"We will return, clan brothers and sisters," he said, and his low voice was more than a mere promise and his eyes blazed. "We will return, and on the day we do, our vengeance for Zhardok and Masiahn will be complete."
CHAPTER THIRTY: Unfinished Business
"Actually, First Fang," Kthaara'zarthan said, "this is unexpected. When I requested that Waarrrmaaaasterrr Rikka return to Alpha Centauri for consultation, I never meant to imply that you needed to accompany him. Evidently I failed to express myself with sufficient clarity."
Ynaathar'solmaak gazed at the uncharacteristically flustered Chairman of the Grand Allied Joint Chiefs of Staff from across the latter's desk.
"You made yourself pellucidly clear as always, Lord Talphon. But Waarrrmaaaasterrr Rikka is one of my task force commanders-one in whom I have absolute confidence. As a matter of honor, I feel obligated to stand beside him if he is to be summoned onto the rug, as the Humans say."
"That's 'called on the carpet,' " Sky Marshal Ellen MacGregor supplied from her chair to Kthaara's left. "And he hasn't been!"
"Absolutely not," Kthaara agreed emphatically. "I remind you, First Fang, that Waarrrmaaaasterrr Rikka is more than merely the commanding officer of one of Eighth Fleet's task forces. He is also the de facto representative of an allied power to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is in this latter capacity that I have requested his presence here to discuss questions of strategic coordination, so that he can convey our concerns to the Star Union's Khan."
"The Rhustus Idk," the subject of the discussion corrected, shifting his folded wings back and forth a couple of times with a soft rustling sound. "And he is in no sense a monarch, but rather a chief executive chosen by the Niistka Glorkhus-the legislature."
"Sort of like the Federation prime minister," Aileen Sommers chimed in helpfully, earning a glare from the MacGregor for her pains.
"Thank you, Waarrrmaaaasterrr, Ahhdmiraaaal," Kthaara said with an urbane inclination of his head. "At any event, I hope you will be able to make him understand our position on the projected Telik operation."
"I surmised that Telik was to be the subject of this conference, Lord Talphon," Robalii Rikka sat up straighter on the species-compatible chair that had been provided. "That was the reason I asked Rear Admiral Sommers to accompany me in the hope that she can help me make you understand the . . . unique significance this objective holds for us. Unfortunately, it was out of the question for me and my second-in-command, Wingmaster Garadden, to simultaneously absent ourselves from First Grand Wing-excuse me, from Task Force 86. As a racial Telikan, she could have offered a valuable perspective."
"No doubt. However, I am already conversant with the history involved. Be assured that I and the other Joint Chiefs fully appreciate what the liberation of Telik has meant to the Star Union for a standard century."
"Ah, but you may not be aware of our excitement when you shared your most recent astrogation data-the data you'd acquired since Admiral Sommers' departure-and we saw the Franos System. What we were looking at wasn't immediately apparent to us. Only when we correlated your data with our own did the identification leap out at us. For we know the systems around Telik, the battlegrounds of our first war with the Demons."
Kthaara nodded in a very Human gesture which had become second nature to him after his long association with the species. It was more than merely habit in this instance, however, for it was a gesture he was confident Rikka would recognize after his long association with Aileen Sommers, whereas the ear-flick his own species used might not yet have acquired that ease of recognition.
Now that the Alliance had finished comparing the Crucians' astrogation data bases with its own, as well, the same correlation had become clear to its astrographers. Given that Raymond Prescott and Zhaarnak'telmasa hadn't had any of that data at the time, their decision not to advance from Franos to Telik had been perfectly logical. Unaware that there was any . . . domesticated species in the system to rescue-had the Alliance at the time had any policy for dealing with such situations in the first place-they'd seen no reason to divert from their main axis of advance against a warp point whose defenses they knew to be quite formidable.
Of course, they hadn't known about the closed warp point connection to the Star Union, either.
"For generations," Rikka went on, leaning forward with an intensity which caused the highest officers of the Grand Alliance to recoil almost physically, "we've lived with the knowledge that we could put a fleet into Telik at any time, without having to fight our way through a defended warp point . . . and that the risk was so terrible that we didn't dare to. Now we do!"
Kthaara gave the low, fluttering purr that meant the same as a human's nervous throat-clearing.
"Yes, of course, Waarrrmaaaasterrr. We are aware of Telik's history, and share your excitement over the new strategic possibilities. After all, we knew we were going to have to deal with the unfinished business of Telik sooner or later. The more economically it can be done, the better."
"But," MacGregor put in, "Telik isn't going anywhere."
"That is the essence of our position," Kthaara agreed. "There is no need to launch the attack immediately. Not while the Star Union is still heavily committed to our joint campaign against the home hive systems-and to the reduction of Rabahl."
Rikka's wings folded momentarily a little tighter in his equivalent of a Human's wince. There seemed no end to the task of cutting out the cancerous ulcer in the Star Union's vitals that was Rabahl, nor to the flow of blood from that surgery.
"It is precisely that type of wastefully brutal warp-point warfare that we plan to avoid in Telik, Lord Talphon," he said.
"But why not wait? There is no urgency. Wait until elements of the Allied fleets are available to reinforce you."
For a space, Rikka seemed to be organizing his thoughts-though the others hadn't known his race long enough to be sure. When he spoke, only Sommers recognized the effort he was putting into keeping his tone level.
"There may seem no urgency to you. You cannot understand what Telik means to us. It's too foreign to your experience, for which you should count yourselves fortunate. And I appreciate your offer of support. More, I realize that your concern and desire to minimize our own casualties by asking us to wait until you can provide that support is entirely sincere. But, as you yourselves have in effect admitted, that would take time, given your priorities. Those priorities are entirely understandable-that's your war. And we are more than willing to join in it, as my command has done and will continue to do. But Telik is part of our war-a war that began long before yours."
"But do you have the strength to reduce Telik on your own?" MacGregor asked bluntly.
"Our heaviest forces are, as you've pointed out, engaged against Rabahl or assigned to my Grand Wing. But we've built up a reserve of carriers and lighter battle-line units. We'd planned to use them in the Rabahl campaign. But knowing what we now know, we've assigned them to Wingmaster Shinhaa Harkka's Fifth Grand Wing, to be used against Telik . . . immediately."
Aileen Sommers looked back and forth between Rikka-calm as stone and just as immovable-and the two across the desk, who were visibly searching for the combination of words that would move him. She swallowed a time or three, then cleared her throat diffidently.