Solfleet: The Call of Duty (34 page)

In fact, as
far as Hansen knew, the only thing in their history that had ever put a stop to
their fighting was the heavy iron claw of total Veshtonn domination, under
which both worlds had suffered for nearly eighteen years. But in the four years
since the Coalition had liberated their system, the acts of violence between
them, though still relatively small in scope, had begun to pick up again, both
in frequency and in severity.

Now, it
appeared, proof of the long suspected covert cooperation between the Sulaini
government and the Veshtonn had been discovered. The Sulaini had begun making concessions
to their old enemy in return for their support. No doubt the Veshtonn had their
own agenda, separate from that of the Sulaini, but as far as the Sulaini were
concerned, their old enemy was now their ally.

So the two
Caldanran worlds were once again teetering precariously on the very brink of interplanetary
war. In fact, knowing that the Veshtonn were poised to take advantage of any
opportunity that might arise, the Cirrans’ memory of what it had been like to
live under their brutal rule was probably the only thing preventing them from
retaliating against their aggressive brothers. But memory could be fleeting,
especially in the face of active aggression. There was no way of telling just
how long their better judgment might hold out, now that the Sulaini had made a
move against them.

Hansen
sighed again. A shooting war in the Caldanra system would not only jeopardize
Solfleet’s facilities there, but would also significantly degrade the overall
effectiveness of Coalition forces throughout the entire sector. That in turn
would provide the Veshtonn with a huge tactical advantage. Once hostilities
commenced, the enemy would soon be able to advance almost at will through the
system and would likely retake that entire sector before any Coalition
counterattack into the Rosha’Kana system could be mounted.

If that
happened—if the Veshtonn were given the opportunity to rebuild their forces in
the Caldanra system and then combine them with those already occupying the
Rosha’Kana system, Solfleet would stand little if any chance of slowing their
advance toward Earth to the extent that he, the president, MacLeod, and
everyone else involved in planning the Timeshift mission were counting on. As a
result, their timetable would likely be shortened drastically, perhaps by as
much as four months. There wouldn’t be near enough time to prepare Sergeant
Graves for the mission. They’d have to send someone else, and Hansen
really
didn’t
want to have to do that.

Truth be
told, he didn’t really want to have to send
anyone
. But if the president
ordered the mission then his duty would be to see that it was carried out.

But what if
the president ultimately decided
not
to authorize it, which was very
likely going to be the case? What then? Without Timeshift everything depended
on the survival of the Tor’Kana race. Everything depended on the success of the
Rosha’Kana counterattack.

The mission,
dubbed ‘Operation Mass Eviction,’ called for all of the as yet unconquered Coalition
member worlds to combine whatever military forces they had left within the
vicinity surrounding the Rosha’Kana system and mount a comprehensive,
multi-faceted attack into the heart of the Veshtonn occupation. In Hansen’s
opinion they had no choice but to go forward and had to do so soon. They had to
return the surviving Tor’Kana to their home world as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, the most logical place from which to stage the operation had
proven to be the Caldanra system. Considering the latest developments, staging
an operation of such magnitude from there was going to prove much more easily
said than done.

There was
only one thing to do. He wished it could wait. He wished he could give Royer
the time she needed to get out there and persuade Graves to join them. But
there was no way the Cirrans were going to wait that long. Hell, he was
surprised they hadn’t
already
retaliated.

He picked up
his mug and gulped down the last mouthful of his lukewarm second cup of coffee—or
was it his third?—then reached for his comm-panel, hoping it wasn’t too late to
catch the president in her office before she left to conduct her weekly
Federation Network broadcast.

