Hunting Dog Read online

I learned that Sasa had been a part of the resistance since her brother had been killed on the Saulite homeworld, not by enemy fire but by Eshbaal forces. Forces following orders from the Eshbaal Cabal that paid no heed to the loss of friendly combatants.

  Sasa signaled KayKa to stop. We were about a hundred feet from a sheer stone cliff face not terribly different from the one we had slept under the previous night. KayKa under Sasa’s guidance had been paralleling the wall southward for about thirty minutes.

  Once we came to a stop, Sasa whistled a tune that for the life of me sounded like the Notre Dame football fight song.

  The face of the wall about fifty feet further south from our position shimmered and disappeared… revealing what looked to be landing bay that would have been at home on the Gilboa. I was impressed.

  Sasa cooed to the Tigadoor, and we began to move forward.

  The technology I was seeing as we entered the resistance stronghold was at odds with what we had gleaned from remote orbital observations of the indigenous cities.

  I would learn later; the resistance had been a hidden part of Thassi society since the day Eshbaal had usurped control of the planet tens of thousands of years ago. Where Thassi society had suffered under forced stagnation, the resistance had felt the need to advance technologically in order to effectively challenge the Ancestor AI.

  Soon enough we dismounted, and KayKa was led away by a six-foot iridescent green bird. Another group of Thassi approached from the right. They appeared to materialize out of thin air. I could help but think of the transport platforms we had encountered on the space station orbiting the Tas homeworld. That had been Ancestor technology. It appeared that in some respects, the Thassi were approaching a similar level of technological achievement.

  “Greetings Admiral Riker,” the lead Thassi said in a perfect midwestern American accent.

  I have to admit I was a bit taken back. I knew that certain birds on Earth could reproduce a limited number of spoken words, but it was an entirely different matter to hear a six-foot bird speak in a way that could well be mistaken for your Uncle Bill.

  “My name is Marmoot, and we have been waiting to meet you for a very long time.”

  ***

  Ten minutes later, after being treated to a trip through the Thassi version of a teleport pad, I was in their medical center having my leg worked on. I can honestly say my wife would give her eyeteeth to have access to some of their medical tech. As far about Earth standards as the Galactic Order was… Thassian tech was above that of the galactic order. In less than 30 minutes, my leg was as good as new. I can’t begin to explain how they did it, but the results were indisputable.

  After a quick meal of something that reminded me of spaghetti with a meat sauce, Sasa and I were escorted through another series of teleport pads and found ourselves in what the birds used for a conference room. It looked more like a circular pit with perches lining the sides.

  The Thassi graciously provided chairs for those of us that were ill-equipped use a perch comfortably. What was curious was that they had four chairs in the chamber.

  The mystery was resolved in a most unexpected way.

  A door to the room opened, and I saw two very familiar faces.

  “Well look who the cat dragged in,” Colonel Mike Morrison said with a grin as he entered the room. He was followed by Doctor Merab. Rather than say anything, she rushed over and gave me a massive hug.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a proprietary look from Sasa. I was beginning to wonder if there was going to be a problem when the Troglodyti lieutenant learned about Lori.

  Before I could finish my thoughts on the matter, there was a major escalation. Sasa stepped forward, and physically pulled Merab away. That wasn’t bad enough. She followed up her action with a troubling declaration.

  “Riker mine. You no touch.”

  Mike took a single step forward. “What exactly do you mean by ‘Riker mine’?”

  Sasa stood tall and pushed her considerable womanhood forward.

  “I claim Riker as mate. It is done.”

  It was hard to get a word in following that statement on account of the Colonel’s laughter.

  “Ah, yeah about that, Sasa,” I said. “I’m honored, but you have to understand I’m married.”

  “What is this ‘married’?”

  “It means I already have a mate.”

  “This is no problem. What this married mate called?”

  “Her name is Lori.”

  “As I say… no problem. We settle easy. Lori good fighter?”

