THE PRIZE: BOOK TWO - RETRIBUTION (13 page)

“Again, correct.” Markoff smiled to himself. She didn’t try to hide her words behind the fiction of manifest destiny, or benevolent imperial advancement. They’d invaded Earth and had smashed everything flat with the intention of turning it into another slave state.

“So what could they accomplish in five years?” Now she was challenging him with a question.

“To rebuild their army?”

Greta shook her head. “What good would that do them. We invaded and destroyed their military the first time. Unless they invent much better weapons, the same thing will happen again, and how many trained soldiers could you have in five years, starting from scratch?”

“Not very many, and they’d be green, raw recruits with no combat experience at all.”

“And, if they had no space based weapons or ships, there would be nothing stopping you from dropping hardened combat troops on the surface at any point and destroying them all over again.” Markoff nodded.

“So why go to all the trouble of infiltrating the Startography Institute and erasing the location of Earth?” She mused. “Is there some missing data I am not party to, Direc… Goff?”

“Yes, there is one thing that isn’t in any accessible database.”

With a casual flip of his wrist, he pointed his index finger to a screen on the wall to his right. The holo-screen flickered for a moment as his implant sorted through the index of stored images, steadying and enlarging to cover the whole right wall with a view of a beautiful blue-green planet as seen from a high orbit.

“Your Imperial Startography Institute tells me that this planet is designated Sigma Alpha Prime, and no ship of any kind, dares get closer than one AU of this planet without being destroyed. That means it is pulled down as if caught in the gravity well of a black hole.” For a moment, Markoff had a feeling of déjà vu, as if he’d had the conversation before.

“I see.” Greta wasn't sure she did, but other than that, remained silent.

“You are something of an expert on planets. What are your observations about this one?” Greta looked at the data bar on the side, pursing her lips for a moment.

“Normally there is no way a planet of that mass could have a gravitational attraction of that magnitude, or anywhere near it for that matter. Yet, if you say this one can pull starships out of space, something else is going on.” Greta looked at the accompanying planetary system schematic, with the associated data beside each icon in the wall screen. It showed the planet's orbital path around its star, declination, mass and numerous additional details. The first odd thing she noted was that this planetary system consisted of nothing more than a white dwarf star and one planet. Very odd indeed. It had no other celestial bodies, no asteroid belt, and no moons. The star and its single planet hung in a region of empty space with no visible background of stars, again an oddity. It also showed that the planet wasn’t in the normal life bearing zone that far from the parent star. In fact, the planet shouldn't even have had liquid water, which it obviously did. The numbers showed that Sigma Alpha Prime massed about one and half times that of Telluria Prime with a correspondingly higher gravity but nothing near what it would take to pull a starship down. Then the Director remembered his conversation with General Tandy.

“One shuttle craft did manage to land, or I should say crash land, and within a few days the combat team made its way to this um… building.” The Director stopped, as the view dropped in to show the pyramid on the surface, and waited for her to make a comment.

“Holy Mother… is that building as large as this vid implies?”

“Yes it is. The vid is not doctored in any way.”

“Who could have built such as thing, and why?”

“That is one of the questions a lot of us would like to know the answer to as well.”

“And we need to land on the particular planet because?” The Director gave her a smile.

“Do you know what drives the Empire, Greta?” The Director asked in a soft voice, one perfectly shaped eyebrow raised slightly in question. Greta thought about it for a moment, discounting all the normal excuses for invading a planet. There had to be another reason to land here but she was at a loss to even frame the question.

“I have no idea.” She said at last.

“Our expansion into new, productive areas of the galaxy is strictly limited by the amount of Cg material we can collect, refine, and incorporate into the hulls of our starships. Without it, we would be nothing more than just another warring backwater planet, like so many others out there.”

“Yes, I can see that, even though I’m not familiar with that aspect of our technology.”

