All Enemies Foreign and Domestic (Kelly Blake series) by Rodney Smith Page B
Authors: Rodney Smith
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responsible for key aspects of the defense of G’Durin.
“As you know, not everyone is satisfied with the outcome of the battle of G’Durin. Largest of this group is the Imperial Army, which sat out the war on its home planet of K’Rol. It is almost a blood insult to them that they were not called in to defend G’Durin. Chief of the Imperial General Staff Marshall T’Kana is especially aggrieved. We have discovered that he is conducting military tribunals remotely from K’Rol. The abduction of J’Gon and your wife was one of these extraordinary renditions gone wrong.
“We have sent word to T’Kana to stand down and that he is relieved of command of the imperial ground forces. He is to release all prisoners and prepare to stand court martial. Supreme Shadow Commander G’Rof has been recalled to duty and made supreme commander of all K’Rang forces. He has redirected an armada of six ships, enroute to rescue one of our survey ships close to our spiral arm’s outer boundary, to proceed to K’Rol and place T’Kana under arrest.”
J’Kol then took up the narrative. “This gets us to the reason for our extraordinary visit today. One of our deep space survey ships, the S’Kauf, was on a routine mission to survey new habitable words for future colonization and landed on a world with a large concentration of T’Kab. They were sending routine reports until their last, which was an imminent capture report. They reported being overrun by large insectoids, then nothing.
“Ambassador, we request immediate assistance from your government. We have reason to believe that Captain M’Taso and a handful of crew survive on the planet. With our task force diverted to K’Rol, we have nothing that can reach the planet within a month. You have a very fast scout ship that can make the journey in a week and a half. Rescue our crew, Ambassador, and find out what is happening with the T’Kab and our ship. If the T’Kab establish a foothold on that planet and access the navigational records from the S’Kauf, none of our worlds are safe – not ours, not yours, not the A’Ngarii’s.”
He handed a data crystal to the ambassador and leaned in to impress upon the Humans the true danger of the T’Kab. “The T’Kab colonize by firing thousands of colony pods containing non-sentient larval queens. If the pod lands on a habitable planet, she hatches and proceeds to lay thousands of eggs. If the pod never lands on a planet or has some mishap they just breed new larval queens. Most eggs become support for her colony, but she produces queens as well that swarm from the original nest and form colonies of their own, which repeat the process until the entire planet is under their control. At that point, sentient queens are hatched that make contact with their civilization. Large civilization ships follow to emplace the infrastructure needed to sustain a long-term sentient T’Kab presence on the planet. We assume that the pod that landed on the world the S’Kauf found was part of a new colonization push into our space. That data crystal has all we have on the planet and the T’Kab.”
J’Kol came to attention and said, “We formally request that two to five of your carrier task forces be sent to the picket of our frontier, destroy any pods transiting through that space, and stand off any civilization ships sent to strengthen their hold on this new planet, in accordance with section XII, paragraph 5 of the Treaty of G’Durin. We will assemble an assault force and clear the T’Kab from this world and any others we find.”
The ambassador sat back and attempted to absorb all he just heard. After a moment he spoke. “Let me ensure I understand you: In invoking section XII of the treaty dealing with mutual defense against an outside foe, you want us to send the
“As you know, not everyone is satisfied with the outcome of the battle of G’Durin. Largest of this group is the Imperial Army, which sat out the war on its home planet of K’Rol. It is almost a blood insult to them that they were not called in to defend G’Durin. Chief of the Imperial General Staff Marshall T’Kana is especially aggrieved. We have discovered that he is conducting military tribunals remotely from K’Rol. The abduction of J’Gon and your wife was one of these extraordinary renditions gone wrong.
“We have sent word to T’Kana to stand down and that he is relieved of command of the imperial ground forces. He is to release all prisoners and prepare to stand court martial. Supreme Shadow Commander G’Rof has been recalled to duty and made supreme commander of all K’Rang forces. He has redirected an armada of six ships, enroute to rescue one of our survey ships close to our spiral arm’s outer boundary, to proceed to K’Rol and place T’Kana under arrest.”
J’Kol then took up the narrative. “This gets us to the reason for our extraordinary visit today. One of our deep space survey ships, the S’Kauf, was on a routine mission to survey new habitable words for future colonization and landed on a world with a large concentration of T’Kab. They were sending routine reports until their last, which was an imminent capture report. They reported being overrun by large insectoids, then nothing.
“Ambassador, we request immediate assistance from your government. We have reason to believe that Captain M’Taso and a handful of crew survive on the planet. With our task force diverted to K’Rol, we have nothing that can reach the planet within a month. You have a very fast scout ship that can make the journey in a week and a half. Rescue our crew, Ambassador, and find out what is happening with the T’Kab and our ship. If the T’Kab establish a foothold on that planet and access the navigational records from the S’Kauf, none of our worlds are safe – not ours, not yours, not the A’Ngarii’s.”
He handed a data crystal to the ambassador and leaned in to impress upon the Humans the true danger of the T’Kab. “The T’Kab colonize by firing thousands of colony pods containing non-sentient larval queens. If the pod lands on a habitable planet, she hatches and proceeds to lay thousands of eggs. If the pod never lands on a planet or has some mishap they just breed new larval queens. Most eggs become support for her colony, but she produces queens as well that swarm from the original nest and form colonies of their own, which repeat the process until the entire planet is under their control. At that point, sentient queens are hatched that make contact with their civilization. Large civilization ships follow to emplace the infrastructure needed to sustain a long-term sentient T’Kab presence on the planet. We assume that the pod that landed on the world the S’Kauf found was part of a new colonization push into our space. That data crystal has all we have on the planet and the T’Kab.”
J’Kol came to attention and said, “We formally request that two to five of your carrier task forces be sent to the picket of our frontier, destroy any pods transiting through that space, and stand off any civilization ships sent to strengthen their hold on this new planet, in accordance with section XII, paragraph 5 of the Treaty of G’Durin. We will assemble an assault force and clear the T’Kab from this world and any others we find.”
The ambassador sat back and attempted to absorb all he just heard. After a moment he spoke. “Let me ensure I understand you: In invoking section XII of the treaty dealing with mutual defense against an outside foe, you want us to send the
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