battleship in the fleet, had arrived with the transport ships Winston and Sebastian, plus additional SD's and DS destroyers. They would begin the massive cleanup effort at the original battle site and the multiple locations where the warships had been destroyed. Intelligence personnel who would try to learn everything possible about the Denubbewa were still on the way. But before that work could even start, the battle areas would have to be cleared of Denubbewa missiles. Some of the ordnance engineers were estimating that the complete cleanup could take years, but Space Command couldn't simply leave the broken hulls and loose missiles that could destroy SC ships for scavengers.

  Believing that her job was done in that part of space, Jenetta decided to return to Quesann. She was looking forward to the downtime during the sixty-day trip.

  Two weeks into the trip, Jenetta invited Eliza to her quarters for dinner at the end of the first watch.

  "I don't smell anything cooking," Eliza said as she sniffed towards the steward's kitchen. Cayla and Tayna busied themselves sniffing Eliza and she bent to pet them.

  "Dinner will be ready at 1900. First we have to exercise Thor and feed him."

  "I'm finally going to see the new kid?"

  "Yes. I believe he can be trusted to have more freedom."

  "What about the girls?"

  "They haven't seen him since he came aboard, so we're all going down together. If they get a little too amorous, you'll have to help me keep them separated."

  Eliza giggled. "So I'm here as a jumaka chaperon?"

  "We both are. And it might take both of us to keep them apart if my girls are in the mood."

  "Why risk it at all?'

  "They've been wanting to see Thor even more than you have. And I'm sure he wants to see them."

  "So we have to make sure it's just a meeting of minds."

  "Platonic affection would sure save a lot of headaches later."

  As soon as the two women entered the hold with Cayla and Tayna, Thor started bouncing excitedly around in his cage. Jenetta had to tell him to calm down just so she could open the door.

  As the door opened, Thor rushed out and then stopped cold. He had been so fixated on Cayla and Tayna that he hadn't even noticed Eliza. He turned his head and looked at Jenetta, then looked at Eliza again, then back to Jenetta and back to Eliza. While Cayla and Tayna nuzzled him, he pushed his way to Eliza and sniffed. He was confused. She had almost the same smell as the other one. But the scent of Cayla and Tayna wasn't as strong on Eliza.

  "Thor," Jenetta said. "This is my sister." She knew he wouldn't understand cloning, so she said, "We come from the same litter."

  That seemed to get through. He smelled her again to remember her, then turned to Cayla and Tayna. A second later he spun and ran as fast as he could around the hold. The two female jumakas stayed right with him. If anything, they were more fit because they ran with Jenetta every day and were able to move around her quarters, whereas he had spent his days in the cage.

  The cats ran, rolled around on the deck together like kittens, and nuzzled each other while mewling almost constantly. Jenetta then fed all three together. While Thor was wolfing his food down, a small chunk fell onto the deck. When he lowered his head to retrieve it, Cayla growled at him. He was startled and stopped, then looked at her. She mewled a series of different sounds at him and then continued eating. Thor lowered his head and finished the food in his bowl, then took a long drink but never touched the food on the deck.

  While Jenetta was cleaning up after they had finished eating, Eliza asked, "Did Cayla just give Thor a lesson in table manners?"

  Jenetta picked up the piece of food and tossed it in the trash. "I think it was a lesson in security. Cayla and Tayna were trained never to eat anything that's not in their bowl. Security animals are usually trained that way to keep them from being poisoned or drugged by outsiders. I guess in their mind that even includes dropped food that lands outside their bowl."

  "And Cayla was able to communicate that to Thor?"

  "It seemed that way. Each time Tayna and Cayla have been with Thor, they've made a lot sounds that remind me of conversing. I think their spoken language abilities are far greater than I suspected. Well, the kids are exercised and fed, so now it's time for us to go eat."

  * * *

  "General Ardlessel, we've been waiting for many weeks for your report regarding the Galactic Alliance," Prime Minister Pemillisa said. "Are you finally prepared to present it?"

  Ardlessel stood at his seat. The enormous room in the Ruwalchu War Conference Center was packed with government officials and military officers either seated at the table, sitting in the gallery, or lining the walls.

  "Mr. Prime Minister, honorable members of the Gilesset, and my fellow officers, I apologize for keeping you waiting so long for this report. We are a considerable distance from Uthlarigasset, and I was waiting for a response from my contact there. Yes, I am prepared to present my information today. First, I must report that my Uthlaro contact continues to maintain that the Galactic Alliance has definite plans to take over our territory three annuals from now. We are stronger now, militarily, than we've ever been, and I know that if we continue to build ships at the current rate and our recruitment continues as it is now, we will definitely be in a position to repel them when they come."

  "That's all, General?"

  "Yes, sir. That's all of the new information I have to offer."

  "I assume you're open to questioning now?"

  "Yes, sir. I am."

  "Fine. I'd like to go first. Admiral Carver recently arrived just outside our solar system. She came peacefully, but I question how she got here at all without being detected."

  "I can't answer that, Prime Minister."

  "You don't know?"

  "We're still investigating."

  "You've had many weeks. How much longer is your investigation going to take?"

  "I can't answer that, Prime Minister."

  "Will you know in a month?"

  "Again, I can't answer that, Prime Minister."

  "You must have some idea. What leads are you following?"

  "Uh— it seems inconceivable that she could have gotten past all our sensor systems completely undetected. We're still working on finding out how that happened."

  "Okay, let's move on. The Director of Planetary Defense filed a report that when Admiral Carver was here, our systems couldn't fix her exact position. Are you aware of that?"

  "Yes, sir. We looked into that and tested the systems. Everything appears to have been working fine."

  "Then how do you account for the fact that
our systems couldn't establish exact positions for her ship or the other ships with her?"

  "I can't answer that, sir."

  "You're saying you have no idea?"

  "We've reviewed the recorded data and it appears that she was there some of the time but not there at others. We're trying to determine the reason for the anomalies."

  "So, you say that she was not there some of the time, yet we clearly communicated with her. Are you telling us we were watching some sort of long-distance projected hologram?"

  "No, sir, it was not a hologram. The vid signal was definitely emanating from the immediate area where we believe she must have been."

  "Could it have been a relay satellite?"

  "No, sir. That would have shown clearly."

  "Then how do you explain this?"

  "We're still investigating, sir."

  "So at this time you can't establish exactly where she was located?"

  "Uh, we can't, Prime Minister. At least not yet."

  "Okay, let's move on. When Admiral Carver was preparing to leave, I told her we would order our ships not to attack her on her way out of our space. She replied that it wasn't necessary because our weapons couldn't hurt them."

  "Obvious bravado, Prime Minister."

  "Bravado?"

  "Yes, sir. Our weapons are among the most powerful known and can destroy any ship."

  "Did your command center watch Admiral Carver's progress as she left our territory?"

  "I can't answer that, sir."

  "You don't know if your people watched her leave?"

  "Uh— we tried to, sir."

  "And what did you see?"

  "She, uh, didn't show up on any of our systems."

  "A battleship and five smaller ships didn't appear on any of our sensors. Not on the way in or on the way out?"

  Ardlessel hesitated for a couple of seconds before saying, "We only know that one second she was there, communicating with the Council, and the next she was gone."

  "And that doesn't seem strange to you?"

  "It is very strange, and we continue to examine the systems to find out how she did it."