“But ask yourself what is the connection between Cg material and that.” As he spoke, the camera view changed and zoomed in to reveal the true size of the massive building so immense the tip protruded above the atmosphere into space.

“By the Holy Mother… it can’t be as big as this video shows… it’s… it’s impossible to build something that large.” Greta was stunned. Clearly this was a building, and not some natural occurrence. She noted that the sheer weight of the building had depressed the planet’s surface into a huge bowl-like depression.

“Our esteemed scientists repeatedly tell me that the only place we can obtain Cg material is in the photosphere of a particular type of star, a brown dwarf to be exact.” Then he dropped the next surprise. “Yet our analysis of the probe data before they crashed tells me that building is composed entirely of Cg material.” Her surprise was evident, but Director Markoff wasn’t finished.

“If that wasn't sufficient inducement for us to expend valuable resources,” the Director continued, his attention more on the screen and the possibilities than his 'visitor'. “The whole planet appears to have substantial deposits scattered all over its surface.”

“I have to assume you endeavored to put people on the ground to um… disable this effect, assuming of course the mechanism is controlled from within that building.”

“Indeed I did, and we succeeded in putting a team on the ground,” Markoff pursed his lips in irritation, “however, my plan didn’t go as expected. Two of the team took control of that building and its secrets.”

“I see, and this would be the factor I was missing in my supposition.”

“Correct again. Somehow, this person by the name of Penn, by the way, managed to not only get off that accursed planet, but to get here in an impossibly short amount of time, and plant the virus.” Greta looked pensive for a moment.

“And that coincided with the attack on the Emperor himself.”

Markoff smiled to himself. Greta Bema was even sharper than he'd thought. “I’m delighted you put the facts together, and yes he did attack the Emperor, but it was a fake attack designed to pull the guards away from your building.”

“Of course, but why plant that particular virus, unless…”

“Yes. Unless what?” Greta sat back, sipping her Cognac, deep in thought for a short while.

“It means that he’s found some advanced technology inside that building and he needs time to develop it.” She said at last.

“Why advanced?”

“Even in my limited field of study, I know of no civilization that has the capacity to build something like that,” she nodded towards the screen showing the mountain sized pyramid, “therefore it was built by a very advanced race, one that is no longer here.”

“Again, your reasoning for this?” Suddenly she looked unsure of herself.

“Well…”

“Please. Don’t concern yourself with being politically correct, Greta.”

“Well… if, and I say if, such a civilization did exist we would have heard about it by now for one. Secondly, any civilization advanced enough to build that would probably stop our expansion across the galaxy, or tried to make a treaty with us.”

“Very good. There is also the point that any civilization that powerful would have no trouble defeating, one or all three of the competing Empires, singularly or all three at the same time, so why would they even bother seeking a treaty with any one of us?”

“That I hadn’t considered, but you are correct, they wouldn’t bother. If we proved an annoyance to them, they would have swept us aside. That being the case, they are no longer here.” She finished at last.

“Excellent reasoning, Greta. You would make an excellent intelligence administrator.” Greta blush under the compliment but shook her head.

“I’m sorry to say, Director, that there are some aspects of Imperial Intelligence work I wouldn’t be able to carry out—meaning no disrespect.” She added quickly. Markoff nodded.

“While in the service of the Emperor, and charged with his protection, it is an unceasing battle against those forces who seek to destroy him.”

“I understand, Director Markoff, I mean no disrespect to your office, or Imperial Security. You protect our beloved Emperor with your life…”

“Calm yourself, Greta, I mean no trick here to get you to say something untoward. This is merely a private conversation between… might I say friends?”

“I would be honored to be called your friend, Director.”

“Goff, please.”

“Yes, Goff.”

“Good. Now back to our suppositions. If he did find something inside that pyramid?” He asked, enjoying her company and her mind.