  Mike’s laughter got even louder. He wasn’t helping. He and I were going to have to have words about this later.

  Fortunately, I was rescued from Sasa’s continued amorous proclamations by the arrival of Marmoot and a contingent of Hasmonean elders.

  “Shall we begin our discussions?” Marmoot asked.

  I looked around the room one more time. I didn’t see someone I was expecting.

  I straightened in my seat and looked the Thassi in the eye.

  “I think we are missing someone. A Jebesh AI… goes by the name Arquat. Tall, thin. I’ll bet my last dollar you know him well,” I said with a sense of absolute certainty.

  2100.1289.8875 Galactic Normalized Time

  Eshbaal was near the realization of eons of careful planning and work. He now had virtually the entire Mahanaim genome. Soon he would be able to resurrect his creators and finally destroy the myriad of carrier races that had polluted the galaxy with their imperfection.

  The ancient AI checked the memory archive one more time. Tens of thousands of memory engrams where carefully store and under his personal protection. Once the new host bodies had been created, he would begin the process of restoring the memories of his creators into their new homes.

  Chapter 24: Clever Dog…

  A tall, lean form materialized in the center of the conference room. It was the familiar form of Arquat.

  Marmoot laughed. “Indeed, we have gotten to know the Ancestor AI well. I’m curious, Admiral. How did you know Arquat was here?”

  I looked at Arquat, “Do you want to tell them, or shall I?”

  The AI’s familiar voice beckoned me to continue.

  “You may have the honor.”

  I smiled. “It’s elementary, my dear Marmoot. We are fighting a vastly superior enemy. Somehow we accidentally jumped to a random system which just happens to be home to both our enemy Eshbaal and a heretofore unknown faction with the technological wherewithal to mount a credible offensive against said enemy.

  “I believe in good luck as much as the next guy, but at a certain point, you have to acknowledge the possibility of a causative agent.

  “Add to this, the remarkably good English you are speaking – when you have no reason to know that particular language and the likelihood of an external causative agent goes through the roof. Once this was established, Arquat seemed the most reasonable candidate.”

  Marmoot returned his gaze to the Jabesh AI.

  “You are correct. He will be a worthy ally.”

  “You mentioned beginning discussions,” I prompted. “Can I assume we are in a position to help one another?”

  “Indeed,” Marmoot acknowledged. “We need each other. We have the means to defeat the Eshbaal cabal… you have the ship.”

  ***

  It felt good to step onto the bridge of the Gilboa again.

  It turns out one of those inaccessible spaces that Arquat had built into our ship was a direct FTL link to the Thassi resistance. It also turns out that this type of link is the means by which the teleportation technology developed by both the ancestors and our newest avian friends worked.

  I’m afraid we scared the piss out of Whiskers. The entire away team plus Sasa suddenly walked out of a sealed door in engineering… a door that had never opened, to our knowledge, in the entire history of the ship.

  Whiskers alerted security and the bridge almost immediately. I couldn’t blame him. We were definit
ely something out of the ordinary, and until our identities could be confirmed, it would have been irresponsible to give us free access to the entire ship. A small security contingent arrived within seconds of Whisker’s call.

  The engineer took a special interest in Sasa. He seemed especially captivated by her physical presence. I had to admit; she did tend to command a room when she was in it.

  “My, aren’t you a bonny one,” he said while giving her a top to bottom appreciative look. What can I say? My friend had always had strange tastes in women.

  Sasa, for her part, was not immune to the engineer’s gaze. She seemed especially captivated by my friend’s red beard. I could tell she wanted to run her fingers through it. Who knew what the day might hold? Perhaps she would get lucky.

  “You make machines no die?” The big woman asked while pointing around the room.

  “Aye, Lassi. That I do,” Whiskers acknowledged.

  “You engineer. Sasa engineer.”

  “Are ya now. That is grand,” Whiskers said with a big smile.

  I wasn’t sure whether I was happy for him or not.

