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Tarafau gave Amenia one last hug, breathing in the scent of her as if he could somehow carry her with him that way. Elizabeth joined in after a moment.
“Please keep your dad out of trouble,” Amenia breathed as she released them both.
“I thought he was supposed to do that for me,” Elizabeth replied with a twinkle in her eye.
It was good to see that twinkle back. It had been a very hard several days. Tarafau knew he was needed at Headquarters, but he also knew that he couldn’t leave his daughter in that state even knowing that Amenia would work with her. He knew Elizabeth was no longer a child, but she was his youngest and so much like her mother.
He had stayed in touch with the Alliance Council and Sanglarka, of course, but there was nothing at this point they couldn’t do without him. He had no illusions that he was irreplaceable, but he also knew he had skills and resources that could mean the difference between success and failure on many fronts. He couldn’t feel guilty about taking care of his family when he got the chance, however, else why was this even important? Even in the large scale, it all added up to the individual choices each of them made.
So, he squeezed both of them one more time, an arm around each, and he and Elizabeth faded into the Sanglarka lodge entryway.
The lodge was mostly silent. The only sound came from the kitchen, likely Arvid working on their noon meal and the murmur of voices in the situation room. Tarafau stopped into the kitchen first.
“How are you, old dwarf?” he asked when he saw Arvid was indeed perched on his kitchen stool, chopping vigorously at a pile of fresh vegetables and scooping them off into a large pot already simmering on the stove beside him.
“Probably about the same as you, old cat; too much to do is a good thing when you have too much to think about.”
“Indeed,” agreed Tarafau. “But at least we have Burt back, when we thought we had lost him forever. I am hopeful that Jenny is still out there and will soon contact us. It concerns me that she hasn’t even contacted Amenia or Liliath. I would have thought if she was able, she would have done so by now. It makes me think that she has been injured or...”
“She’s a tough one, our Jenny,” jumped in Arvid, before Tarafau could finish the sentence. “I’ll not believe she is gone until I have physical proof. We must hold onto that. We must.”
Tarafau nodded at Arvid’s emphatic tone. He too would hold onto hope as long as it took to determine Jenny’s true state.
“So, what are they up to in the situation room? I heard some buzz from the lobby.”
“Same, same...Coordinating resources, troops, and strategies. They’ve been in a bit of a frenzy since the revolt in the Insenium capital. Bob has some new findings on the MDP situation, and Burt is mapping potential scenarios as to where Jenny might be found if she remains unable to communicate.
Gariel is beside himself that they didn’t see this coming. The new element is disconcerting, although, in my opinion, not all that surprising. It had been doubtful from the start, based on Burt’s intel, that there wasn’t more to this than anything Peril might have come up with.”
“Agreed. He had ‘puppet’ stamped all over him, in hindsight. So, I’ll see you in the situation room in a bit? Looks like you’ve got most of the vegetables in the stew. I don’t smell rolls rising, so I’m guessing the soup is in its infant stages.”
“Yep, I’m nearly done. I’ll be ready for the briefing they will be holding in about 10 minutes. By the way, hello, Elizabeth. Glad to see you back.” And with that, he went back to chopping vegetables with perhaps more vigor than was entirely necessary.
Lova, Gariel, Burt and Brendan looked up from their conversation as Tarafau and Elizabeth entered. Their faces were serious, but they smiled when they saw them both. Tarafau knew that Elizabeth’s trauma had been as much on their minds as any of the long list of other serious items they had been considering.
Lova stood and greeted Elizabeth with a long hug. “Welcome back, Elizabeth. It’s good to see you here. We had hoped some time back home would be helpful. Are you ok?”
“Good enough,” said Elizabeth, stepping back and smiling sadly. “I’ll be a lot better when we locate Jenny and find her well.”
She stood next to Burt who grinned his best Burt-grin for her. He knew of her time at home to recover from the trauma of losing him and Jenny. Tarafau knew Burt had a kind heart and he treasured him for that.
“As will we all,” agreed Lova. “And you, Tarafau?”
“The same. We have a lot to consider and much to do, but Jenny is a huge priority for me and my family, as for all of us. I am so glad to see Burt back with us. I read your report before we came. I find it interesting that Gall knew that Peril was about to praise you in front of all of those people and turn you loose. I also found the solution to the medallion issue brilliant. Is BaaGah with you now?”
“BaaGah is here. I couldn’t go anywhere without him if I tried. Not that I would. He’s become not just an ally, but a friend.”
From Burt’s shirt, like a magician’s trick, suddenly BaaGah appeared, seating himself on Burt’s lap.
“BaaGah is Burt’s buddy. Your buddy too? BaaGah likes it here. Nice peoples. Lots of good food.”
Tarafau and Elizabeth couldn’t help but smile. Elizabeth reached out and gently stroked BaaGah’s head.
