Chapter 11 Plans
Plans
Khoth stepped out of the drop ship and into one of the hangar bays of the Osiris. It was large and well-lit. Far larger than the Ashaton’s main hangar bay and this was only one of the Osiris’. One of many.
The gangway retracted and the ship that had brought him was retreating back out into space.
None of his people were on the Ashaton and the pilot had not been known to him.
The cold, formality between them had been usual for Thaf’ell interactions, but something in his Xi had curdled from it.
As he saw the ship leave, he felt a sense of relief as if he had thrown off some great weight.
“Isn’t this amazing?!” Thammah’s voice was burbling with excitement from behind him.
He turned around. He had thought he was alone, but she had been in the Kryptoria II just a ship’s length away. He lost some of his rigid posture and found himself smiling faintly.
She jogged over to him from her ship. He saw then that the Exarch was also in this bay, but it was being repaired by robots that crawled over its surface.
There were bright bursts and sparks from a robot that was injecting material into the Exarch’s damaged skin.
Others were climbing up the gangway with new parts.
Thammah stepped between him and his ship.
Seeing where his attention was she glanced over and nodded.
“Exarch will be better than new! But I think you should just upgrade entirely,” she told him.
“I am proficient with the Exarch’s controls and its own peculiarities. I should lose that if I were to upgrade,” he answered.
Her lips twitched. “Really? Because that answer hardly sounds logical.”
“Not in the least. It is a proven fact that people work more efficiently with systems they are familiar with and–”
“You’d learn the new system and become proficient in it,” she pointed out. “Besides I think the Osiris can mimic any of your old ship’s quirks if you really can’t be without them. Though that would make you sentimental, I believed.”
“I am hardly sentimental. That would be quite irrational and I–”
“Love your spaceship and don’t want to give her up.” Thammah chuckled. “You are a sentimental softie.”
A wash of warmth went through him. Only she of all the Thaf’ell would tease him this way.
Not even his father was so warm. Daesah had been close to this, but responsibilities had eliminated all but a very few of their personal conversations.
Unlike the cold and silent treatment he and the pilot had given each other, he felt accepted by Thammah.
“Humans know what it’s like to have technological upgrades,” Thamma enthused, not waiting for him to say anything. “Every few of their months, there’s something new and better on the market.”
“That sounds wasteful.” He frowned.
“Oh, it is in many ways and they have a significant pollution problem because of it, but I think I now understand the desire for gadgetry that exceeds the last generation by being faster, having more memory, being able to do new things,” Thammah explained. “We don’t have that.”
“Indeed. Altaeth technology cannot be improved upon,” he intoned.
“But it can! It has been! You’ve experienced it with your new rahir and draagves. Not to mention the suits!” She poked his stomach.
“I suppose that is correct,” he answered.
“But that’s nothing compared to the new tech in the ships.” She was beaming again. “Though the Kryptoria was wonderful–rest her soul–the Kryptoria II puts her to shame. I’m just starting to get the hang of it.”
He listened to her humanized speech. Her talk of a “soul” and the easy uses of phrases like “the hang of it” and “puts her to shame”.
Thammah was speaking like a native and maybe thinking like one too.
He was certain that his mother–and many others–would see this as her being contaminated by humans.
But he also realized it put her in danger of another sort.
They would suspect her of having human sympathies.
Thammah’s eyes were shining. She had a smile from ear to ear. That bright and brilliant expression though dimmed as she realized that something was wrong.
“What’s got your Xi out of joint?” she asked, hands going on hips, all serious now.
“I need to find Jace,” he said as the realization that his mother intended to take the Osiris by force if need be washed over him once more.
He had no time to dawdle here. He was going to tell Jace. The Osiris had to be prepared for this. Humanity had to be prepared. But he could not reveal any of this to Thammah, he realized.
She would be outraged by it. He knew that.
She was loyal to the humans and she wouldn’t see it as disloyalty to the Alliance to assist him in stopping it.
She would think that by disobeying a direct order from the High Councillor that he was saving the Alliance from itself.
And maybe that was correct. That was his view of it.
