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WHERE IS THAT damned Relict? The laboratory’s subatomic reactor had already been up to full power for an hour and a half. The rest of the frigate crew had long since returned, but Urgeh Pu-Pu Urgeh still had not yet reentered the game. Maybe something had happened to the ancient Technician? Maybe he was wrong about his virt pod’s condition and the safety of his refuge?
“We’re changing location again!” I ordered the Engineer and Navigator, who I’d taught how to pilot the ancient laboratory.
For the third time in the last hour we had changed our position. It was both essential and a way of quickly leveling skills for my team. It was essential because the star system was now positively lousy with Composite starships. Without even using active scanning methods, we had detected over fifty thousand small interceptors and ships of larger classes, all darting from planet to planet spilling out probes and setting up intricate equipment. A few times Composite interceptors came relatively near us — inside three hundred thousand miles, or once even just thirty thousand. For a star system with distances measured in the tens and even hundreds of millions of miles, such close calls made me suspicious.
Observing the maneuvering enemy ships with greater and greater anxiety, our Analyst finally gave in and spoke up through the universal translator:
“Capitan. Must to speak. Separate cabin. One-on-one.”
For the first time in my memory, the Analyst had decided not to share his calculations with the whole team, preferring instead to relay his conclusions to his captain alone. Very intrigued, I stood up from my chair and pointed the Jarg into the corridor. The only places with no potential eavesdroppers now were my business partner Gerd Uline Tar’s empty cabin or my own. Gerd Ayni the Miyelonian, who was Uline’s roommate for the time being, was conducting a Geckho language class for crew so that room would remain vacant. Princess Minn-O meanwhile was attending that Geckho language lesson, so the captain’s berth was also safe.
I could also have asked NPC Jeweler Nefertiti to lend me her workshop for a bit. But I decided against it, because all the surfaces there were covered in tiny items, and the Jarg and I could easily overlook something valuable and knock it onto the floor or even crush it. Yes, you did not mishear about Nefertiti. To the great surprise of myself and the rest of the crew, the NPC Dryad had in fact respawned on my frigate just a step away from Space Commando Eduard Boyko, rather than her legal husband Kisly the Machinegunner. Eduard himself was highly embarrassed at the half-naked dryad hanging off his neck with tender embraces. He lowered his eyes and muttered something like, “it just sort of happened, I’m not made of stone,” and promised to come clean to Kisly when he got the chance.
“This way!” I invited the spiny space armadillo into my cabin and closed the door behind him.
The Jarg waddled into the middle of the room on his six feet and hung the universal translator around his neck:
“Captain. Complex calculation. Important conclusion. Composite knowing our coordinations. Period. Knowing well. But not revealing. Playing around with we. Scaring. Forcing out. Wanting we fly away. Going home.”
“What do they want that for?” I raised my eyebrows in surprise.
It wasn’t that I doubted the Analyst’s calculations — the Jarg had displayed an astonishing propensity for complex and far-reaching conclusions many times before — but there was something illogical in the space alien’s words. Why would the Composite rather play tag than find us and get back their little ship?
The Jarg... or actually Gerd Jarg (!!!) Woah! The Analyst’s status went up right before my eyes! His Fame wasn’t likely to have changed — we were the only two in the cabin. That must have meant his Authority just grew. Was my high opinion of the Jarg’s abilities the straw that broke the camel’s back and upped his rank?! Cool if so. I congratulated my crew member on the promotion.
“Timely. Intelligence promote growth strongly,” the Jarg commented thoughtfully, clearly currently spending his free points. The space armadillo’s speech immediately became much more correct. “Now a more accurate prognosis. The Composite DEFINITELY knows our coordinates. But is trying not to reveal that knowledge. The interceptor pilots are making mistakes ON PURPOSE. When flying toward us. The Composite is aware of null transport. The Composite has nearly grasped this technology. The ships have already laid out detectors. They want to get us to go back. Home. They will then have their enemy’s coordinates. And with time, the Composite could come pay our galaxy a surprise visit.”
“‘With time,’ how long would that be?” I latched into that critical aspect of Gerd Jarg’s prognosis. “One day? One tong? One thousand tongs? I need something concrete, Analyst!”
