Though Saxon had been the one to pull the hull breach alarm on the Cartel’s space station, he’d still found his way to a lifepod and left, just so no one would be able to track the action to him.
Plus, Menefry had done some damage to the space station with his lucky hit. Saxon had used that as an excuse to flip the switch, making the alarm more believable.
The lifepods had minimal maneuvering capabilities. However, Saxon had managed to not shoot away with the others, and had remained in the vicinity of the queen’s space station.
It hadn’t been alarming at all to have that giant tentacle suddenly shoot out from the station and grab him, hauling him toward a dark opening in the side. Nope. Hadn’t ruffled his fur in the slightest.
Though he hadn’t planned on such an event, it appeared that the queen had prepared for the possibility of him coming aboard, and had a smart gray vest in his size waiting for him. It wasn’t his usual tweed, though close, as it appeared to be woven partially out of the fabric that the Chonchu favored.
It was a little shiny for his tastes, though he was certain that Kim would have labeled it too stodgy for her.
He was honestly just happy to be out of the damned Cartel blue that he’d had to wear as part of his disguise.
Now, Saxon stood in a viewing room, watching the work being done outside the station by large pods of the Chonchu.
Both Basil and Judit had damaged the couplings joining the Cartel’s space station to the gate mechanism. However, under Basil’s direction, the Chonchu crew had managed to remove the other station in only three hours.
Saxon had been prepared for a much longer wait while the queen’s space station was attached. They’d been planning on days.
Not merely an additional three hours.
As the last of the physical attachments were made, the electronic and computer systems booted up. The pods of Chonchu released themselves and pushed off, floating a short distance from the hinge that connected the station to the gate.
A hum reverberated beneath Saxon’s feet. The noise grew louder, more insistent. It felt as though the space station was moving, though the outside view showed that they remained stable.
Then a flash of…something…went through the room.
For a split second, Saxon would have sworn that they’d just entered hyperspace.
Then the hum died down, the thrumming returning to the normal background ambiance of an active space station.
Saxon watched with a huge grin as the aperture of the gate opened and closed.
Belaitha was now in control of the hypergate leading to the Chonchu system.
And this was just the beginning.
* * *
Saxon met with the others on Eleanor, returning to the woods conference room. Though Basil had fiddled some with the holograms projected on the walls, so that red eyes no longer peered through the trees, watching them, it still wasn’t Saxon’s favorite room. It was too warm, too dank and closed in. Though he could no longer see the eyes, he still felt as though they watched him.
It was good to see everyone again. It had been three days since they’d successfully brought the queen’s space station online. Basil had worked continuously, until Judit had forced zim to go sleep for a time. Zir skin still had gray tones to it, but at least had some healthy shades of pink in it now.
Saxon still wasn’t certain of the exact extent of the relationship between Kim and the queens. She appeared to be in a “trusted advisor” position, while the rest of them were somewhat at arm’s length.
Eleanor, Gawain, and Abban stood as projections in the center of the faux wood table, shiny material draping their amber forms. Kim was correct in her belief that Basil would never have thought of such a thing. She claimed it made the forms more “people-like.”
While Saxon might regularly question the Bantel’s sartorial choices, he agreed with her that the three Chonchu who made up the secondary engine did appear more “people-like.” Less like frozen amber spars and more like statues.
Interesting that Eleanor gave the report about the condition of the queen’s space station, and not Basil. Everything appeared to be functioning, though.
Judit had raised the question again of what happened if the Cartel sent a bomb through the gate, not caring if they damaged the gate itself, just as long as they destroyed the queen’s space station.
Eleanor’s laughter sent a shiver down Saxon’s back, raising the hackles across the back of his neck.
“They can try,” Eleanor finally said. “We control the hypergate now. We can detect such things and shunt it off to another hypertunnel before it comes through our gate.”
Saxon understood why he’d suddenly had such a chill. While it was Eleanor speaking, at the same time, it wasn’t.
Belaitha was also there, speaking through the Chonchu.
“How exactly will you do that?” Basil asked, ever the nerdy scientist.
“We control all of the hyperspace tunnels in this sector of space, now,” Belaitha finally admitted.
Saxon nodded, remembering that strange flash when it had felt as though the station had briefly entered hyperspace. He suspected, though he didn’t know for certain, that the station wasn’t merely connected to the hypergate. Instead, it was connected directly to the hyperspace tunnel.
“How many stations did Arthur build? For the queens?” Judit asked.
“One thousand, five hundred and thirty-eight,” came the precise number.
Saxon gave a low whistle. That was many, many more than he’d been expecting.
“They aren’t all located in this system, are they?” Judit said. She sounded angry. Well, angrier than usual.
“No, they are not,” Eleanor/Belaitha responded. “They are scattered throughout all the other systems.”
