Solbidyum Wars Saga 6: Defeat of the Tottalax

SOLBIDYUM WARS SAGA

BOOK 6 – BOOK 6-DEFEAT OF THE TOTTALAX

Cover illustration by Dale Musser

Edited by Charlene Schuster

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2015 by Dale C. Musser

When I awoke I instantly knew where I was, and that I had been dreaming, even though my eyes were shut.  What I had been dreaming I cannot recall.  I lay there, with my eyes still closed, wondering if I should attempt to drift back into dreamland, or if I should get up.  Then I had a strange feeling something was different, something out of place.  I was lying on my side with my head turned to the near side of the bed; I slowly opened my eyes and found myself peering into four eyes staring back into mine.

“Are you awake, Daddy?”  One pair of eyes asked me. I saw a hand belonging to the body of the second pair of eyes reach up and tap me on the arm.

“Daddy awake?” a tiny voice said.

“Yes, Daddy’s awake,” I answered as I slowly started to sit up.

“Daddy come play,” the head belonging to the first pair of eyes said.

“Ok Lunnie, give Daddy a chance to get up and dress, and Daddy will come and play.”

Immediately the two faces and the bodies connected to them scurried off toward the living room.

“What’s all the noise about?” a muffled voice next to me inquired.  I turned my head to see Kala’s face half-buried in her pillow, her eye, the one I could see, still shut.

“The twins are up and want to play,” I replied.  I’m going to get dressed and spend some time with them before heading back to the
DUSTEN
.

“Fine, wake me when you’re getting ready to leave,” she mumbled.

I leaned down and kissed her on the cheek, and she raised one arm and gently patted my head before drifting back to sleep.

I sighed and rolled out of the bed and headed to the shower, muttering my morning curse along the way about three-minute showers and why couldn’t they make them longer.  I was seriously considering having a special shower made like the old Earth showers that sprayed steaming water over you as long as you wanted to stand there.  Showers in the Federation lasted three minutes and sprayed some mist-like fog all over you, and while it did a remarkable job of cleaning you, it wasn’t all that refreshing or relaxing.

Ten minutes later, showered, groomed and dressed, I contacted Captain Marranalis and told him to meet me on the
DUSTEN
in about 30 minutes.  Then I headed to the living room where Lunnie and Reidecor sat upon the floor in front of the vid screen watching some documentary about animals.  I grinned and shook my head.  Most kids their age would be watching kid shows on the vid screen, and in the Federation, there were hundreds of them to choose from, including, oddly enough, many old cartoon shows from Earth that had arrived via the rescued Mars colony years earlier.  However, Lunnie was fascinated by animals, insects, and plants and would watch a documentary before she would watch a cartoon.  Kala said she thought it was an inherited interest, as Lunnie’s grandmother had been a biologist.  Reidecor would have been content watching anything as long as Lunnie was watching it.  If Lunnie was happy, he was.

As I entered the room Lunnie pointed toward the screen and said, “Morton!” I looked at the screen and saw a large bird-like creature with a strange, long, and curved beak.  “Yes Lunnie, it’s a morton,” I replied.  Reidecor responded “morfton” and pointed toward the screen with a smile, where upon Lunnie slapped him on the arm and with a stern look said, “No! Morton!”  Reidecor sat stunned, probably not realizing he had mispronounced it and repeated, “Morfton?” again. I just shook my head as Lunnie stuck her lip out and pushed him.

Lunnie appeared to be very bright for her age, while Reidecor appeared more normal for his age.  I was concerned that perhaps Reidecor might be on the slow side, an idea that didn’t bode well with Kala.  We ended up taking both twins to Dr. Hughes, who tested them for mental skills.  I was astonished when the results came back, and he told us that Lunnie and Reidecor scored nearly the same on the intelligence test, there was only one-point difference in their scores.  He also said that they both had above-normal intelligence, which made Kala beam.  When I asked why it seemed that Reidecor was slower at picking things up than Lunnie, Dr. Hughes explained that while their overall scores were nearly the same their levels of intelligence in certain areas were not.  Lunnie was far more advanced in language skills and social skills, but Reidecor was more intelligent in problem-solving and other areas such as mechanical aptitude.  Lunnie learned more from interactions and observation whereas Reidecor learned from experimentation.

