Chapter 27: Dropping in, dropping out
Operation: Guillotine
Day 5
I learned quite a bit more about the Koraxians as Arcturus and the crew of the Flying Rustbucket continued the search for the homeworld. Arcturus had a lot of experience with them, apparently, and confirmed what I suspected: the little green blobs I'd seen sliding all over the alleged rebel ship actually were Koraxians.
"Yeah, little green blobs. That's what they look like. I wouldn't get too close, though. They have very strong bioelectric fields. They can electrocute you on contact. They also aren't much for talking, as you probably found out."
"Well, I never saw one face-to-face. Or face-to-blob. Whatever. They communicated through a translator."
"I don't know what kind of defenses Korath might have, either. He could have an army of Vansara to protect him. Or, he could be a formidable opponent all on his own, and not need any bodyguards."
"You know, I'm not sure which of those possibilities I actually feel better about."
"He's going to be very dangerous, regardless. He may have ruled the Koraxian Empire for two thousand years, but he's been alive much, much longer. From what I've put together over the years, he is at least thirteen thousand years old."
"Jesus. Don't they ever die?"
"I believe they are clinically immortal. They can still be killed, though. Korath in particular is so dangerous because he originally shared power with other Koraxians, millennia ago. There was a small group that rotated through the leadership, and from what I've been told, he grew tired of their antics and killed them all. They tried to fracture the Empire. He put it back together and slaughtered all opponents."
"He sounds like quite the charmer. How'd you find out so much about him?"
"Are you kidding? The Koraxians spread their propaganda far and wide. They're very proud of the fact that their entire civilization is under the thumb of an ancient megalomaniac."
"So, why haven't they swept across the galaxy and conquered everyone? Sounds like Korath's just a good PR man, and not that great a tactician."
"The Oolians have kept them in check. You have to understand, the feud between them goes back a long, long time. There aren't any records that I've seen, just rumors and stories that were passed on to me over the years. The Oolians did something to them a long time ago, and they've been fighting ever since. The Salmaxians and Pap'rians seem to be involved, somehow, but they won't talk about it, either."
"Weird."
"It certainly is. You learn a lot if you just keep your ears open, but history has a way of fading."
I decided to move on to our more immediate agenda: "How close are we?"
He pointed at the starmap on the wall, and the course he'd charted. "Getting there. I estimate somewhere between two and five more FVs. It's just a time-consuming process. Some of these systems we're going through aren't heavily traveled. On the plus side, they aren't well-defended, either, so we can slip through easily. We most definitely are 'taking the back roads,' as you said."
"What about Byron? How's she holding up?"
He audibly sighed, not thrilled with my choice of subject, but at least he answered. "I can't repair a broken relationship in a few days, Robert. She won't come out of engineering to speak to me, and I'm too busy up here to go down to her. I'm not sure what she would expect from me in the first place."
"Nothing, that's why just about anything would surprise her."
"And what did you say to my son? He looks preoccupied."
I admired how easily Arc changed the subject. I got the hint, he didn't want to talk about his daughter. Fine, whatever. "Jeremiah's got a lot on his mind. I gotta tell you, Arc, this family of yours may not be cut out for something like this. Your wife's constantly on edge, your son is scared to death of dying, and your daughter is an emotional basket case. I've been in this business a good thirty years. They really wipe the fear and apprehension right out of you in military training. Teach you to resist torture, control stress, stay calm as you march straight into the mouth of Hell. You guys are good at what you do, but I think it's dawning on all of them just how risky this is. I've even been watching the Darrex crew, and I'm pretty sure the scuttlebutt among them is that we're all fucked and aren't coming back. I can't tell how they feel about it, with my limited understanding of their language, but talk like that is bad for morale."
Arc rolled his eyes. "And what do you think would be good for morale at this point?"
"Finding that damn planet and kicking some Koraxian ass, obviously. Or, we'll all be dead and not have to worry about it anymore. The problem is solved, either way."
"I'm starting to think you are what's bad for morale, Captain."
"I call 'em like I see 'em. There's a lot at stake here and I don't see the point in sugarcoating it."
"Hold on a second," he said, apparently noticing something on his tactical display. He turned around and called to his son across the command deck. "Jeremiah! Go through the FV that Koraxian trading ship just passed through."
"What trading ship?" I asked. "I didn't see anything."
"It was trying to mask its course, but I detected some particle disturbance in a fairly linear path. Sometimes you just have to watch the dust. A lot of merchant ships are too small to be passively detected by the usual means."
The ship followed the path of Arcturus' alleged trading ship. I folded my arms, still skeptical that he'd really seen anything, and was just doing this to give everyone something to do, something to focus on, something to look forward to.
But no, he really did see what he said he did. The windows ahead of us flashed, the starfield changed, and we were definitely somewhere else.
"Location?" Arcturus asked.
"Calculating," Jeremiah responded. "It's taking a little longer than usual. I think we went quite a distance that time."
I stepped up to one of the windows, something glistening in the distance having caught my eye. "Hey, Arc?"
He came up alongside me, wondering what I was gawking at. "What?"
"Are those what I think they are?" I pointed to them, the thousands of sparkling, greenish dots orbiting a lime green planet.
"No, no," he whispered, rushing back to his map. "No, we can't be there yet... FVs don't go that far. What the hell..."
"Location confirmed," Jeremiah announced. "We're in the Koraxian home system."
"Can we back out?" I asked. "I don't like these odds."
"This piece of shit needs fifteen minutes to reset its vector drive," Jeremiah groaned. "We're not going anywhere."
"Then we'd better hide," I suggested. "Find a big rock or something."
"Fuck!" Arcturus swore.
I patted him on the shoulder. "Relax, man. Five days. That's gotta be a record or something."
"Well, at least we have a route to the Koraxian homeworld now. Assuming we live to tell anyone about it."
Chapter 27
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