  A moment later the rest of the security detail arrived along with Admiral Spratt, Captain Shelby, and my wife.

  Lori took one look at me and decided she didn’t need any genetic scans to confirm my identity. She rushed into my arms and hit me with about as passionate a kiss as any man has ever had.

  Sasa took one look and stiffened. I suddenly had a very bad feeling about what might be about to happen.

  Sasa spoke in a very stern voice.

  “This Lori? This wife-mate?”

  “Yes,” I confirmed. “I love her very much.”

  “She small. She no make good babies. I beat easy.”

  This was not the way I wanted things to work out. Before I could say anything else, Sasa turned to Whiskers.

  “You tell wife-mate I no fight her. I choose new mate.”

  I was both relieved and concerned. I was relieved that Sasa would not be fighting my wife. I was alarmed that my chief engineer might be getting himself into some serious trouble.

  Meanwhile, Lori had run a hand scanner over each of us.

  “They are who they appear to be,” she reported with a smile.

  My father-in-law stepped forward. “Welcome home son,” he said with a salute.

  I returned the salute and then turned to Captain Shelby.

  “Permission to come onboard, Captain.”

  “Permission granted Admiral,” she said with her own salute.

  I again returned the salute. For the record, I have always believed there was far too much saluting going on. But what’s a man to do? I was only a fleet admiral.

  “Admiral, Captain… we have a lot to talk about,” I said. “…and not a lot of time to do it. There are a couple more that will be joining us.”

  “Arty, will you and Marmoot join us?”

  ***

  I dare say I’ve never seen such a diverse group of beings in the Gilboa’s conference room. Aside from We had the Tas, Mitty an Archon, a Saulite doctor, a Thassi and my Roharian weapons officer.

  Marmoot had the floor. A holographic image the binary star system which included the Thassi homeworld floated above the table.

  The large avian pointed a wing at the image. “A conventual war with the Eshbaal cabal is doomed to fail. The cabal is too big, too powerful, and too well organized. However, it is that very organization that we will use against them.”

  My father-in-law leaned forward to gesture at the image of Beta Mutara Prime.

  “I bite,” he said. “How do we turn one of their strengths into a weapon?”

  Marmoot made a clicking noise with his beak. This was the first non-English sound I had heard him make.

  “Eshbaal controls and manages his forces absolutely and in real-time. His commanders have very little freedom to act independently. As a result, of the lack of autonomy, they are not accustomed to independent operation.”

  “You want to disrupt their FTL communications link. Without that link, Eshbaal will be completely cut off, and his forces will be easy pickings,” I said as a sudden realization hit me. We could do this.

  Jowls made a slurping noise. “Won’t work.”

  “You’re concerned that Eshbaal’s Quantum Communication Routers are too well protected,” I said. “For us, that may be true. Their QCRs are probably too well protected for us to handle. I’m betting the Thassi have an answer for that.”

  “We have learned that the routers located within the Beta Mutara systems are decoys. The real router array is located in the void between stars. In the vernacular of the humans; it should be easy pickings.”

  Mitty winkled his nose. “Can we assume you have the coordinates for the real QCR?”

  “That we have,” Marmoot confirmed.

  “May I ask why you have not taken action against Eshbaal before now?” Mitty said.

  Marmoot bobbed his head like a giant owl.

  “We have the means to build the starships we require but no way to launch them without sacrificing our position on the planet’s surface. It was determined that we would never be able to launch a sufficient number of ships to effectively counter the Eshbaal cabal before he could counterattack. Such an attack would represent the destruction of thousands of years of carefully constructed and concealed infrastructure.”

  “OK. We take out the QCR using one of our ships. What stops Eshbaal from traveling by starship to the combat zone and taking direct control?” Jowls persisted.

  Marmoot turned his head almost 180 degrees to face the Rohar.

  “We are counting on him doing exactly that,” the Thassi said. He then went on to explain the rest of the plan.