“That’s enough stations to control about a quarter of the hypergates currently in existence,” Basil said.
The silence that greeted zir pronouncement was telling. That was something else that Saxon and the others had been told many times: the queens, and for that matter, the Chonchu, couldn’t really lie. Instead, there were just lies of omission.
“Or possibly all of them, if you can get most of those into place, yes?” Saxon hazarded. “Control all of the hyperspace tunnels?”
“Yes,” Eleanor/Belaitha said. “Now that the first one is connected, the rest will be easier to attach.”
“Did we just help an alien species take over our entire hypergate system?” Judit said, asking the question that Saxon and the others also had.
“Totally!” Kim replied cheerily.
Saxon was actually pleased that he was not on the receiving end of Judit’s glare, though he did have the fur and claws to withstand it.
“I take it you knew about this from the start,” Judit growled.
Saxon wasn’t certain if he was going to have to physically hold Judit back from leaping across the table and strangling the Bantel. Or if he should.
At least Kim was cognizant of the danger she was suddenly in based on how her entire body just froze up.
“Yes,” she said slowly. “But only after I talked with the queens a whole bunch.” She sighed. “And they showed me this.”
Eleanor brought up a projection. A beach, somewhere down on the planet below them, littered with huge rocks.
No, those rocks were moving. Trembling. Dripping with black ichor.
It took a moment for Saxon to realize what he was seeing.
An entire beach of queens. Dying. The camera panned back, and the devastation became much more obvious. Overwhelmingly so.
He couldn’t count the number of bodies he saw dying there. Certainly hundreds. Possibly thousands.
“They were poisoned by the Cartel,” Kim said.
Saxon looked at her, curious. He’d never heard that tone before.
It sounded as though Kim was actually angry.
“To show their trust, the queens brought me to the place they’d brought the Cartel, where they’d done such damage,” Kim continued.
The location on the projection changed. Suddenly, they were underwater. A pod of Chonchu swam by, guiding a group of huge black blobs, each blob between three to four meters long.
Baby queens.
“The queens need support and protection of the Chonchu when they’re first born,” Kim continued. “Then, as they get older, they support and protect the Chonchu.”
Judit had posited that the two were two species in a symbiotic relationship. That appeared to be the case.
“In order to show their trust, the queens brought me to the birthing lair,” Kim said. Her voice sounded soft now, almost in awe of what she’d seen. “They recognized it was their most vulnerable location. It was where the assassin from the Cartel had struck. He’d poisoned the lair. The queens who came to help were poisoned as well. So many died.”
The sadness in Kim’s voice made Saxon uncomfortable. It wasn’t faked, that much he could tell.
Kim sighed. “So,” she continued, obviously trying to be more upbeat. “They knew that you’d be hesitant about handing over all of the hyperspace tunnels to them. They gave me the key to destroying them, that I’m passing along to you.”
She made a shoving motion with her hands. The computer screen beside Judit came alive. No one else could see the data that flowed over it.
“These coordinates are the lair? Or rather, lairs?” Judit clarified.
“Yes,” Kim said. “Along with recipes for more than one poison that would destroy all of them.”
Kim shuddered at that. Seemed she didn’t like carrying such knowledge around and was happy to relinquish it to Judit.
“All right,” Judit said slowly. “So this is a bribe? In order to help them take over, I hold the key to destroying them?”
“Exactly!” Kim said brightly. “Mutually assured destruction.”
“They don’t have to let me back into their system, once I leave,” Judit pointed out. “You said that you could re-route any traffic coming in, right?” she directed the question at the hologram of the three Chonchu.
“True,” Eleanor/Belaitha said. “However, while we’d appreciate you keeping this knowledge to yourself, we know that you could also give it to someone else. Anyone. We would have no idea who your assassin was.”
Judit nodded, obviously not pleased that she’d been conned into doing this.
Yet, on the other hand, it was a good way of getting rid of the Cartel’s control on the hypergate system.
Once they figured out how to attach the other space stations of the queens. That would be a massive undertaking. A simple con wouldn’t do it.
“That only gets us halfway there,” Judit finally grumbled. “We still need to fully get rid of the Cartel.”
“We can’t help you with that,” Eleanor/Belaitha said. “There’s so much of the rest of the universe that we’re unaware of. We’ve been isolated for too long for us to know what to do. However, once you come up with a plan, we will be eager to help.”
Judit sighed. Saxon could see the weight of the entire situation had just gathered on her broad shoulders.
“We’re all here to help,” he reminded his captain softly.
That at least got him a soft smile. “I know,” Judit said. “We’re just going to have to figure out how, though.”
“We will,” Saxon said firmly.
After all, they’d already managed to oust the Cartel’s control of the Chonchu system.
Taking over the rest of the hypergates was likely to be easier.
As well as getting rid of the Cartel in general.
Right?