The day
known as Set’Ah, which currently fell on Saturday on the Earth calendar, served
as the Cirran equivalent of a Sabbath, so traffic had been very light and Dylan
had made it home in record time. As he reached the top of the stairs that led
up from the complex’s parking lot, he noticed someone coming down the sidewalk
from the general direction of his building. The man gave no indication of
having seen him yet. Rather, his attention seemed to be focused solely on whatever
the ring-adorned fingers of his right hand were tapping into the small handcomp
he carried in his left. He was dressed in casual tan slacks and a dark blue
button-down dress shirt, neither of which looked much like they’d just been
taken out of the closet, and a lightweight brown leather jacket that matched
the color of his dress shoes almost perfectly. His slicked back dark hair
looked damp, as if he’d just taken a shower, but that might just have been a
generous application of hair gel.

They’d
approached to within five meters of each other before the stranger looked up
quite suddenly, as if Dylan had startled him. When he did, an odd expression
like recognition combined with fear flashed briefly across his face and he
seemed to hesitate for a moment—just a slight, barely perceptible stutter in his
stride—before he continued approaching. Had Dylan not been trained to observe,
he probably would have missed it.

“Good
morning,” the stranger mumbled as he passed, nodding slightly, which enabled
him to avoid making eye contact.

“Morning,”
Dylan responded. Then he stopped, turned around, and watched the stranger stuff
his handcomp inside his jacket and trot hurriedly down the steps and out of
sight.

There was
something not quite right about that man—something about the way he’d avoided
eye contact. Dylan felt sure that he’d done it intentionally. And his ‘good
morning’ had come without the quick flash of a friendly smile that usually
accompanied such a greeting. And then there was that split second of fear. Why?
Why would the stranger fear him? Dylan wasn’t angry at him. Hell, he didn’t
even know the guy. Maybe he was just shy? No, that wasn’t it. Shyness might
explain the averted eyes and the frosty greeting, but not the fear.

A car door
closed. An engine started. Dylan watched a small blue sports car, presumably
the same guy, pull out of the lot and speed down the road and out of sight,
then continued walking toward his building. He’d have to keep an eye on that guy
if he ever came back around.

It was an
odd thing though. He’d thought he knew everyone who lived in his building, at
least by sight if not by name. Then again, the stranger might just have been
visiting someone. He might have been a tenant’s friend or relative. Or maybe he’d
come out of one of the other buildings and, being unfamiliar with the layout,
had taken a roundabout path to the parking lot. Of course, Dylan had been gone
for a couple of weeks, too, and since the complex housed mostly Solfleet
personnel, there tended to be a fairly high turnover rate. Running across a new
face every now and then wasn’t all that uncommon. So maybe he was a new
resident. Whatever the answer, he decided there was no point in dwelling on it.

He crept as
light-footed as he could up the stairs to his landing—it was still pretty early
and Carolyn would still be asleep—and found the front door to be locked. That
was as it should have been, although Carolyn rarely ever remembered to lock it.
Good for her, this time. He dug his keycard out of his pocket, slipped it into
the slot, and punched in his access code. The lock released with a click and
the door swung slightly ajar.

He stepped
inside, closed and relocked the door behind him as quietly as he could, then
stood still in the semi-darkness for a moment, listening for any indication
that Carolyn might be up and about. The apartment was completely silent. He
slipped off his sandals and kicked them aside, then crossed the living room and
opened the full-length beige curtains that hung across the large panoramic
window—Carolyn had actually closed them for a change—flooding the room with
bright morning sunlight. The vibrant blue and deep green house plants that
flanked each piece of furniture and dressed the four corners of the room, many
of which Carolyn had brought with them from Earth, seemed to perk up right away,
as if the warm life-sustaining light had awakened them from their own nocturnal
slumber.

He crept
quietly into the bedroom and found Carolyn still in bed asleep, just as he’d expected
he would. She lay naked on her right side, facing the far wall and hugging her over-sized
pillow tightly to her bosom, and her her legs were wrapped around the twisted
and tangled blankets as if they were making love to her. That was certainly
different. Thinking back over the years, Dylan couldn’t remember the last time
she’d slept in the nude. The bed was heavily rumpled and the bottom sheet had
pulled away from the corner of the mattress closest to her head. Bad dreams?