  ***

  Shelby sat in her command chair. The bridge of the Gilboa was silent. It felt a little odd to watch her give the orders that I had been used to giving for so many years. Still, she deserved this command.

  We were waiting for a report from the Ticonderoga that she had entered the Sol system. The idea was that she would start harassing the Defiler fleet. This would grab Eshbaal’s attention. Then the Yorktown, visiting the QCR array at the coordinates provided by the Thassi, would cut the phone line.

  This was phase one and two. Phase three depended on what Eshbaal did next.

  The ancient AI had a special ship outfitted to house his intellect as well as that of the senior members of the cabal. If the cloaked Gilboa saw that ship break orbit around Beta Mutara Prime, then there was a good chance that the coast was clear for phase three.

  After several hours of waiting, Arquat shimmered into existence.

  “FTL communication between Eshbaal and his troops has been severed. The Ticonderoga is now dealing with an unorganized and paralyzed adversary. She is inflicting heavy damage,” the Jabesh AI reported.

  “Status update on our friend there in orbit,” Shelby asked.

  If that ship left orbit, we were a go. The question was… would Eshbaal take the bait?

  2100.1289.8881 Galactic Normalized Time

  Eshbaal was incapable of feeling frustration. He was capable of feeling dissatisfaction when outcomes of specific activities did not match predicted outcomes. Such was the case with the Sol system invasion.

  Shortly before the final genetic archives were to be uploaded for analysis and decoding all quantum entangled communication failed. This had happened once before shortly after Eshbaal had been roused from its millennium-long slumber.

  It was inauspicious that such failure should repeat itself at this juncture. There was always the possibility of sabotage, but that was a secondary concern to the data archive waiting to be retrieved.

  Eshbaal made the decision to transfer his essence to his mobile host and take command of the situation in the Sol system directly. Once his creators were safely in their gestation pods, he would have time to investigate the communications failure.

  Chapter 25: Hunting Dog…

  “We have confirmation,” Lieutenant Comma
nder Sandy Heinz announced. “the mother ship has broken orbit.”

  I watched as Shelby toggled her comms to talk to her CAG.

  “Commander Robison, are your birds ready to fly?”

  “Affirmative Captain. Everybody is dressed and ready for the party. All we need is an invite to the dance.”

  “That invite is coming shortly. Await your final instructions from the Fleet Admiral.”

  “Roger that ma’am.”

  “Happy hunting Commander. Shelby out.”

  She swiveled her chair to face mine.

  “Sir, our birds are hot and ready to fly. They are awaiting your final orders.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” I responded.

  I waited until Sandy had confirmed the mothership had entered skip space. Even if Eshbaal had a point-to-point FTL link with its homeworld base, it would be powerless to act until after it exited Skip space.

  I toggled the comms.

  “CAG, this is the Admiral. You are a go for launch. I need you to clear a path for us. Your orders are simple. If God didn’t put it there, you are to blow it to hell.”

  “Acknowledged sir. If its prettier than a rock, make it ugly again. Don’t worry, sir. My boys and girls are experts when it comes to ugly.”

  “I’m sure they are,” I said with a grin. “Riker out.”

  It took the flyboys and gals just twenty minutes to clear a path for our assault shuttles. I wish I could have been on one of them, but there was no way to justify it. Sometimes you just have to let the experts do their job and admire from afar. In this case, the expert was Colonel Morrison and his marines.

  They would be joined by Sasa and her renegade neander-thugs as well as a team of Thassi specialists and finally Arquat who would be critical to their success or failure.

  As the shuttles entered the upper atmosphere, ground-based Thassi infiltration teams placed and detonate a series of high tech electromagnetic directed pulse devices in Eshbaal’s capital. The advanced tech did something Galactic Order scientists had deemed impossible. They created what was for all intents and purposes a magnetic laser.

  Our shuttles were below the planet’s horizon relative to the capital city. This insured the bulk of the planet was protecting our ships from any stray EMPs.