:: 16.10.2003 ::
Chapter Four
"Colonel," Damar's computer chimed, "I have found no reference to 'Kharak'sa' anywhere in the military databases. Are you certain that you had heard correctly?"
He nodded impatiently, "Yes, I'm certain. Why don't you check on the GalNet? It may be hidden in some commercial holosite."
The computer complied, and Damar returned to his thoughts. There wasn't much left for him to do; his ageing Flak Frigate, a remnant of the T-Mat war with Hiigara, was set to escort a Carrier full of colonists to a dark moon parsecs from the Homeworld, and they had about five hours in transit before they reached the rendezvous point, and it was 0100 hours ship time, so his duties on the bridge were not required for another four hours.
All that was left for him to accomplish was to lie in his dimly-lit captain's quarters and think.
But think about what? What was at the top of his head was this infernal "Kharak'sa" mystery; what was it? And why did Fleet Intelligence care so much about it? He supposed that it was some top secret military installation they'd posted in Karos, perhaps under a cloaking field to hide themselves from the vigilant clean-up duty of the ominous Corvette-sized vessels that patrolled the area.
He knew it had something to do with the Unbound, and he was also pretty sure that the Unbound races were unaware of it, as they were of this Project Tasiin. He knew he shouldn't have gotten into this whole scheme; he was frightened.
Fleet Intelligence, no matter how patriotic a light one shone on them, was nothing more than the planet's black ops group. It was arbitrary knowledge throughout the Navy's ranks that Intel was around to make sure that certain missions vital to Hiigara's safety, regardless of their morality and respect of Kushan law, were carried out. Rumor had it that Fleet Intel even commanded a considerable force of the most advanced Cloaked Fighters and the new Phantom-class Cloaked Frigates, and used it to employ the dastardliest of objectives, like razing planets that supposedly held hidden enemy forces. The legend of the Invisibles was widespread and popular, and Damar had to admit that those who operated cloaked vessels-and most of them did not readily admit to that fact, both for their own safety against enemy agents and to avoid the stigma attached to the occupation-usually stuck to themselves or each other, and their pallid expressions did succeed in discomforting more than a few people.
Neither of Damar's parents had served in the military. They had both lived through the horrors of the T-Mat war, and could not stand the bloodshed caused by soldiers, and had refused to join the service. His father had been a banker, his mother a Director of hovertram transport in one of Hiigara's major cities. When their two children had declared they were entering the armed forces, the parents only stared at them with incredulity. They had protested violently against this ambition, so the two of them had to enlist in secret.
Damar hadn't the quick reflexes necessary to become a pilot or a soldier, so he joined the Officer's Corps. He worked his way up from commanding the maintenance workers on a Soban Destroyer to commanding his own vessel. He was not in a large fleet like the Home Guard or the Kaar Fleet, and that only increased the satisfaction of his job; the ship he controlled was his, and he reported to no one else but from Fleet Command directly.
And Sari had become a military doctor. Mending battle scars for hundreds of soldiers in various ground campaigns, she displayed a talent for biochemical alteration, and had published a well-acclaimed thesis on the artificial physiology of the Hiigaran Marine. During a most difficult mission, however, she stumbled upon an Intelligence-based attack on a certain military base using bio-warfare weapons that had long been banned. When she was caught by Intel officers as she dug more deeply into the mission, they gave her two choices: imprisonment, where she could not reveal the mission to anyone (at least, they claimed they would only lock her up; Damar knew that they wouldn't have stopped there to keep their secrets,) or join a special biomedical group within Intelligence. She was licensed by the bureau to carry a firearm, given special access codes to the Intelligence military mainframe, and all other perks an Intel officer was granted, even though her work required her to remain in a lab for most of the time. As such, Damar had only seen his sister a handful of times in the twenty or so years since they'd left home.
And now, more than ever, he wondered what she was up to.
"Colonel," the computer declared, interrupting his thoughts. "I regret to inform you that there is no reference to the word 'Kharak'sa' anywhere on the commercial GalNet, either."
He sighed. It was a long shot, after all, and he knew from the start that he couldn't really search for the mysterious project without setting off a few alarms in Director Naabal's office.
A chime at his door sounded, and he lethargically turned around to face the entryway. "Come in," he said.
In walked a 1Y-class military android, the latest wave in robotic assistance to the Hiigaran Navy. Though originally designed to supplement the manpower-starved military after the Landfall, the diverse range of military droids, having proved their valor both on command ships and in starfighters, had become somewhat of a common institution throughout the ranks of the Hiigaran forces.
"I am sorry to disturb you, Colonel," the droid's tinny, synthesized voice apologized. "However, your Number One has ordered me to inform you of a certain complication in our mission."
That was odd. As far as Damar knew, this would be a straight, by-the-book deal. Had the convoy been ambushed? "What happened to the convoy?" he asked.
