As its senior officer, Tarimenloku was authorized to have alcoholic beverages aboard ship, but he didn't often use them. It was his observation that to drink more or less frequently meant to drink more and more frequently, which was not compatible with his responsibilities. This evening though—this ship's evening—he was having a dharvag, and would probably have another when it was gone.
His cabin was twice as large as any other on board, except for His Reverence's cabin; there was one of those, never occupied, or almost never, on every naval ship. Tarimenloku's cabin also had a window, more than a yard square and very expensive. Through it he could see Terfreya without electronic mediation. A beautiful world. Why in Hell did it have to be difficult down there? Cadets! If those were cadets, what must their soldiers be like?
Sooner or later the Confederation would learn he was here, though apparently no pod had gotten away. The prisoners who should know insisted that only one pod had been sent, and he'd destroyed that one outbound before destroying the rest on the ground. His Chief Intelligence Officer had assured him the prisoners had told the truth; his instruments insisted they had.
He couldn't occupy Terfreya indefinitely. Didn't want to, didn't intend to. His role was reconnaissance, not conquest; he'd landed to get knowledge. The two marine regiments, the first two, he'd sent down for security, and to establish a posture suitable for an embassy of the Sultan and of Kargh. He'd known it was risky when he did it, but it had been necessary.
Now he'd learned enough that he could justifiably go home, and he would if it weren't for those damned cadets. They'd attacked his marines and continued to harass them, thereby insulting Klestron and the Empire. If he ran away from the situation, His Reverence the Sultan would have him impaled atop the palace wall. While the emperor, the Kalif, when he heard, would demand his bones and commit further indignities on them.
Nor was nuking a solution. Kargh would never forgive nuking a planet in other than defense of the Faith. While on another level, nuking might easily bring about a hatred of the Empire that would make the conversion and rule of this sector very difficult.
No, nuking was another way to earn a place on the palace wall, decorating a long iron stake.
Responsibility!
As insurance, he'd sent off seven small pods of his own, carrying the requisite reports to Klestron. It was a hellish long way, and the standard error of arrival location accordingly large. DAAS had computed that five should be sent, to be substantially certain of one arriving within beacon range of Klestron. He'd hedged his bet with two extra.
Tarimenloku raised the glass to his lips again, sipped, and gloomed down at the serene-looking world below, visualizing jungle, and in the jungle, children. Boys with sharp knives, boys too young to know a woman yet, let alone shave. Children slipping among the trees with projectile weapons in their hands and killing on their minds.
It would help to know how many there were. His prisoners knew little about them, their estimates ranging from five hundred to a thousand. The cadets didn't seem to mind taking casualties, though they'd left few enough behind. Their wounded fought to the death. They might lay seemingly unconscious, but with an armed grenade concealed, or a sidearm, then kill the marines who came up to them. So now his marines shot to rags any fallen cadet who wasn't conspicuously dead, orders be damned, and prisoners for questioning had so far been nonexistent.
Probably the salvation of the situation would be supply. The cadets had shown themselves frugal in their use of ammunition, a clear sign that their supply was limited. In time they'd run out, and landing the rest of the brigade had no doubt speeded the day.
He hadn't intended to, but Tarimenloku fell asleep over his drink, waking with a start, half an hour later, to the comm-buzzer on his wall. He reached, touched the acknowledge key. "Sir," a voice said, "we just registered emergence waves."
"Thank you. I will be on the bridge directly."
One damn thing after another! He sighed heavily. It was probably a merchant ship. He'd expect the matric disturbance of a mere pod emerging to be dissipated beyond the Flenyaagor's ability to detect it. And there was no reason to anticipate a naval vessel. His information was that Terfreya received one regularly every ten Confederation years, and that the next one expected was four years away. Even the cadets, it seemed, had arrived on a merchantman.
The emergence waves traveled at light speed, but even so, the ship that had made them would be well on its way by now. And surely its captain had noticed that the homing beacon was missing. Would he be suspicious? Were merchantmen armed here? And there was always the possibility that it was, after all, a warship.
Tarimenloku went to the door and out into the corridor. He'd prepare as if it was naval, he decided, and wished that even one of his prisoners was informed on naval armament. He was confident that his own was superior to theirs, in general, but who knew what they might have, what one weapon, that he'd never heard of and wasn't prepared for.
How quickly would it know he was alien? Did they have a class of ships that resembled his? And the troop carrier? Would their instruments discern him before his discerned them?
Then a terrible thought occurred to him: What if it was a warship from the hostile sector that had somehow tracked him down? Irritated, he shook the notion off. The odds of it were zero, or nearly enough as to make no difference.
He'd be as ready as he could, and see what, in fact, happened.
Hours later his instruments picked up the approaching vessel. It showed no awareness of him, perhaps because it wasn't looking for him. Meanwhile DAAS, in its role as gunnery computer, tracked it. He weighed the relative risks of firing at too long a range, thus warning it, against waiting till it saw him, in either case giving it time to generate a shield. It was a computation DAAS couldn't make for him. Finally he fired, at a longer range than he'd have liked, and moments later the screen showed a vivid flash, an explosion. The strange ship came on, haloed by a cloud that disappeared almost at once. He fired again, and its forward end disintegrated. Again, and there was a massive explosion. Then there was no ship there; his instruments registered only debris.
He had his gunnery officer generate a shield, on the off chance that some piece of the debris might collide with the Flenyaagor, then ordered the stand-down from battle stations. He wasn't happy to have destroyed a merchant ship unwarned, but he'd seen no acceptable alternative. Kargh did not admire such acts, although he did not actually condemn them. And the Confederation ship could not have been allowed to land, or attack him, or return to hyperspace to notify the Confederation.