“Colonel Che-chee has been studying English and understands it,” Miriam translated. “She just has a hard time pronouncing most of our phonemes.”
“Feel free to speak Cheerick, Colonel,” the CO said. “I don’t understand your language, yet, so I can hardly fault you for not being able to speak ours. If you and your pilots will accompany me to the wardroom we can continue this discussion in comfort.”
“Uh, sir,” Bill said. “Permission to speak.”
“Go, XO.”
“Sir, I would suggest that the Mothers accompany us to the wardroom,” Bill said. “The chief of boat is on-hand to get your males settled in their quarters.”
Miriam nodded at the series of squeaks and shrugged.
“She’s the only Mother,” Miriam said. “The others are all enlisted.”
“Damn,” Prael muttered. “I’d forgotten about that.”
Cheerick females were larger and stronger than males and filled all senior roles. That is, once they were post-breeding stage. Breeders were sub-sentient and males were considered to be lacking seriousness and intelligence. Whether the latter was genetics or culture wasn’t clear, yet, but all males were relegated to enlisted slots whereas Mothers, post-breeding females, were the officers and leadership of the society.
“In that case, Colonel,” the CO said, “if you’ll accompany us to the wardroom, the COB will get your men settled.”
Colonel Che-chee squeaked at the nine males accompanying her and gestured to the COB. It was clear that they were getting a bit of a dressing down but if it suppressed them it wasn’t apparent. They were all grinning and nose-wrinkling at boarding the human spaceship.
“Ko,” Colonel Che-chee said after a moment, gesturing into the ship.
“We’re going to want to run exercises on the run out to Taurus,” Captain Prael said, once the group reached the wardroom. “And since we’ve never tried to keep dragonflies alive on the hull for this long, that’s going to be an issue. We’ll just have to hope they survive.”
Previous missions of the Blade, besides bringing ambassadors back and forth, had included testing various ways to carry the Cheerick Dragonfly Fighters. The dragonflies had both a very fast normal space drive system and lasers for engagement. But their real trick was a force field, permeable to the lasers but apparently impermeable to anything else, that could absorb a good bit of punishment. The organic fighter system would be major force multiplier if they survived.
“The colonel is sure they will,” Miriam translated. “Every test so far has been successful. Is there any news on how they work?”
The Blade had brought back a dragonfly after their first mission. It had died enroute, since they had no clue about how to feed it, but the parts were all still there.
However, human and Adar scientists had been stumped by the creature. It generated the lasers using a rather comprehensible chemical system. Part of its dietary requirements that the humans hadn’t known was that it needed the base chemicals for the lasers, the dragonfly equivalent of vitamins. However, beyond that point, humans and Adar were scratching their heads. It had various parts that were probably its reactionless drive, antigravity generator and power source. But the power requirements for the dragonfly’s proven range and acceleration were enormous and there was no fusion reactor in the things’s guts.
Live dragonflies had been delivered to the Hexosehr and they promised to look at them as soon as they got settled. But for the time being the answer was…
“No,” the CO said to Lady Che-Chee, shrugging. “We still have no clue. Do you dislike providing support?”
Miriam winced at the blunt question, then chuckled at the reply.
“The short answer is: No,” the linguist translated. “The longer answer is the Cheerick realize that if they didn’t have the dragonflies, they would have virtually nothing to trade. As it is, with them, they can bring in scientists and specialists to advance their technology and culture. They’re allies, but…”
“Alliances are based on mutual benefit.” Prael nodded. “Good. Very well, the mission is to investigate an area we think a higher technology race once inhabited and try to find any technologies that may help in the war against the Dreen. The Dreen are known to be in the sector but it’s believed in minimal force. We may not even encounter them. If we do, however, I intend to run rather than fight. This is a scouting and exploratory mission, not a raid. If we do have to fight, however, we’re going to need to have your wing integrated. I’d suggest that we get down to particulars of how we’re going to use you and your people…”
“Hey, Berg, I’m heading down to Kakki Town,” Lieutenant Morris said, sticking his head in Admin. “You wanna come?”
Between loading the dragonflies and some diplomatic duties, the Blade was going to be on Cheerick for better than two days. Given that, and that the actual loading would be late in the action, the CO had authorized shore leave.
The Marines, especially, were looking forward to it. On-board the ship they had nothing to do but drill and while First Sergeant Powell was inventive, the drills became boring as hell quickly. This was the last friendly planet they could look forward to visiting for some time and just seeing sky from outside a Wyvern suit sounded good.
“I wish I could,” Eric admitted. “But I am loaded to the max.”
“Check with the Old Man,” Morris said. “It’s shore leave, man!”
“Sir, am I authorized for shore leave?” Eric asked after being given permission to enter.
“You’re an officer now, Lieutenant Bergstresser,” Zanella said, looking up from his monitor. “If you feel you have the time and you’re not on a duty roster, that’s up to you.”
“Are you taking shore leave, sir?” Eric asked. He knew that that wasn’t a straight “yes.”
“I’m still up to my eyeballs in paperwork, Lieutenant,” the CO replied, gesturing at the monitor. “The good part about a twenty day cruise is that I might be almost caught up when we get to our destination.”
“In that case, sir, I will decline to take shore leave,” Eric said, nodding.
“Thought you might.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“Ready to go?” Weaver asked.
Along with the rest of the Blade’s mission, Miriam and Weaver were scheduled to meet with the Alliance ambassador and the Cheerick Minister for Stellar Affairs. The Cheerick had been more than willing to be secret partners in the Alliance until the Blade went public. With the sudden change in status, the American government wanted to prepare the Cheerick for the onslaught of curiosity that was about to break out. And ensure that the partnership with the Alliance was solid.
Rather than have a direct portal from Cheerick to Earth, a third planet had a gate installed with another jump to Earth. The planet, which was still unnamed but referred to ubiquitously as Waypoint, also had a portal to Runner’s World, which the Hexosehr were in the process of colonizing and reterraforming, and to Adar.
“Of course,” Miriam said, hitting the hatch to the ramp and stepping out. “It’s not like the queen will notice my hair isn’t rolled.”
“Queen Sicrac?” Weaver said, stepping onto a chee-board. “I wouldn’t bet on it.”
The boards, chack-chack to the Cheerick, or “sleds” earlier to the Blade crew, were just part of the strange dichotomy of Cheerick, a planet with a mostly medieval culture and technology mixed with tech so advanced humans sometimes felt like monkeys examining it. The boards simply appeared, scattered across the surface of the planet. A user, human or Cheerick, just stepped on the board and thought about where they wanted to go and how. The board responded perfectly, performing loops and banks that would make a swallow jealous, while generating some sort of “sticky” traction field that kept the user’s feet firmly attached to the top of the board. They worked in deep space just as well as in atmosphere, had a high acceleration and inertial damping and, like the dragonflies, they had an unknown power-source. Although in the case of the boards it appeared to be unlimited; no board collected by the Cheerick had ever failed in recorded history.