“Hello, BaaGah,” she sent. “I am Elizabeth, and I would be happy to be your buddy. I hear you and your people, the Mookookie, did so much to help in bringing down the Insenium capital a few days ago. Thank you so much for everything you have done to help us.”
“BaaGah likes ‘Lisbeth. ‘Lisbeth buddy. BaaGah likes to help Burt and his buddies.”
To everyone’s delight, when Elizabeth sat down on the chair next to Burt, Noony now also showed herself. The two Mookookie looked like nothing more than two spaghetti squashes side by side with huge mouths and round eyes that were crinkled in amusement and satisfaction.
They all laughed and BaaGah and Noony laughed with them, their wide mouths open and their big tongues lolling out. This made them all laugh even more. You could feel the momentary relief in the room from this humorous respite, like gentle rain hitting a scorching sidewalk.
“So, what do you have for us?” Tarafau continued to Lova. “I know you have a meeting scheduled for any minute now, with the Council, I presume?”
“Yes,” Lova replied. “Liliath will be signing on any minute now. I’m glad you got here. And here’s Arvid, so we’re all here.”
As if cued, the big clear screen appeared before them, Liliath standing in the foreground and her two councilors seated just behind her. It seemed odd not to see Ingot and Myla there, and Tarafau’s stomach did a little swoop as that sadness threatened to invade again. Tarafau tamped it down to be dealt with at another time. For now, he needed his wits about him.
Elizabeth with Noony on her lap smiled with delight when BaaGah also crept into her lap purring like a cat. Elizabeth delightedly stroked his bald head, which was also his body. The two Mookookie were snuggled contentedly next to one another.
The others were leaning slightly forward in their seats, focused entirely on the screen in front of them. Tarafau wondered how many of them were feeling as he did about the strangeness of it all.
“Greetings, Earth Guardians. We have much to discuss. First of all, you should know that the planet we thought was the Insenium capital is fully in our hands, including the planetary base of their scientists. The slaves who have chosen to remain on the planet due to the previous destruction of their home worlds by the Insenium, are in the process of electing and forming a representative government in conjunction with the Mookookie, who have given their enthusiastic assent to this arrangement.
This planet will now serve as a base for the Alliance in the Insenium dimension. It will unfortunately and inevitably be under attack, however, if we don’t put our plans into action soon. So, we will need our space fleet to be deployed immediately.”
Brendan nodded at this. Tarafau knew that he had been expecting it. They had finally worked out how to deploy his fleet into a different dimension, thanks to some fancy footwork by Bob, Merv, Cornelium and the Alliance scientists. They were confident that they had prepared as well as they could. It was time to test that theory.
“In addition, we will be establishing a gate on the Inseni planet that will be connected to the Alliance Gateway Network. This will allow us to utilize Tarafau’s troops elsewhere with the aid of the Mookookie, which will be crucial if we are to maneuver quickly within that dimension. When the war is over and assuming we are victorious, we will be presenting the Mookookie planet to the Alliance Grand Council for official admittance into the Alliance. The Mookookie have been more than helpful in all of this and it is our desire for them to be recognized as useful members of the Alliance.”
BaaGah and Noony bounced enthusiastically on Elizabeth’s lap, to her obvious delight.
“In the meantime, the scientists the Inseni had labeled ‘wizards’ are being extremely helpful. They have helped us pinpoint several additional planets which have been populated by the Insenium, including one that sounds particularly interesting. We are theorizing that this may be the base for Gall and his people. It turns out they are one of two separate races that evolved on their original planet before it was destroyed. The two races went their separate ways for the most part. Peril’s empire was merely a puppet state for Gall and his people who call themselves the Great Insenium and their people are the Norgoth.
These are our true enemies and the ones behind the plot to control the multiverse. Now we need to find out as much as we can about their resources and strengths. Fortunately, we now have some new agents.”
And she laughed! Watching a dragon laugh is always a somewhat surreal experience, especially when you don’t know why she is laughing. Her huge jaws lined with large pointy teeth were opened wide and her shoulders were shaking with mirth. Tarafau was glad it was a laugh, as he had also seen her angry and that was a fearful albeit inspiring sight.
“The Mookookie are coming to our rescue there. They managed to go into the ‘spaces’ upon many of the big Norgoth thugs before they left for their own worlds. They are in direct communication with our other little friends who are now in your midst. The only issue we have right now, which might not necessarily be a bad thing under the circumstances, is that Jenny never gave the Mookookie the command to stop multiplying. They refuse to hear from anyone but her, insisting that they would know if she wasn’t alive.”
“This is actually good news,” said Burt, his eyes and face solemn. “BaaGah is seldom wrong about this sort of thing. It gives me hope. It also means that on Insenium planets, the Mookookie population continues to increase.”
“Truly said,” Liliath agreed. “In the meantime, we are still searching for clues. So far, none of the reports we have received have given us a single one. The only thing we do know is that Burt felt her presence just before Gall tried to eliminate him. Speaking of which, we also have no idea what happened to the duplicate Burt. Obviously, we thought we had found him. Sorry about that misunderstanding, by the way.”
