Garfield perceived and examined the individual; he possessed an unusual aura, not fully humanoid but more mechanical. There was also a device at work from the sensation; it was some form of short-range sensor jamming of a sophisticated nature.
Garfield psychically moved to make a telepathic mind scan, and at that point a barrier presented itself, which he easily passed. Moments later, a powerful, short-range psionic shockwave was released, forcing Garfield’s consciousness back to his quarters. Anyone of lesser strength and skill would have been injured or incapacitated by the device, a Jiyarri tool. The short meld had been enough to provide Garfield with some useful information; his light touch allowed a moment to access data before the defense system activated.
Garfield stood in his private office and said out loud, “Now, I know more about who else is behind this.” He activated a communication terminal to give orders to Commodore Brandon Avery, one of his senior officers.
“Commodore Avery, I have detected a potential environmental problem, and it is likely part of larger ruse to distract our security teams. We will need to send some maintenance crew, along with an explosives and toxic substance removal team. I will instruct the team personally. I will also be making contact with my home world, so keep any nonessential communication to a minimum.”
“Yes, Your Grace, you have no alpha graded communications waiting,” replied Brandon, looking quizzically at the Karratin’s image on his computer interlink display. He wondered how the Karratin had detected this problem.
CHAPTER 6
The Admirals Board
About thirty minutes before the board meeting, a security officer met Fleet Captain Robert Sheppard at his quarters. Sheppard was in full dress uniform for this occasion. The alliance dress uniform had a longer and more tuxedo-like jacket but was otherwise similar to the duty uniform.
The security officer informed Sheppard he would be receiving a formal promotion to commodore as well a medal for valor in combat. He had been on Star One for seven days now and had already done some preliminary investigation as to what starship he would select as his new command vessel. Ranks of fleet captain and above received some selection privileges.
Just outside one of the mag-rail stops for the headquarters complex, his old friend Commodore Brandon Avery met him at the mag-rail station. Brandon still looked fit, though he was getting some more white in his auburn hair. His green eyes had a cautious look.
“I thought I should escort you personally, now that you will soon have the same rank as I,” stated Brandon.
“It’s kind of you to come and meet me like this, Brandon,” replied Sheppard. He looked around at some of the other people nearby.
“Bob, you deserve the promotion for your exploits during your recent tour of duty,” Avery said. “You should be commended after you and Fleet Captain Larthe drove a wedge into the Viridian fleet.”
Sheppard nodded, thinking back on the past few years.
“I heard you took over when Commodore Pilat was on medical leave and had to go to the med center,” continued Brandon. He also commended Sheppard for, more recently, leading his own and four other task forces to a tactical victory, in addition to reclaiming an area of Alliance of Worlds space from the Viridians.
Sheppard said, “Command of several task forces came easy to me, and I had good officers to work with. The whole thing was strange—that battle near the mining station and, not long afterward, the incident with the Starbase 301. Most of the problems all seemed to stem from overzealous Viridian leaders, and unfortunately those commanding at the time were supposedly killed in battle. It’s like fighting individual warlords.”
Sheppard knew that few of Alliance of Worlds’ largest ships were needed to patrol the borders, as the Viridian worlds did not generally possess the level of technology or shipyards necessary to build extremely large starships. Alliance battlecarriers and dreadnaughts, however, were close to five kilometers in length. Moreover, the Viridian would not win against the full might of the Alliance if it came to a full war as opposed to the occasional border skirmish.
“Now I’ve heard that Commodore Pilat, along with a few of our and their diplomats, has finally signed a standard nonaggression treaty,” stated Avery.
Sheppard nodded as they passed into another checkpoint and had to identify themselves. Security officials examined their identification, and performed both retinal and DNA scans.
Sheppard and Brandon proceeded into the meeting complex.
“That treaty is no coincidence, Bob,” replied Brandon. “With the Varlon expanding again, our diplomats were dispatched about the same time you were on your way to Star One. Prime Minister Desserix wanted it arranged, and Chief of Staff Orlond helped accomplish the treaty process. Now we can move some ships to other duties and refit a few as well. I’ve heard that the Viridians generally have a reasonable sense of honor and most likely will not break the treaty.”
“At least not until they have a major government change, which hopefully won’t be for several years from now,” commented Sheppard.
“It’s also good for us that the Varlon, with their xenophobic ways, don’t have ties with the Viridian—or the Meiosian, for that matter. By the way,” Avery said, “the Meiosian have also been persuaded, with the help of a territory grant, to sign a nonaggression treaty with us.”
“That’s good news, as the Alliance can concentrate on holding the Varlon back,” replied Sheppard.
The two entered a series of hallways and were joined by a few other officers. When they got to the actual meeting area, for security purposes both were required to submit to DNA scans again for identification verification.
“That’s a bit extreme,” Sheppard said.
Brandon shook his head. “Not if you consider that some of the problems we’re having are due to a morphic species not well known by the Alliance of Worlds; however, I’ve been told the Karratins and the Estrians know of them and have been informing us of how to take precautions,” he said.
After entering the rather large meeting chamber, Sheppard noted a few Alpha- and Delta-class androids assisting security. The large, non-sentient Deltas were basically robots with weapons, and they were sometimes used as heavy armored security.
Looking around the room, Sheppard noticed an old family friend talking to one of the sentient and humanoid-appearing Alphas: Fleet Admiral Nigel Braddock. He was another fellow human from Earth and a good friend to both Robert Sheppard and his Star Knight father, Allan. Sheppard had known Nigel Braddock for several decades. To his friends, Braddock was jokingly known as Mister Stasis, because he had spent so much of his life in suspension of one kind or another, since the mid-twenty-first century, until he acquired various anti-aging and rejuvenation procedures from the Karratins.
Braddock looked in Sheppard’s direction and moved toward him with a hand outstretched for a handshake, a traditional Earth greeting.
“Good to see you, Bob. And you too, Brandon.” Braddock shook both men’s hands in a formal greeting. He was an older gentleman, clean cut, with dark brown hair lined with many streaks of gray. He had blue-gray eyes.
Sheppard knew Nigel was much older than he appeared; he had been born in the 1990s, in Scotland, on Earth. By using combinations of everything from early cryo-stasis devices and anti-aging formulas to genetic alteration, tissue regeneration, even temporary cybernetic replacement, Nigel had managed to keep alive.
Nigel was an engineer and businessman; he was also president of BradCorp, a diversified company building starships and robots, and similar devices. He even had helped design a line of sea and space ships for SEDA—the Sea Exploration and Defense Association—including one called the Oceania-class cruiser, which was also used by the Alliance of Worlds. He was now in the Star Command section because of his reserve status, which had begun when he joined TERRASEC, the Terran Space Exploration