Amanda Saxon: Book Four Saxon Saga Read online

  Amanda Saxon

  BOOK 4 OF THE SAXON SAGA

  Saga II

  FREDERICK GERTY

  Copyright © Frederick Gerty 2015

  Original cover art by Keri Sheheen

  Other Books in the Saxon Saga

  Saga 1

  Situation at Saxon Site

  Earth Lady

  Twin Worlds–Kali and Luci

  Saga 2

  47 Tucana

  T-47 II

  For

  Eugenia and Wilfred, and Bessie and Frederick,

  my Grandparents

  Glossary of Abbreviations/Slang/Terms

  ac–air car

  ADM–Atomic Demolition Munition

  AG–anti-gravity

  ATC–air traffic controller

  BB–bigboys

  BDW–Blue Danube Waltz

  bugs–illi-illi

  CAC–Command and Control

  CC–Communication Center

  CCU–Critical Care Unit

  CIC–Commander-in-Chief

  DEC–Department of Environmental Conservation

  DEMO–Demolition, Explosive, Munitions Ordnance (bomb Squad)

  DO–Duty Officer

  DOD–Department of Defense

  EFS–Eastern Federation of States (nation on Valdebaron)

  EMT–Emergency Medical Technician

  EPU–external propulsion unit

  ETA–estimated time of arrival

  EV, EVA–extra-vehicle activity (space walk)

  ETD–estimated time of departure

  FC–fuel cell

  FN–Fabrique Nationale, European firearms maker

  hagazzii–generic Pokoniry term for anti-gravity vehicle, equivalent to USA–air car

  HE (Hotel Echo)–High Explosives

  HQ–Headquarters

  HUD–Head Up Display (instrument readings on the inside of the windshield)

  HV–holo-vision TV

  IF–infrared

  IT–initial time

  JC–jet-copter (also called Jay-Cee)

  K–kilometer, or thousands of dollars

  KPS–kilometers per second

  Lazer–Light-emitting weapon, high energy, usually employed in space, but increasingly for on-planet use

  MOS–military occupation speciality

  MP–Military Police

  MRE–Meal, Ready to Eat (aka K-Ration)

  OD–Officer of the Day

  OIC–Officer in Charge

  ORT–Oceanic Republic and Territories (nation on Valdebaron)

  P-suit–Pressure suit, form-fitting space suit, for use outside starships, in vacuum

  PC–personnel carrier

  Poko–Pokoniry

  POTUS–President of the United States

  RA–Regular Army

  ROTC–Reserve Officer Training Corps

  RPG–rocket propelled grenade

  USAR–United States Army Reserve

  SAM–surface to air missile

  Seps–Separatist

  SLC–Salt Lake City

  SNNS–Satellite News Network System

  SOPs–Standard Operating Procedures

  SS–Starship

  TC–traffic Controller (on a space station)

  TDY–temporary duty

  TOA–time of arrival

  TOT–time on target

  TTT–time to target

  TW–Twin Worlds

  VR–virtual reality

  UTI–urinary tract infection

  Chapter 1

  Ixixil

  On the high stone platform, Stephanie left the air car, stepped out. A strong, hot breeze wafted her hair around her face, then faded away. She loosened the pink, fluffy blanket around her infant, Amanda, held her close to her chest. She took two steps away from Eagle One, and faced the crowd. Overhead, a dozen small TV cambots floated, watching her. Higher still, a brace of helicopters and fixed wing planes circled, watched closely by her own escorts, her aerial guard of honor in their anti-gravity patrol cars.

  Heat rose and enveloped her in a hot, soft blanket of its own.

  The sound of chanting grew. An incessant singing, like unending cicadas on an August afternoon, a steady drone in the air. But the translators changed the alien words, and said, in rising volume, “Earth Lady, Earth Lady,” over and over.

  As the crowd saw her, the chanting increased in volume, became an overwhelming push of noise against her. She forced herself to move against it, to stand on the very edge of the platform, her head high, looking out at the sea of black before her, at the wavering arms, like glistening strands of dark wheat on a rolling prairie. The noise rose and fell, like giant waves dashing into the promontory on which she stood.

  Amanda, restless, wiggled, reacting to the sound all around her. Stevie moved her to her other arm. The cambots zoomed in on her movement, and as if on a directed count, the chant stopped suddenly. “Earth Lady, Earth La...” And now the silence echoed toward her, a sudden vacuum in the air.

