Trade World Saga 1: Manual Interpretation (36 page)

Oshira had
thought
there might be a problem like this so he had made arrangements with General Alexander. He signaled his computer that he wanted privacy and waited for the stressed space field to be cut so he could send a call. The computer alerted him when the field was down and he immediately placed his call. The comm was answered at once and Alexander himself came on the line.

"Just as we thought General...amateurs and they've already misdirected the negotiations."

"So they screwed up, Oshira. Where were you? I thought you were going to lead the negotiations -- see what they wanted -- see what we can get."

Oshira was put off by the holier than thou attitude but bit back a retort and stated simply, "I think we ought to use an alternate negotiation team."

Alexander tilted his head and then grinned as the message delay played out Oshira's message. You are as much of a problem as the others, Alexander thought. Clearly; he must act and act now. Alexander didn't nod -- didn't say anything -- he just grinned that grim little grin and switched off.

THE SMELL WILL TELL

"You are the one reading it wrong," Brad exclaimed to an exasperated Andrew.

"Brad's right. Did you smell that smell when he had the calculator? Phew. He must have been upset." Desiree said.

"Look. He said that locket do-ee had dung from his father's, father's home planet… " Andrew asserted.

"Father's," Ling interjected.

"Huh," several others in the group turned to her. She had been quiet in the discussion and rarely talked unless it was something of import. "Father's, father's, father's home planet..."

"What's your point? It's dung." Brad said.

"The average lifespan of these creatures is about 150 years according to our manuals and some live well over 200 of our years. That means his family has been carrying around that shit...pardon my pun...for over 500 years. I'd say it has a bit more significance to them than to us. I bet you don't even know the name of your father's, father's, father, "Ling said and saw that her point had struck home.

"...Brad doesn't know the name of HIS father... " Andrew whispered sotto voce to Susan who sniggered.

"What about the smell. It means..."

"...It means squat, Brad," Andrew said. "If I fart during a meeting, don't make it out to be of cosmic import. We don't know what their smells mean. If we start judging them by the way we like or dislike their smells -- we'll be in serious trouble."

"We are in trouble. We have to make sense of this and get this resolved quickly. Okay. I'll buy it that we aren't sure how they took it but the necklace, locket thing probably was a more positive thing than I originally thought. I guess," Brad looked at Ling and then at Andrew," …and the smell deal might have been something else...but I am concerned that they left so quickly. Who have we got monitoring their ship? They did get there safely I assume."

Susan spoke up. "I have night shift with two techs scanning the area around the ship and adjacent space. They seemed to never notice the difference as they crossed to their ship. We were able to cut the stressed space field well before they got close.

OSHIRA AND ALEXANDER

General Alexander was pleased that it had turned out as it had. Oshira was a fool but a fool who could be manipulated. They had reprimanded me because of the initial negotiation incident but there were few that had the grasp of the military aspects of the situation like I do, he thought. It had been difficult to get the information out of the Enclosure but; piece, by piece, he had obtained enough that he could entertain the notion of building an enclosure and ships himself. Philips coming along and agreeing to bankroll all equipment in exchange for the technical specs of new equipment had been a blessing that was not to be denied. Now he had two heavily armed ships, damned easy to build. Too bad they had not gotten that molecular disruptor information. Those “college boys” thought they had powerful lasers -- wait 'til they see what we have.

His two ships and a company of soldiers sped toward the moon and were mere minutes away after loading. They had portable field generators but did not have the pressor field apparatus -- as they had not been able to get plans for those. This would have to do.

Oshira decided he must take the lead since it would probably be three days before Alexander's people could get here. He waited patiently for a few hours for the station to get quiet. He got up from his console and walked over to his suit where he took a tube of survival food out and slipped it into his pocket. He opened his door and carefully peeked down the hall. He walked to the area that was near surveillance coverage of the alien ship. He put the tube of survival food in his hand and leaned around the corner at the end of the corridor. A four-centimeter diameter bubble covered the front of the camera unit and he squirted food from the tube and smeared it over the surface. He then quickly moved down the hall and did the same at the entry airlock camera. Oshira cycled the door and moved toward the alien ship.

The comm panel blared. Brad, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and said, "Go ahead."

"Colonel. Someone just blanked the cameras and entered the alien ship," said the tech. "Sorry to wake you."

"That's okay. Send a security squad, in suits, to outside the alien ship. Have everyone get in suits now – all personnel. Keep the security team on stand by but take no action unless necessary. I'll be right over," he said and keyed Ling's extension. "Ling. Suit up and meet me at the command center." He switched off. "Shit," he said to himself, "Oshira."

Oshira tapped on the door to the alien ship. The door cycled inward and slid aside. An Ullumff stood in the opening with a hand weapon pointed straight ahead.

Oshira gulped and stammered. "I'm...I'm... " he said in English, before switching to
Trade
. "I wish to talk with the captain."

The Ullumff grunted without taking his eyes or his weapon off Oshira. Another Ullumff came up and grunted something at the other and the weapon was lowered and the first one, stepped back out of sight.

"Which one are you? What do you want?" said the second Ullumff.

Oshira was affronted that these aliens could not distinguish his cultured good looks from the rest of the young station crew. "Captain. I wish to continue the negotiations."

The Ullumff snorted and Oshira could smell the cinnamon smell. He did not realize this Ullumff was getting angry. "The captain left orders that he not be disturbed. I am the Navigator. Which one are you?"

Oshira was taken aback that he could have been wrong. "My name is Oshira. I wish to discuss the gift Williams gave your captain."