The spiny six-legged armadillo closed his eyes and stood still. I didn’t stop the Jarg and waited patiently, nervously pacing the berth to and fro. There was a lot riding on the Analyst’s response, all the way up to the fate of planet Earth. Three minutes passed before he switched back on and gave a response:
“Captain Gnat, given the known parameters of null transport, the Composite invasion will take between twenty standard days and a quarter tong! I cannot make a more accurate prognosis than that — insufficient data.”
For a few seconds, the Jarg and I stared into one another’s eyes, both understanding the critical importance of that information. We would be bringing half a million starships of an aggressive and highly technologically advanced civilization behind us. Should we go to a random point int he Universe to get the Composite off our trail? Or... I spent a few minutes standing in silence, then breathed a heavy sigh, having come to a difficult decision.
“Kharsssh-O? The Throne World of the Meleyephatian Horde?” Gerd Jarg guessed my line of thought unfailingly, confirming my very high opinion of his analytical abilities. I nodded in silence. That way, the main fleet of the Meleyephatian Horde would be tied up with something other than the war against the Geckho and their vassals. But would we perhaps not be trying to extinguish the fire of war with gasoline?
Just in case, I warned the Analyst not to tell anyone, though I had no doubts that Gerd Jarg would know well enough to keep his mouth shut:
“Not a word to anyone about this conversation or your calculations! Not here on the frigate, not back home! The future of both of our worlds depends on it!”
* * *
“READY, CAPTAIN! I FINALLY got it within the acceptable error range!” Ayukh the Navigator, his eyes sunken in exhaustion, turned away from the monitor. “Of course, more points would be nice for higher correlation and confidence but, overall, we’re in an acceptable range. We can now enter the coordinates for the end point of the null transport!”
I walked over and glanced at the furry Geckho’s calculations. Unknown formulas of mind-bending complexity, endless columns of digits. Maximum allowable deviation, dispersion, accounting for time factor, tensor nonlinearity of space... No, I didn’t understand a single thing and so I tried a different tact — I read the Navigator’s emotions and thoughts. There I discovered pride at a job well-done, a sense of triumph and jubilation at the fact he was able to solve a task of such exceptional difficulty.
Psionic skill increased to level one hundred eighteen!
Basically, what my highly experienced Navigator had accomplished over the last three ummi was hard to call anything short of a miracle. Ayukh himself had written a program to correlate the known coordinates of the Relict laboratory’s last several jumps with the navigation computer on Tamara the Paladin using data we had extracted from the ancient station’s memory. It used fundamentally different coordinate systems, different calculation principles and just overall different logic, but still he found a way to line it all up. Not right away, of course. We first tested the accuracy of the Navigator’s calculations by making a few jumps inside the star system before the cautious Ayukh finally said he was confident it would succeed.
“Continuing to wait for Urgeh Pu-Pu Urgeh is becoming too dangerous,” I announced to the crew, which was awaiting my decision. “We will leave without the Relict Technician. Navigator, the star system coordinates I will tell you have to be translated into the Relict data format. Engineer, prepare the station for null transport!” I also sent the last part mentally to Orun Va-Mart, who was inside the ancient laboratory.
“Where are we going, Captain Gnat? Taikhirhh-o-Tsykh?” Ayukh guessed with a satisfied rumble, sitting at his workstation and flipping the navigation system tumblers one after the next.
I turned off the loudspeaker and said only for the two pilots, Analyst and Navigator who were on the bridge:
“The Kharsssh-O system. Exiting twelve thousand miles from the second planet.”
That immediately wiped the smirk off the Navigator’s furry snout. Ayukh took a nervous gulp, then gave a muted rumble — not as a threat, but simply to show his extreme composure. And I should say! We were going into the very lair of our nemesis.
I sent another mental message to my Engineer:
“Orun Va-Mart, prepare to receive coordinates from the Navigator. And the laboratory’s invisibility shield cannot be allowed to go down for even a second! If it does, you’ll pay with your head!”
