We have a long, long way to go, as the news reports that Drakka is the ninth Sakkra world ... to our three! An emergency meeting is held among Yreet Kree's top advisors, and we discuss how to handle the lizard situation. Our Sakkra neighbors are led by a pacifistic ecologist, are uneasy with us already, and control most of the southwest, so it is desirable to make diplomatic overtures as soon as possible. Yreet Kree feels that the Star Wing Clan's years of concealing and shielding her are not over as we believed, for alien races are unlikely to respect a female ruler such as herself until she proves her strength, and with the Sakkra so dangerous and near, her true identity must be held in secret. She then turns her wise eagle eyes upon me, and says, "I have not forgotten who suggested beginning the research projects that have proven their importance so thoroughly. I have not forgotten who suggested defense fleets that it appears would have served us well indeed. I trust you to be my spokesman, Thirteenth Officer Treek - go to the Sakkra emperor, and make my case and our people's for me."
I bow deeply, my wings in full sweep, and accept her detailed diplomatic directives and my new responsibilities, then proceed directly to our main holocom chamber, where after a moment's talk with a lizard diplomat, I am connected directly to their emperor. Recognizing the importance of peaceful overtures, I introduce my position by its acronym - I wouldn't want these pacifists inferring anything from my title of Royal Battle Officer! - and so begin the peace talks between Sauron of the Sakkras and RBO-13. A period of careful conversation ensues, establishing trust, starting our relatonship, speaking of our hopes of mutual success and galactic peace, and by year's end, negotiating heavily, I have managed to convince Sauron to permit free exchange between our peoples, with 50 billion universal credits in annual trade! It is a sad comment on the state of our empire that this is all we can support - you can bet your tailfeathers the lizards' economy could handle more than this! - but it's a start, and perhaps it will ease Sakkra feelings toward our people, and soothe our own ruffled feathers following the debacle at Drakka! Still, I don't know that I can ever trust these Sakkra; to think that they showed us not the slightest hint of their presence until they arrived at two different worlds that were meant to be ours, with colony ships and armed escorts, simultaneously! I fear these creatures will attempt a sneak attack of another kind someday, pacifists though they claim to be. I therefore create the simplest combat ship I can devise: The Beak 1.0 is a laser fighter that has nothing going for it at all ... except the extraordinary pilots of the Star Wing Clan! At my urgent request, Yreet Kree agrees to delay Nest production to build a fleet of these - an extraordinary concession for extraordinary times!
2342: Artemis is the fourth Alkari world, and our best apart from Altair itself! Transports are sent from Esper immediately. Altair is also sending a single d0om transport to Firma - so named for reasons connected with the 22nd Office of Strategic Guidance under Ryaaw Kree - partly just to discern the extent of nebula delays in that direction, but also for general tactical reasons. This will be repeated periodically. Finally, our fresh-built fleet is divided, with 20 Beaks bound for Gienah and nearly as many dispatched to Firma, so as to be in better position to respond to emerging situations.
2345: The Sakkra make another attack at Gienah! Yawwwwwwwk!!! It's a Valkyrie escorting a pair of Colony Ships! Our fleet will come far too late! Worse, unlike at Drakka, this loss was preventable ... maybe. It would have been a very near-run thing. We were just so close to holding both of these worlds - and especially this one - that it's hard for me to believe it was impossible to win them.
2346: The Soar just arriving at Gienah of course flees the still-orbiting Sakkra fleet, and the one that just reached Aquilae does likewise from its bases. The Nest meant to take Drakka arrives there unchallenged, but immediately leaves that now-Sakkra world behind, heading north for the way-point of Selia.
2347: Xengara in the far northwest corner of the galaxy is cause for much relief - almost as valuable a world as Vox, and safely away from any possible front. The galaxy's ancient news service also reports the unsurprising fact that we have the least powerful star fleet in the galaxy - less than even the Darloks' - and the frightening one that the Psilons' fleet is even stronger than our "pacifist" neighbors', who lead both the Meklar and Bulrathi! Wellll ... there's nothing we can do about that now but continue with Yreet Kree's plan! The Nest that just arrived at Esper sets out for Vox, and we finally start pilot projects in computers, force fields, and weapons technology!
2348: Work begins on ECM Jammer Mark I and Class II Deflector Shields because none of our scientists can come up with anything more exciting to do, and on Hand Lasers because the rocket alternative was too complicated and didn't really impress Yreet Kree.
Meanwhile, our Firma fighters head for Selia; they should arrive just in time to accompany our Nest to Paranar once Vox is claimed.