"It was an immense gift and the captain is trying to decide what he must give you back. Even his family dung could not repay what transpired."

Oshira decided that this navigator was using sarcasm at his expense. "I wish to start negotiations with the captain."

The navigator heard a tone and another crewmember said something to him. He suddenly reached out, grabbed Oshira by the collar, and jerked him off his feet and through the hatch which slammed shut behind him.

Colonel Kyger was in the control room with Ling and several duty officers when the ready team got to the Ullumff ship airlock area. They had just gotten Oshira in sight next to the hatch when they saw him jerked through the door of the ship.

The console next to Brad lit up and the station shook as the depressurization alarm went off.

"We just saw Oshira jerked through the hatch of the Ullumff ship," reported the team from near the airlock.

"Are the Ullumff attacking?" Ling asked as the station shook again from pressurization changes.

"I don't think so. Damn. We lost of our communications uplink. Our stressed space field snapped on but whoever is attacking is using a laser with a hell of a punch. Must be... " he was interrupted again when the lighting went out and the emergency lighting kicked in. "Whoever is doing this knows the layout of this place backwards and forwards. I'll bet Oshira is in this up to his neck. Well. Whoever laid this out is probably from Earth and needs a proper welcome. I doubt they'll want to raze this to the crust," Brad said as he directed his people to set up ambushes and set up alternate incident command centers. "If they're not Ullumff...burn them. Team Three -- try to get to November Four Delta."

Colonel Kyger unlocked the arms locker in the back of the command center and handed out weapons as he explained. "Luckily we were all suited or that attack would have killed most of us. We need to get to a ship before we're overrun. They could wait us out in these suits and it would be over in a couple of days at most but I don't think they'll wait that long and I certainly don't intend to."

"How will we fight them off here and what about the Ullumff?" Ling asked.

"We are leaving and those left will cut them apart. They have to hit them in one coordinated attack or they stand off and burn holes in any place they can't control. I don't have any standing defenses other than some new small arms with the ground teams. All, our defense is tied up in the few ships we have and I can't contact any of them to warn them. This shows a lot of our weaknesses."

"Hi handsome," said a figure over the tact frequency as a figure flew into the room.

"Fran! I'm very happy to see you," Brad said.

"It was a little breezy in a couple of the corridors or I would have been here sooner," she said as she laid a hand on his chest for just a moment.

It was obvious from the way his face stayed on her for that second that they cared about each other. He then moved away and keyed his mike. "We're out at the next hit and aimed a molecular disruptor at the north bulkhead. Another lesser shock ran through the complex and he fired at the wall and made a two meter diameter hole. "We move together fast due north of here about oen hundred and thirty klicks into the twilight region we have another ship hidden for emergencies. It isn't as heavily armed but it has communications gear. It's at coordinate November Four Delta three. Everyone... Up for a little flight? Keep your fields set at about zero point five. The pressors won't move us as fast in this gravity and we won't stand out as readily in a lighter field even if they have decent field detection gear.

The lunar outpost refugees of the attack moved low across the surface until they came to a low mountain range. It had taken an hour to move to the remote complex since they had had to travel low and slow in an indirect route. They hoped to avoid detection in the confusion of the attack.

General Alexander was very pleased even though the alien ship had powered up and disappeared. The power supplies and communications equipment had been amputated quickly. He reasoned any loss of life was in the interest of the Earth and a small price to pay. He knew he'd set this up well. He waited nearby and then directed laser fire to several possible ground station strongholds. An hour later, he was on the ground and his strike troops were moving. Lack of resistance didn't bother him a bit since there had been no warning. He hoped Oshira had been regrettably lost also in the unprovoked attack by the 'alien ship'. Lucky his troops were on hand to run them off and take control of the station. The winners get to write the history books, he thought. He smiled and ordered the strike teams to enter.

"They are entering the station. Looks like Earth troops all right but don't know whom they represent yet. Here we are folks. Easy now," Brad said over their Mem-Dexs as they approached a shadowed crater. There was a small entrance and the ship was deep inside a cavernous room of rock.

"Wow," somebody said.

"Double wow," said Fran. "How did you make this here?"

Brad said, "These molecular disrupters let you excavate a room this size in a few hours. The only problem is the release of hydrogen gas when you use those things. It can get twitchy in a small space or if the release of the gas moves big clouds of dust around. I know from experience. The ship was just flown in a couple of weeks ago. Everyone in now and let's get the communications gear fired up first. Ling. Would you handle that? This is one of the later prototypes of our main ships."

Ling nodded and began calling the ship designations that Brad sent her from his Mem-Dex. Three ships were a couple hours away and it would be another four hours before the two Mars ships could make it. All available would be coordinated for a strike in two hours. The station crew was warned to initiate action ten minutes before that to distract the attackers from the approaching ships.

"Take this ship up a hundred kilometers where we can scan and then we'll plan from there."

The ship raced away out and up from the lunar surface. The detectors were turned on as the field around the ship was damped.

"Colonel," said a tech. "Looks like two ships near the station. May be the Ullumff ship near the asteroid belt. Yep. Different signature. Our other three ships are about to get en route… too soon for Mars to respond. Colonel. Look here," he pointed to the display. "Here's the Enclosure where our ships were built and here in New Mexico is another one. Not so big."

"Let our people on Earth get a full update and we'll settle that score later. Put me in touch with Andrew and the other station teams when we get in range. Let's go down almost to the lunar surface and then move closer. Can you hug the contour without splitting us open and cut back on the microwave navigation signature so we won't set them off as we get closer."