"Nothing, Colonel," replied the droid. "However, something…unexpected has happened to us, if you get my meaning, sir. First of all, we have been pulled out of hyperspace."
Damar turned to the viewport in his room. The robot spoke the truth; no longer was there a shimmering blue field of high-layer hyperspace, only a still starfield emerged from the transparisteel port.
"What exactly," he said, choosing his words carefully, "has happened?"
He had been expecting an enemy force of some kind, but what he saw through the bridge's viewscreen baffled him. It was a lone T-Mat Megaship, just sitting out in space. According to his bridge officers, it had not responded to hails, had not moved as much as a meter in the last few minutes, and had not powered up weapons (and in the spirit of diplomacy, neither had they,) but was keeping them stranded in realspace by a gravity well.
Inaction worried Damar more than any vicious attack could. At least when one was under fire, you had two options: fire back, or retreat. However, when a potentially dangerous enemy was keeping you from escaping, and not doing a thing, you had only the one option, and it was far from desirable: wait and see what happened.
To think it was the T-Mat, no one else, who was doing this raised even more questions. Ever since their attack of Hiigara in 91 AHL, about 55 years previously, they had taken heed to stay out of the open, hiding from all other races in the universe, especially the Hiigarans. Whether they were plotting the galaxy's end or simply keeping a silent vigil over their galactic companions was anyone's guess, but to come into direct contact with another ship, intentionally, was almost unheard of.
This better be good, Damar thought. He crooked a finger at his comm. officer, who acknowledged the order and opened a channel with the other vessel. When the officer gave his thumbs-up, Damar began speaking. "This is Colonel Damar Paktu, captain of the-"
A rough voice resonated through his mind; the Unbound only communicated to others telepathically. Damar raised his hands to his head, clutching the sides in mock pain, but waved away his concerned bridge officers.
Captain of the Flak Frigate Dominance, Naval license 299054-S. 43 Hiigaran years. Brother to Agent Sari Paktu of Hiigaran Fleet Intelligence.
Damar had to admit he was impressed. "You've done your homework."
We know much more about you. We are interested in your current line of duty.
"You mean…transporting some colonists to a backwater?"
No. We know of the projects worked on by your sister.
Damar did not know whether to feel frightened or validated. He knew that Fleet Intelligence could not keep anything from the Unbound; along with their mastery of observation that help them regulate the galaxy to their own ends, they have a small delegation of spies that engage in espionage against Bound cultures, intrigued by the promise of wealth or even the chance to become Unbound, and to become more powerful than physically possible. He didn't know who had tipped them off, but he knew that Fleet Intelligence wasn't as secure as they hoped.
On the other hand, how much did they know? And how did they plan to act upon this knowledge? Despite they reinforced military, Damar didn't know if Hiigara could withstand a second war with the T-Mat, especially if the reason for the war would easily anger most of the other Unbound races, perhaps even the docile Bentusi.
"So? Why come to me? Why not just ask Sari herself?"
Many reasons. First of all, your Intelligence officers are well observed by their superiors, and any attempt to contact her would surely be noticed by Intelligence heads. They would pay more close attention to us, and such we cannot afford.
We also know that were we to go to her, she would surely lie about her projects. She would attempt to conceal the truth from us.
Damar resented the implication that Sari would deliberately hide anything from anyone-he had never seen her as that kind of secret agent-but he said nothing, interested immensely by this more than peculiar scenario.
We doubt that you will betray your race or you family, but we wanted you to know that we are keeping an eye on your projects. Hiding from the Unbound is impossible. We shall be watching you.
And with as mysterious an air as they'd appeared, so they disappeared just as quickly, in a flash of red hyperspace fields.
No one spoke. No one knew. Damar, however, shook his head in confusion. If the Unbound knew everything, why would they have tried to contact him in the first place? And did this have anything to do with the enigmatic "Kharak'sa"? Damar didn't know, but what he did know was that once this mission was over, he would hunt down Admiral Krenneg and try to sort some things out. This was not merely an ambitious project Sari was working on; it was much more than that.
How much more, that he did not know, and that he had to find out.
Admiral Terr'niet liked Jai'mar of the Harkk'hah from the moment he laid eyes on him.
It wasn't because he was qualified for the job, which he clearly was; the ship he'd flown in on was an incredible feat of engineering, and the bounty hunter's track record spoke for itself. It was because Jai'mar was not a wraith.
Unlike the swift, silent creatures that he'd feared since childhood, this creature was massive, loud, and predictable. Terr'niet knew that this Turanic warrior worked for credits, and nothing else. So as long as his bank accounts were well furnished, he would remain with you as loyally as possible…until a higher bidder came around.