2350: The Sakkra show up at Imra with a Valkyrie as a Scout. I am forced to allow them to learn it's a radiated world to which they won't have access for many years. And then we get the best news of the past decade! We've learned to colonize frozen worlds ... such as Vega!!! This is followed immediately by the all-but-awful news that our only way to proceed is with Enhanced Eco Restoration, but it makes us look like geniuses for not bothering with reduced waste for our construction project at least. Besides, we'll take it, if it means we get Vega up and running before the Sakkra learn the necessary technology! I design a Penguin 1.0 tundra colony ship, and Altair goes to work on it immediately! The southern fighter force is going directly to Vega, having just departed Gienah; we can not afford to take chances at that vital neutronium world! Meanwhile, Yreet Kree calls a strategic meeting, in which we review the state of the galaxy, half a century into her reign. When the meeting is dismissed however, she asks me to go over the diplomatic situation once again while the others leave. Very little has changed - Sauron's opinion of us is slowly improving, and our trade deal is slowly moving toward profitability, with emphasis in both cases on slowly - but she doesn't seem to be listening, pacing her perch and furling and unfurling her wings. "Yref," she tells me shortly, suddenly meeting my eyes, and it takes me by surprise; she hasn't called me by my first name since she was little more than a hatchling, learning to pilot a starfighter under my wing, and soon surpassing my skill - and everyone else's in the galaxy! She goes on, "He stole two of our worlds before we fairly knew he existed. Our Soars can see no further than the systems that they're in, and now we find that a scanner improvement is decades away, at least! I need intelligence on the other races of the galaxy, and I need it at once!"
"Your Imperial Highness," I begin, but her eyes flash, and she interrupts me.
"Yref! In front of the empire, and on the public record, and before members of other Clans - then it is necessary. But you tossed me in the air when I was a little girl, half led and half carried me away from the usurpers' ambush in Nighthawk City, ran the Raven Clan's blockade to win me to freedom, and taught me to fly a starship in my teens!"
I bow with outswept wings. "I had the honor of carrying you away because I was hopeless with a pistol, and would be less than useless covering your retreat in the ambush battle. You were only aboard my starship when we ran the blockade because we knew the enemy would never imagine we would stow you on such a broken-down old tub. I taught you to fly because the real pilots were all already at the front; that you excelled was due to your own native skill, not to anything you gained from me; no one expected then that you would become the greatest pilot in the galaxy!"
She sweeps the air with one wing. "Yref, I won't have it! You were the one who persuaded me to begin our vital research when we did; you were the one who agitated for the fleets that might have saved Drakka and Gienah. No matter the reasons, you've known and helped me since I was a hatchling! I have all Altair and three worlds besides to call me Empress and bow to me - if we can hold them! I need one Alkari officer - an officer I can trust - to remember that I am far from infallible, an empress thus far only in name!"
I protest; it is not only in name, nor only in blood that she is the true and rightful ruler of the Alkari - but she will not have it, as she says. I begin, "Yreet Kree..." and she sweeps the air once more with her wing.
She reminds me, "That too is a name of royalty."
I balk, but I know what she means. If I am to advise her, to speak to her as freely as she imagines she wants me to speak ... it's been decades since the pet name we once used as a code between us was even in my thoughts as her name! "Kestrel," I say, and hardly believe I dare say it, but her eyes are bright, and she bobs her head with pleasure. I press on, "I will seek what knowledge there is to be had, but there is precious little."
I call up the reports I assembled myself - I have no agents in Sakkra space, as we have no funds to spare to train them with our other, overwhelming priorities. "We know he is at war with a machine people called the Meklar; he can not speak of them without spitting the name. And we know he views the Darlok people as allies, though even he has reservations about those shape-shifting creatures; he knows they are playing a deeper game and might someday turn on him." I bring up the map on our main display.
"It is therefore likely but not certain that those two races originated in the south-eastern cluster of three yellow stars, perhaps with a third race as well, though it's hard to say. The yellow star nearest Paranar is therefore likely to be inhabited, most likely by the Bulrathi, though we have seen no sign of them."
"As with the Sakkra," she agrees, darkly. "Why shouldn't the Psilons be there?"
"They might," I admit, "but observe the green star in the nebula. It is likely to hold a habitable world, and the Psilons, reputed to have incredible research skills, unquestionably have the range to cross the distance between that green and yellow star, and to reach Paranar from the green star - I would be more surprised to learn that they had insufficient range to reach Paranar directly from the yellow star than otherwise at this point. If there were Psilons there, I have a feeling we'd have already lost Paranar to a colony ship, with or without an escort - unlike the lizards', the Psilons' are likely armed by now."
Yreet Kree - Kestrel - looks down. "Yet they might live there, and the green star might bear a hostile planet where they can't yet place a colony. As with the Sakkra at Gienah, they might steal that world right out of our talons."
"It could happen," I agree, "but right now there's nothing we can do about it but wait and hope. In seven years, we'll have a colony ship of our own there, with eighteen Beak fighters as escorts and orbital defense - and there's no way to get anything there sooner but the extra Soars already on the way. Even Albatrosses wouldn't have time to be built and cross the vastness of space before their extra range ceased to be needed."
She nods slowly. "And the last yellow star, in the north-east corner of the galaxy?"
"If I had to guess," I tell her, "then I would say that is Mentar ... and that they've spread far and wide across the north-eastern galaxy."
Kestrel peers at the map for a long moment and finally says, "I don't see it."
I ruffle my wing feathers slightly. "It isn't there to see. It's a hunch ... mainly on the theory that it would be just our luck!"
Grimly, Kestrel agrees.
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Next: Scramble for the Stars!
