Garfield said, “If there are no further questions …” After glancing around, he resumed his seat.
Chief of Staff Orlond stood again and introduced one of the three Betellians. “I would like to present Admiral Viess of the Betellian Union.”
Sheppard had met Viess several years before, and as far as he could tell, the admiral was unchanged; he still used his communication crystal device that mimicked the standard language. Viess only communicated telepathically to those he knew, and it had been some time since he had communicated to Sheppard, although he had sent a brief congratulatory thought message to Sheppard when he received his medal.
“Greetings to all,” the small crystal device that hung around his large neck area intoned in a melodic voice with a male timbre. “I am saddened that I must be the bearer of more grave news. The Varlon have grown bold indeed, and they have attempted a very large-scale assault upon our Alpha quadrant sphere, using long-range warp torpedoes. The first wave of that assault succeeded in only minor, easily repairable damage to our dwelling.”
Viess began to use the image projection equipment to show three-dimensional visuals of the assault. The Betellain included some secondary interlink display information for those who wished to access the station-link database with their personal data interlink.
“This attack represents a considerable increase in what we had previously considered only interference with our world sphere building projects in the Milky Way,” Viess’s communication device said. “Usually, the Varlon have been unsuccessful in their assaults upon my people.”
The visuals and graphic displays continued, one showing an analysis of the torpedoes used.
“They have improved their technology in this field. We realized it was a matter of time until they did, but they had various internal political problems that previously would have interfered with such an attack.”
Another display indicated the trajectories and reverse calculations of launch positions in the Rhendal sector.
“If they continue to deploy such long-range torpedo systems in some of the closer worlds in the Rhendal sector, many of the Alliance of Worlds systems will come under direct assault.” Viess looked over at Lord Garfield and a few other Karratin representatives. “It is highly probable that, eventually, several Karratin, Estrian, and Lyramenian worlds may come under attack as well,” stated Viess.
“I have been informed that the internal political struggles in the Varlon Empire have been ended. I can conclude this was probably the reason for the following full-scale assault on my people.”
Admiral Viess showed more visuals that had been accelerated for presentation purposes.
As Sheppard watched, he saw the Betellian tactical views of another wave of long-range torpedoes enhanced with cybertronic or positronic countermeasures, and the Varlon chameleon cloaking system move toward the Betellians Dyson-like worlds-sphere. This was followed by a full-scale assault, with the Varlon “H” and the “I” type of heavy or sometimes called super dreadnaughts.
Sheppard recalled that an earlier H-class was first encountered by one of the Earth-born captains of the Terran Space Exploration Council, or TERRASEC. That captain remarked that the ship resembled a giant letter H. That started the designation of the Varlon ships by letters. As the humans were one of the founding members of what was to become the Alliance of Worlds, the Earth letter designations were kept, even though some other races had their own designations. Over time as the Varlon names for their ships were not discovered the Alliance officially adopted the Terran alphabetic symbols for the Varlon ships’ names.
Sheppard recalled a battle during his time with Admiral Peregrine against three H-class ships, and he recalled his apprehension.
Today, Viess briefly showed a sector map, with miniaturized images of four hundred of those H-class dreadnaughts scattered throughout the region. The visuals showed only selected sections of the battle, with plasma weapons blasting matter.
The Betellians were a very advanced civilization, much more technologically advanced than the Alliance of Worlds. The Betellians had been using energy-dampening energy fields and space-warping technology to reduce the damage and neutralize the Varlon threat.
Sheppard realized that, evidently, now the Varlon were primed and in position to threaten even the Betellians.
Viess continued, “The Varlon did not know we had a contingent of our Starcruisers present within our sphere, and there was also a small Hegemony fleet composed of Karratin, Estrian, and Lyramenian starships that was close enough and came to our aid. We prevailed, but the Varlon antimatter torpedoes and plasma weapons had done moderate damage to one of our system spheres, and many of our ships were destroyed or damaged. From intelligence information, we ascertained the Varlon had hoped to do much better against us. We are presently rebuilding our dwelling sphere. Much of the Varlon fleet was destroyed or neutralized, although several of their starships retreated.”
As Viess continued to give his presentation, Sheppard could hear the distress in the animated voice from the crystalline translator. He knew the Betellians did not like to take life or destroy things, and this preference extended even to those considered to be hostile. For that matter, the Hegemony acted to some extent the same as the Betellians. Sheppard thought about this; if an adversary was attempting to kill them, all they would do was try to hold them off and show them the futility of attack. Well, this battle was different; it had not been as futile as so many previous assaults.
“I wanted to make this presentation to provide an update on the Varlon, as we believed you in the Alliance of Worlds could use this data,” stated Viess. He paused momentarily, and his trilaterally symmetric head rolled slightly, looking toward Prime Minister Desserix. “My people are willing to exchange intelligence on these matters, since it seems that the Varlon have increased their resources, and made at least one new ally.” He paused again. “I have been authorized to extend an option for an affiliation treaty to the Alliance of Worlds.”
At this note, Prime Minister Desserix became more animated; he had come to this meeting in hopes of hearing something along these lines. Desserix responded, “The Alliance of Worlds will happily consider this; I am myself pleased at the opportunity to go beyond the limited trade treaty we have at present.”
“This is not an offer of formal alliance, Prime Minister,” came the response from Viess. “We are interested in exchange of information on the Varlon so we can determine a defense for our dwellings. I have been allowed to mention that we rarely need to travel much from the spheres and are content with what we have. The Preceptors do not wish to directly confront the Varlon in an aggressive manner. I see, however, that many of the Preceptors of my government do not recognize the potential threat of the Varlon. Our hope for this affiliation is that more of my people will come to enlightenment about this problem as we begin to interact more with your peoples.”
“Of course, I will take this matter up with the council, and I hope we can all come to a mutual agreement,” Desserix said.
Viess nodded his large head and stepped away from the presentation control unit.
Grand Admiral Jeroloh stood briefly and introduced Fleet Admiral Peregrine.
Peregrine had been listening intently to the Betellian Admiral Viess. Now, he stepped over to the podium and the console that controlled the displays.
He began to speak. “I would like to notify the officers here that most of what I am going to show you was alpha-level classified now, but now has been dropped to level beta.
“About two months ago, I had a large portion of the Third Fleet with me, patrolling various areas of the Rhendal sector. There had been reports of missing freighter ships at first, and then we lost communication from three different colonies, both subspace and the COMNET. A task force under one of my fleet captains engaged the Varlon in defending a fourth colony they had taken in the space of two days. This task force was defeated, and a single ship notified Starbase