After the Engineer confirmed receipt, I turned the loudspeaker back on and decided to prepare the team for what we had ahead of us. Naturally, without revealing all my plans.
“Attention, crew! Full readiness! Tamara the Paladin will now be returning to our galaxy with the Relict laboratory. There is a high likelihood we will emerge in Meleyephatian Horde space. That is...” I stumbled for a second, thinking up a more or less plausible explanation, “a quirk of the Relict null transport navigation system. We will be spat out at one of the weak points in space nearest to the coordinates we entered and the majority of them, as bad luck would have it, are located in Horde space. And thus all Frigate systems are to remain inactive. Zheltov, this is not for you. All others, complete radio silence! Exiting the game is strictly forbidden! Your captain has been named an enemy of the Meleyephatian Horde so, if they find us, the kid gloves will be off. We’ll be annihilated instantly. Right after we come out of warp, we will start accumulating energy for our next null transport to get out of danger! Beginning countdown. Three. Two. One. Go!!!”
The image on the large aggregate monitor changed instantly. The gloomy neutron star of the alien world disappeared. In its place, half of the screen was occupied by the large densely populated planet Kharsssh-O II — homeworld of the Meleyephatians, their historical origin point and the official capital of the Horde. A brownish-orange ball blanketed in millions of lights, especially visible on the night side. No oceans or seas, just darker sectors in the mountains and brighter spots for urban areas, all spilling together into one single gigalopolis that encompassed the entire planet, which was inhabited by half a trillion souls. It had three belts of orbital rings with wharfs constructing starships and docks with parked ships. Innumerable orbital elevators delivering cargo to the surface and back to near space. And tens of thousands of starships of various classes flitting all around.
Cartography skill increased to level eighty-seven!
Cartography skill increased to level eighty-eight!
Eagle Eye skill increased to level ninety-seven!
“We came out of warp pretty close...” Starship Pilot Dmitry Zheltov shuddered nervously, watching a huge spherical ore carrier as it drifted just a few miles away from us.
“Yeah, this is a regular Hong Kong harbor...” I was forced to agree with the main pilot. “We’re twelve thousand miles from the surface, but it’s like a traffic jam in Moscow after the workday is over. Navigator, calculate a jump to Taikhirhh-o-Tsykh, the space port on its moon. Close enough so we can get there on main thrusters without using our hyperdrive. Uhh! Taik Rekh, don’t do anything foolish! Paws off the cannon trigger! Don’t worry, the enemies can’t see us,” the last part was directed at our Gunner, who had activated the laser cannon targeting systems and locked on to the nearest Meleyephatian border service corvette.
“Captain, look over there!!!” Ayukh, flustered, pointed a clawed paw at the tactical screen where a large cloud of red markers had just appeared, including a few that were quite large — the game system had marked the ships drifting in that area as hostile. “That’s the...”
“Third Fleet of the Meleyephatian Horde,” I was able to read the popup hint without my subordinate’s help. “The same one that was waging war against the Union of Miyelonian Prides. Now the fleet is here in the Kharsssh-O capital system to resupply in preparation for redeployment to the new war with the Geckho.”
“And there are just so many ships...” Geckho Gunner Taik Rekh also saw the fearsome force that would soon threaten his race.
Yes, it certainly looked impressive. I read the data on the tactical map aloud for everyone:
“Three thousand five hundred starships. Of them four are huge battleships, two Planet Destroyers, no less than twenty-five cruisers of various types and around forty large landing ships. But the majority of the fleet are Tolili-Ukh X modular frigates and various larger assemblages of Tolili modules. When we reach a safe area, Taik Rekh, leave the game into the real world and convey this information to Geckho Headquarters.”
“Captain, transport calculations to Taikhirhh-o-Tsykh complete,” reported Copilot San-Doon Taki-Bu. “The Engineer is saying he has already entered the data and there is enough energy even after the recent long-distance jump. By Relict standards, it’s basically an arm’s reach.”
“Okay then, let’s not outstay our welcome,” I chuckled, masking my pent-up tension with feigned joviality. “We’re going to Trillian space, Taikhirhh-o-Tsykh, to get our frigate repaired and link up with our respawned crew members!”