Being
careful not to disturb her, he set his laundry bag down out of the way and
treaded lightly into the bathroom to relieve himself. He finished quickly and
washed his hands while the toilet flushed, then dried them on a damp hand towel
that was hanging slightly askew on the rack next to the sink. Then he stepped
back into the bedroom and tip-toed over to the curtains—a matched set to the
ones in the living room. Instead of hiding one large panoramic window, they
covered a sliding glass door and the two substantially smaller windows of a
more conventional design that flanked it. He found the cleverly concealed split
in the fabric and pushed the left curtain aside just enough to expose the small
green touch-pad set into the narrow strip of wall between the door and the left
window.

He tapped
the pad and the door slid open, almost without a sound. He stepped out onto the
beautifully stained hardwood rear deck and drew a deep breath, filling his
lungs with fresh forest air. Roughly nine months had passed since he and
Carolyn had arrived on Cirra and moved into this secluded housing complex
several kilometers from the base, but he still enjoyed sitting outside and
taking in the view whenever he had time.

The smaller,
more distant of Cirra’s twin moons was slowly rising into the now cloudless
blue-green sky from beyond the snow-capped peaks in the west, its soft
gray-white face barely visible through the sunlit atmosphere. Several large
birds of prey, some with wing spans he knew to be as wide as six or seven
meters, soared in silence at dizzying heights, awaiting their chance to swoop
down out of the sky and snatch up any unwary prey—their favorite meal was an
animal very much like Earth’s white-tail deer—while untold numbers of the
smaller, more timid species sang their morning greetings to Caldanra, the
mother star, for all to hear. A dense, eternally dark forest of hundred meter
tall everblues blanketed the rolling terrain of the surrounding countryside and
stood watchful guard over the small city that lay nestled in the deep valley
far to the north. No matter the time of day or night, their pleasing pine-like
aroma was always prominent and early-morning fresh, no doubt due to the underlying
hint of mint that emanated from the bluer female variety.

Now there
was irony. Unlike Earth women, not to mention most other humanoid females,
Cirran women never wore any kind of perfume because to do so would violate one
or another of their innumerable religious taboos. Yet the female
trees
of Cirra used their aroma in a perfume-like manner to stimulate their male
counterparts into releasing whatever it was they released to make little trees.
And they bred like rabbits in springtime. Not even the invigorating fragrances
of the varied flora in the garden below could overpower the tree-scent much
beyond the garden’s own confines.

The trees’
human-like characteristics reminded him of a Bible passage he’d read once, long
ago when he used to take a little time each morning to read that ancient text.
It came from the book of ‘Luke’ if he remembered correctly.
‘And some of the
Pharisees called to him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” But
He answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the
stones would immediately cry out.’”
If trees could use perfume to seduce
other trees, then maybe the idea of stones crying out wasn’t such a stretch
after all.

The garden
itself—one of four in the sprawling sixteen building complex—was large and
meticulously sculpted, and dominated almost the entire courtyard that lay
amidst the four identical apartment buildings, including his own, that formed a
loose square around it. Several sand-based paths of pale pink and off-white
pebbles, many of them speckled with shimmering orange-yellow flecks, meandered
among hundreds of varieties of pastel blossoms and exotic blue and green
flowering plants. Small wooden bridges provided solid footing where narrow
streams of cool, semi-phosphorescent violet-blue water flowed across them.
Every dozen meters or so along each one of those paths, larger than life-sized
white stone statues of gracefully posed and often scantily clad Cirran gods and
goddesses, much like the figures created by the ancient artisans of Europe,
stood watch over polished wood and rose-marble benches that sat amidst the
flower gardens, waiting for visitors to take rest upon them. The garden was
truly an artistic achievement and, except for Marissa, was the most beautiful
sight that Dylan had seen in the last two weeks.