“No big deal. Just chalk it up to the power of prestidigitation and misdirection. Now you see me, now you don’t.” Burt replied, almost like his cocky self, for a moment.
Liliath continued, “Bob’s work with the origin of the MDP technology is starting to bear fruit. Through Fidget, he has actually made contact with the little nano-beings that inhabit them. As it turns out, they are friendly to anyone associated with the Alliance, and Bob is working with them to make MDPs a more useful tool in conjunction with the two cards we now have, courtesy of the ‘wizards’ of the Insenium. As a result of the collaboration between what we will call the ‘Nanoites’ and Bob, we have discovered that the technology of both the card and the MDPs are similar and the Nanoites seem to think they can potentially activate the cards in a useful manner at some point.
However, the technology is still very dangerous, should the Great Insenium ever get their hands on it. Therefore, the Nanoites have basically buried the cards in a way that only they can do.
One of the things we were able to acquire from one of the dead Norgoths was some viable DNA. The Nanoites have those samples now programmed into their warning systems to assure the Norgoths never get access to the MDPs or any of that associated technology. Should they attempt to enter an MDP, they will immediately be destroyed. It turns out the Nanoites have defenses we were not aware of.
We are no longer storing any technology that is under development anywhere but in a private MDP that is only keyed to Mervin, Bob and Argent. We are also making it policy that none of them be in the same place at the same time under any circumstances until further notice. For this reason, Bob will be transferred to Adelle’s Science and Technology Team on Earth to work from there, with full encrypted communication with the other science teams. Merv will remain at Cornelium’s lab with the same arrangements while Argent heads up the Alliance Headquarters Science team. We hope these precautions will keep us from giving the enemy any more help than is possible.”
Tarafau nodded. It sounded like the current Alliance Council definitely had their collective act together. This was comforting. There was always a concern that at some point their government would fall into one of the many potential traps of greed for power that had destroyed so many planetary governments over time in the multiverse. So that was one less worry on his plate.
“I don’t have much more to report at this time. Still no contact from Jenny. I will go into deep mental relaxation later today, hoping to hear from her. We have great hope as the alternate Gatekeeper’s key has still not activated.
So, I will let you get back to work. Keep us updated on any progress on anything that is on the priority list. Thank you, once again, for your dedicated service...Liliath out.”
The screen went dark and then disappeared. They all leaned back as if pulled by a string.
As he pulled his eyes away from the screen, Tarafau’s eyes were drawn to Burt’s face. Although he too was relaxed back into his seat, something had changed. He hadn’t made a sound, but there was something far away and almost holy about the look on his face. Tarafau didn’t want to touch him or interrupt anything that was happening there, but all of a sudden, he noticed Elizabeth, sitting next to Burt, her hands stilled on BaaGah and Noony’s heads, looking at something he couldn’t see. Then, one by one it was like a virus of unfocused looks of transport and joy on every face.
Then he heard it. “Tarafau? Can you hear me? It’s Jenny.”
Tarafau imagined that anyone walking into this gathering would be very concerned. All these adults staring joyfully into space as they heard the sweetest sounds they could have imagined. Jenny’s mind voice sounded as if she was standing right in the room with them.
“I have only recently learned to do conference calls like this. I admit to being a bit surprised to see Burt among you. He was on my contact list and I had not removed him yet. Are you sure it’s him?”
Liliath’s mind voice cut in. “Yes, Jenny. It is truly Burt. We have confirmed it is not a duplicate. Please continue.”
Jenny’s mind voice continued. Did Tarafau detect something like breathlessness in her tone?
“In this conversation I have connected with all those at Sanglarka, the Alliance Council, Amenia, Bob, Mervin, Cornelium, Gariel, and even Fidget. Over time, I will connect with all of the Earth Guardians to give them the same message, but this group needed to be the first.
I don’t have a lot of time, but I wanted you all to know that I am all right. I was injured, but I am mostly healed. I couldn’t have contacted any of you before now. I would like Amenia, Elizabeth and Tarafau to take note of the coordinates of where I am right now. I am on the Groga home world. And before any of you get all worried and excited, I am doing well, and I am in no danger. In time I will arrange for a few of you to visit me here, but there are things I must do first. Just don’t assume anything and please take no action until you hear from me. We know a lot less about the Groga than we thought.
Some of you will be receiving personal visits over the next several days while I make preparations for the next steps we need to take. It is both better and worse than we thought it was, and I can give no further explanation until we can meet at the Groga home world. I just didn’t want any of you expending any unnecessary effort in my behalf. I’m sorry for the concern I may have caused, but I’m not sorry for the choice I made, as it may make all the difference in this fight. So, I guess, just stay tuned. I won’t leave you out of the loop, I promise.
Take care and know that I love you all. See you soon.”
With that, she was just as suddenly gone as she had come. They all just sat there, silent, stunned and more than a little confused.