“Several things occurred to me. Even if he did get off that planet as you said, and back to this planet Earth, he would still be faced with the same problem as before. He’d need to construct a manufacturing base from scratch to build, or make this weapon. Assuming it is a weapon. He’d need to obtain the materials, organize some sort of mass production, and then train sufficient people to use it.”

“Very good. And would five years, give or take, be sufficient to accomplish this?”

“No.” Was her immediate answer, plain and simple with no equivocation.

“Why not some super advanced weapon that didn’t need a lot of material, or people.” Even before he’d finished she was shaking her head.

“If it was very advanced, he’d first have to understand how it worked, ascertain, and find the materials he’d need to build more, as one wouldn’t be sufficient to stand off a full invasion force.”

“True. With the level of advancement on Earth at the time of the invasion, technology wise, they were many years behind some of the planets within our Empire. Even at our level, there would be no way he could duplicate many of the advanced materials we use in our weapons.”

“What if he only needed one of these alien weapons?”

“Good point, but limited usefulness against the overwhelming firepower of even one of our battle fleets. Not to mention KEWs.”

“KEWs, Direct… Goff?”

“Oh yes, I forgot. KEW stands for kinetic energy weapons. You drop an object from space, such as a metal bar, small asteroid, or something similar onto a target on the surface. The resulting impact can make a crater on the surface several miles wide, depending on the size of the object dropped.” He could see this shocked Greta.

“And, we have done this?”

“Yes indeed, not only on Earth, but other truculent worlds who resisted our advancement.” He saw her shiver.

“I would hope we have a defense against such weapons ourselves.”

“Indeed we do, but let’s not dwell on the details. Suffice to say, one alien super weapon isn’t going to stop a second invasion of Earth, and the complete subjugation of all humans this time.” Greta detected a trace of anger in the Directors voice, and knowing Markoff by reputation, she suspected there were things he wasn’t telling her. And, why the emphasis on the word ‘all humans’?

“There may be a way to discover the location of this planet, Earth without the database, Goff.” Markoff shot her a startled look.

“And that is?”

“One thing most people don’t know about survey ships, they record all information about a star system, including all EM signals emanating from the system, including communication signals from the planets, high and low band.” It only took a few seconds for Markoff to understand the significance of her statement.

“Including all military and commercial signals such as entertainment and radio traffic.”

“Exactly. We know the region where Earth is located, and with the right equipment it should be possible to backtrack the echo of those signals to their source.” It was astonishing to see an actual grin on Markoff’s face.”

“My dear, your talents are wasted at the institute. I think I will have to find a more challenging position in Imperial Intelligence, congruent with your abilities.” That thought was exciting and frightening at the same time. “How much time do you estimate that would save?”

“From the five year window?”

“Yes.”

“One, possibility one and a half years, Goff.”

“Excellent. If you will excuse me for a short while, I need to go and arrange for the right equipment and people to be prepared. There is a certain fleet admiral who is looking to redeem himself. He just might be able to shave off a few more months.”

“I’ll be here, Goff.” She colored slightly before continuing. “It has been a long time, but if you wish I will stay… late.” Markoff stopped as he walked towards the door, and looked back, looking slightly flushed. By convention, Tellurian females were not normally so bold, and it pleased him that she’d made the invitation.

“I would be delighted if you stayed late. My quarters are through that door.” As he said it, Markoff sent the mental command to unlock the doors. His words cementing the budding relationship between them. Greta hadn’t blushed at the implied suggestion that she spend the night with him, merely smiled slightly and nodded.

“I will be waiting for you.” Markoff gave her a half bow and departed, smiling to himself. As he walked to his office his thoughts were on other matters, and he chided himself for not thinking of it earlier. He mentally accessed the imperial archives and sorted through the data about the first contact with a certain alien space probe, and the subsequent contact with the species. He mentally reviewed the file and listened to the first part of the message on the probe. …Greetings from Earth…

“Now I have you!” He muttered softly.

Chapter Eight

Into the Wild Blue Yonder.