Play with Lunnie could mean many things, in this case play simply meant sitting there with them and commenting on the contents of vid documentary.  Lunnie would point to various animals and name them or ask their names, and I would confirm or try and figure out just what they were.  I was permitted to say I didn’t know, but Lunnie fully expected me to find out and tell her later.  If I didn’t, she would keep asking me until I did.  The vid watching went on for about 15 minutes, while Reidecor disassembled several toys and then tried to reassemble them again.

I was just about to get up and wake Kala to tell her I was going to leave when Jenira came through the door.  Anyone else in my crew would have used the door alarm to notify us of their presence and intentions to enter, but ever since Jenira had saved Kala’s life when Yǎnjìngshé had tried to kill her two years earlier, Kala had insisted that Jenira be given free access to our suite at any time and the security system was so coded.  Jenira immediately signed good morning to everyone, and Lunnie signed good morning back to Jenira.  Reidecor grinned and waved his hands in what I imagine he thought was also a reply.  While the twins could talk, though they were developing their vocabulary, Jenira had taught them the Federation sign language for the deaf and non-vocal species.  Jenira could hear and speak. She just refused to speak. It took a while for the twins to realize this, and for a long time they both would only try to communicate with Jenira by sign language, but now they used both speech and sign language.

“Have the twins been fed?”  Jenira signed.

“No,” I responded, “I was just about to leave for the
DUSTEN,
and I was going to wake Kala.”

“Do you two want something to eat?” Jenira signed to the twins.  They both furiously nodded affirmative and Jenira led them off to the dining area, as I slipped into the bedroom and kissed Kala on the cheek.

“I’m leaving now.  Jenira is here and is feeding the twins.”

Kala’s arm reached up and patted me on the head, ”Have a good day, love,” she mumbled.  Kala had a rather late strenuous day and had gone back to our estate on Megelleon via the Cantolla Gates the day before, to meet with Piebar and others to discuss the affairs of our estate.  Since I was busy with Federation military matters, the duties of running our vast personal empire fell mostly on Kala’s shoulders.  I knew she was exhausted.  The estate had been rebuilt after nearly being completely destroyed when Roritat and Ming attacked it before they fled Megelleon two years earlier.  Now all the restoration and reconstruction had been completed, however there were many other matters that needed to be taken care of, like payment of contractors and hiring of more staff to tend to the estate.

I exited the suite and was met by my bodyguards.  By the stars, I hated these body guards.  Not them personally, but just the presence of them everywhere, like a swarm of insects buzzing around your face.

“Where to, Admiral?” The lieutenant of the guard team asked.

“To the
DUSTEN
,” I answered as we began heading for the Cantolla Gates.

It had been a year since the battle with the Brotherhood at Spelhes. Since then the attacks of the Brotherhood had reduced in scale and mostly along the smaller and outermost planets on the Federation’s edges.  It was assumed that the reduction was due to the loss of a large number of their ships in the battles at Spelhes, Kendrop, and Gochian; where they had not only lost the starship
HAPRIN
, now renamed the
SOKAIA
, but thousands of patrol ships, fighters and a few frigates and corvettes.  However, we knew it was only a matter of time before the Brotherhood rebuilt their fleet and would resume their offensives in full again.

The Federation had not been idle during this time.  A central hub had been set up for Cantolla Gates that acted as a station for the transfer of people and smaller good.  The space station that housed these gates was located in a top-secret site and shielded with a Reverse Magnetic Force Field (RMFF) as well as a cloaking device that made it invisible to most standard detection systems.  Ninety-five percent of all transfers through Cantolla Gates went through the central hub station; only on select military ships were there direct transfer gates between destinations.  The
DUSTEN
, as flagship for the first fleet, equipped with multiple gates with designated destinations was one such ship; my private yacht, the
NEW ORLEANS,
was another.