The Raider was truly massive for his race, easily six feet tall and at least two hundred pounds heavy. His massive girth made him appear slow, but no less deadly, as the two heavy plasma rifles he'd slung on his back suggested. He wore ancient battle armor once worn by his race in battle, which had acquired its fair share of dings, bullet holes, and dirt from dozens of planets.
He was somewhat of an anomaly within his race, actually. Unlike their predecessors that had thrived during the Exodus and the chaos that followed, those who had truly fought and died as mercenaries, either in the service for the Taiidan Empire or for other races, the current Turanic community was rather docile.
With the advent of high-level hyperspace travel that the notorious Beastslayer had spawned, the remote planet of Turan had finally become accessible to its quasi-exiled children in the galactic core. Several dozen thousand light years away from mainstream space, it would have remained marooned in its empty sector of space forever had it not been for a routine Taiidan expeditionary force that discovered them, and their potential for Imperial service.
But now, with hyperspace travel that could make the entire length of the Mothership's Exodus seem like a walk in the park, Turan and its children were finally able to reap the benefits of true colonization in the Core. As such, Turanic families like the Gul'Daan and Duran had become increasingly more dependent on legitimate business dealings like cargo ferrying, deep-space mining, and even law enforcement, instead of scavenging for bounty-tagged dirty work for certain clientele. The Turanic Assembly was now a stronger voice in the council, and the Turanic race was far from as aggressive as its long-dead warrior ancestors, like Klu'koth of the Gul'Daan and Halen Chell, once were.
Which made this individual al the more intriguing to the Taiidani Admiral. The two of them addressed each other with their races' traditional signs of respect, and went straight to business.
"You have decided to take on this mission, yes?" Terr'niet asked directly.
The insectoid creature nodded, his reddish brown antennae swaying lazily on his head. "I do anything for the right price. And yours, while not up to my personal standards, is sufficient to hold me for a while."
Slightly annoyed, Terr'niet said, "100,000 credits may not rival the bounty you'd received for Lain Ghyallamo, but it is generous, nonetheless."
Jai'mar seemed impressed. "That was a job for the Hiigarans, and they're pretty quiet about their black ops projects. I'm surprised you know."
Terr'niet shrugged. "I have my sources, just like any other struggling warlord."
"Hmph. Anyway, the bounty is an important aspect of a job when one considers how dangerous it can be. That smuggler took me little effort to achieve what most couldn't even dream of, but this job…that'll take some doing. And that will determine the price."
"What?" Terr'niet asked. "How hard the job is?"
Jai'mar twisted his mandibles into an odd semblance of a grin. "No, how badly you want it. And that's how I get to cash in."
"I won't pretend to understand you, bounty hunter."
"It's very simple," the Turanic said. "You want me to attack a Bentusi Tradeship, and navigate it back to your fleet. I bet I can do it; Unbound or not, they're not as trained for battle as I am. It will be really difficult, as they'll be able to manipulate their ship in whatever way they choose once I infiltrate it, but I still believe I can do it.
"The thing of it is, nothing so bold has ever been suggested to me or any of my fellow mercenaries. And rightly so, because very few people would accept the challenge for any bounty posted, let alone succeed. The fact that you posted the bounty at all means you really want me to do this job for you, which means that you know you can't do it yourself, not without destroying your fleet or the Bentusi vessel. Now I don't know what you want from them; weapons schematics, architectural design, or exotic technology, but-"
His grin widened when he finished his statement. "-you want it bad." He crossed his arms over his chest. "I will accept 300,000 credits for this job, no less."
Terr'niet thought this over. They could easily pay that much, especially for the cargo in question, but it was a matter of principles. Jai'mar of the Harkk'hah had them by the nether areas, and he knew it. And he was squeezing to see if they'd cave in…
Terr'niet smiled; demanding or not, this scoundrel enjoyed playing this little haggling game as much as he did. "How about 250,000? That's more than enough to upgrade your vessel by several times, transform it into a more than unbeatable vessel in a dogfight."
He did not give up, though. "275,000. I buy myself my own battle frigate. Cruising around in one of those things would be more comfortable, and promote my business substantially."
One last jab…"260,000. My people have connections with an arms dealer in the Far Territories that could install a self-sufficient Cloak Generator. Stealth counts if you want to-"
Become a wraith, he thought.
"-sneak up on your enemies."
The bounty hunter thought this over for a moment. Knowing this would settle the deal, Terr'niet added, "Hey, you've just bargained yourself for almost triple what we would have given you before."
He grabbed the bait, as well as Terr'niet's hand. "A pleasure doing business with you. Now if you don't mind, I have an impregnable fortress to attack."
He walked out of the room and off of the Ruthless Punisher without any further word.
Terr'niet smiled to himself. He'd originally decided to post a bounty of one million credits to entice more possible mercenaries; his fleet could easily afford that expense.
Yes, when it came to manipulation, the Taiidan, and Terr'niet, were the kings of the universe.