But no matter if he was right or wrong, his life in the Alliance would be over after this. He would lose his family, his position, his friendships, everything. He would not destroy her life as well as his. He had to protect her.
“Jace is situating his parents in their quarters,” she said with another of those delighted smiles.
“Both of them were like little kids about to spend their first night sleeping aboard a spaceship, you know? I can’t remember what it was like not to be able to travel to distant planets and star systems. But tonight was Jack’s first time to his own moon. It’s madness.”
The affection he heard in her voice for the Parkers could not be denied. Her Xi was fully exposed. He thought if there was a test of loyalty to either the Alliance or the Parkers it would cause a schism in her Xi and Xa. No, she could know nothing of what he was to do.
“Have you been assigned quarters on the Osiris?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, of course! Jace already considers me part of the crew,” she laughed with joy.
“But I’m going to sleep on the Kryptoria II tonight.
She and I need to be fully acquainted. Besides, I’ll have to fly down to get my stuff from the base and then decorate.
Quarters aren’t home until you put your little mark on the place.
Don’t want to sleep somewhere sterile, no matter how nice.
And believe me, the quarters here are nice. ”
He contrasted that with his mother’s determination to leave no trace of herself in her quarters on a ship or anyplace else. Here Thammah was practically homeless, yet she had a few things that would turn an impersonal area into her own space and that would make it home.
“I understand,” he said. “But you are with the Alliance, you should be getting clearance to stay here.”
She let out a laugh. “Considering your mother wishes to practically crawl in here herself, I highly doubt that they’re going to tell me to stand down.
Besides, I don’t really want to bring attention to myself.
Jace wants me here and if the Alliance knows that they’ll probably make him pay for it somehow.
Give us X number of ships! That sort of thing. ”
“Have you noticed there being a problem with the number of our forces?” he asked carefully.
She lifted an eyebrow. “Ah, you haven’t? Where have you been? Oh, wait, son of the High Councillor! Likely not going to be on the front line without at least a Saber-class ship or ten present, unlike the rest of us who have our own ships and that’s it.”
“Earth was the only place where you had one ship–”
But she was shaking her head. “No, partner, that’s not the case. Part of my style of doing things on my own is because I had to. Often there was only me out there and no backup.”
“But that is…” He stopped because the word he was going to use “unthinkable” perhaps just showed a lack of imagination and data. Thammah would not lie to him. “Unwise.”
“Exactly. So that means there must be a shortage.” She shrugged. “But with the Osiris’ building capability, not to mention its maps of other Altaeth worlds, that won’t be a problem anymore.”
“You do not think Jace will withhold these things from the Alliance?” he asked softly.
She squinted at him as if she weren’t sure what she was seeing.
“Jace wants to get rid of the Khul because that’s best for everyone.
I’m sure he’ll ask for a security force for Earth and humanity as a member of the Alliance but that’s completely standard and your mother shouldn’t have a problem with it. ”
She should not. Yet she has the power to give them what they want, he realized. She has no bargaining power at all.
“Humans are not useless in a fight, you know? Or maybe you don’t fully yet understand them,” she said. “It’s not just Jace–though obviously he’s super charged–but Jack and the other pilots are pretty damned great.”
“Humans do not have the reflexes necessary to–”
“They might not be as good as us in that area, but they have instincts,” she said with a nod as if agreeing with herself. “I let Jack, ah, fly a few times.”
“That is against regulations!”
“Uhm, well, yeah, but who was going to know? I was the only Alliance person there until you showed up,” she said a little sheepishly.
“And he loved it. So it was worth it. Besides, I can report to you that humanity can fly. We’re constantly looking for pilots for the outer rim worlds.
They’ll love to go instead of twisting other Alliance members' arms to do so.”
If only the other members would allow humanity in! The more Khoth thought of this, the worse it became. It would be so simple to let humanity join, have them earn their place, and change the other members’ opinions of them! But no, that won’t even be considered!
He suddenly saw one of those moving colored lines that had directed them to the Armory appear on the floor of the hanger bay. He knew that it would lead him to Jace. He started walking along it at a fast clip. Thammah quickly raced after him.