When we arrived at the Cantolla Gates, I could see Marranalis waiting for me on the
DUSTEN
side.

“Good morning, Admiral,” he said as I approached.

“Good morning Captain,” I replied, “Do we have any new developments this morning that I should know about?”

“Yes sir,” he began hesitantly, “we’ve just received word that the Brotherhood attacked the planet Caldemic in Sector 2.  Admiral Regeny is requesting that you, and the other fleet admirals, meet with him here on the
DUSTEN
in an hour.  I don’t know the details.  However, from the way it sounds, the casualties are very high.”

“Did the Brotherhood occupy the planet?”  I asked.

“Not as far as I know, sir.  Indications are they just attacked and destroyed cities all over the planet and never even sent troops to the surface.”

“That’s most odd,” I commented, “what is the major industry of Caldemic?”

“That’s the strange part.  Caldemic is a tourist planet that is also involved in major medical research.  The planet has a number of schools and universities – hardly a place one would target in a war.”

“And you say nothing was taken from the planet’s surface?”  I asked. “That doesn’t make sense.  The Brotherhood finances a lot of their war efforts with drug production and distribution, I would have expected them to try to steal as much equipment as they could get their hands on.

“Has Stonbersa had a chance to survey the damage there?”

Marranalis paused a second and then replied, “I don’t know sir; the information just came in minutes before I met you here at the gate. I suspect that Stonbersa only found out about it at the same time we did, and he probably has a team on its way there now to access the actual damage.”

“Let’s get to the bridge.  I’d like to talk with Captain Wanoll about this, and to see just where Caldemic is.  It doesn’t make sense for the Brotherhood to do a hit-and-run attack on this planet with nothing to gain.”

When we arrived on the bridge we had to go through the yada, yada routine of “admiral on the bridge,” and all the other military crap I hate so much before I could actually begin to address Wanoll.

“I’m assuming you have been looking at this situation at Caldemic,” I said to Captain Wanoll.

“Yes sir, reports are still coming in, but it looks like all the major cities were destroyed; millions of lives were lost and only a handful of survivors that were in rural areas.”

“Show me on the vid screen where Caldemic’s location in the Federation,” I ordered.

“Sir, it’s located where you see the red dot on the screen,” Wanoll answered.

“And where are we in relation to that?”  I asked as a yellow dot appeared clear across the vast area of Federation space.  “Now show me where the nearest ship-sized Cantolla Gate is located.”  A green dot appeared on the screen, but nowhere near Caldemic.

“Hmm,” I hummed, “It would appear that the Brotherhood picked a location they knew would be difficult for us to respond to quickly after they attacked.  How long will it take for the first of Stonbersa’s ships to get there?”

“Sir, Stonbersa is saying his closest ship is at least three days away from Caldemic at this time.”

“What about troops at Caldemic?  We have a base there, don’t we?”  I asked.

“No sir, we don’t.  The Caldemician’s refused to have a base on their planet.  They claimed they didn’t need any as they were of no strategic value to anyone as a military target.”  Wanoll said.

“What!”  I exclaimed. “I thought every Federation planet was required to have at least one military base and be set up for minimal planetary defense at the least.”

“No, sir.  About 100 years ago a number of planets declared they were pacifists and required no military presence, or protection.  The Senate voted that it was within their rights to refuse, and all military bases were removed from their worlds.”

I shook my head before responding, “We can see how well that worked for them, now can’t we? What makes people so ignorant that they believe having no protection is safer than having protection?”

“Yes, sir, Captain Slater said the same thing.  He said that back on Earth it was the reduction of the military in the United States that led to the militarization and expansion of other nations, and this ended in battles and wars and led to the great World War III on your planet.”

I studied the map some more, “This just doesn’t make sense.  I can’t see any tactical advantage for this strike.”