  In the midst of the silence, Amanda gave a little cry, a tiny call, picked up by the cambots, and relayed to every creature in the immense crowd. A single loud chirp, and silence again. The sea of faces stared at them.

  Slowly, Stevie unwrapped the blanket from Amanda, unneeded here, and let it flutter to the platform. She pulled off the light sweater, arranged the pink shirt and short pants, and lifted Amanda high overhead with both arms. She held the baby aloft, the miniature human, toward the crowd to her front.

  “Look,” she said, her voice loud in the breeze. “This is my daughter, my first born. She is my great pride. I present her to you, my friends, the great people of Ixixil. She is called Amanda.” Stevie slowly walked the perimeter of the platform, around Eagle One. She held Amanda up for the assembled illi-illi to see.

  When she completed the circuit, she picked up the blanket, and wrapped it beneath Amanda loosely. A low chirping began, the faintest scraping of vocal parts. The translator hummed at her, “First born, First Born,” and the volume began to build. The words rose and poured out at her, “First Born, Earth Lady, First Born, Earth Lady,” over and over, a growing wall of noise again, which peaked at the earlier level, and easily swelled beyond it. Stevie stood still, looking out, watching the illi-illi before her.

  The ovation continued. Amanda looked confused at the noise, but not disturbed, smiling at up Stevie, as the cambots watched. When will this end? she thought. And what do I do if it doesn’t?

  Again, abruptly, the noise stopped, not at once as before, but easing off, like a faucet closing, to a trickle, to nothing. Now they wanted the Earth Lady to speak again. She had her speech in mind, prepared ahead of time, and she spoke to the crowd, her voice high, clear, confident, to be translated by the nearby Anawoka, and broadcast world-wide.

  “Greetings to my friends, the illi-illi. Your presence here honors me, and my first born. All the days of her life, I will tell her of the warm welcome you granted to her, and to me.”

  A swelling cheer-like chirping rose and fell.

  “Much has happened since we last met. Now the great races of the near galaxy compete for trade, influence, and honor. Be assured, that the illi-illi command respect, for their words, their fairness, their trust, their industry and their acceptance of others. Your honor grows among the stars.”

  Again, a low rumbling of alien voices.

  “But all is not easy. The Pokoniry remember earlier difficulties. Humans, for so long isolated in their own universe, are slow to accept others. All others, not just illi-illi. We carry a xenophobia in our genes.”

  Now, how will that translate? she wondered.

  “Be not discouraged by slow acceptance, slow friendliness. It is not t
he illi-illi who suffer so–we all do, one another between ourselves. Each must prove themselves to all others. Be not dismayed. Continue the course. Maintain your honor. Keep up your good works, for all to see. The worlds watch. They wait. The illi-illi impress all.”

  The warmth began to affect her, sweat gathered on her body. Amanda’s brow showed tiny beads of moisture.

  “Yes, yet, still, the soft-bodies are slow to accept the illi-illi. I know of your intelligence, your compassion, your courage, your laughter, your sorrow–the traits of all intelligent peoples. Others of my kind do not. One day they will. Your industry, observance of commitments, fairness in dealing with others, and patience in the slow pace of progress bring honor and attention to you all, to all illi-illi. That will grow. Persevere, and one day all soft-bodies will respect, and honor, the illi-illi.”

  She looked out at the sea of strange, insect-like faces before, merging in the distance to one indiscernible blur.

  “The world my first born will live in will be much changed from today. She, and I and you, will see the flowering of trade, art, knowledge, friendship, and exploration. She, and we all, shall live in peace with the illi-illi, and all the other races of the stars. That is our destiny. That is the objective of our magnificent journey together.”

  Stevie paused, and lifted Amanda up overhead again. “Let the first-born of the humans, and the first-born of the illi-illi lead all of us to the flowering of friendship between our peoples.” Amanda’s thin shirt flapped and waved in the hot breeze. The cambots focused on her ruddy face.

  Stevie lowered Amanda, held her close. “I am the Earth Lady, this is my first-born, and I have spoken.”

  Instead of disappearing in her air car in a boom of thunder, Stevie moved to the edge of the platform, to the ramp, and, to the instant consternation of her honor guard, walked downward toward the line of the native crowd. A low thrilling began, but no one moved toward them. These, the insect-like illi-illi, hard, dark shells instead of skin, two large unblinking eyes and one small one in between, six appendages, hence the comparison to ants, though they were hardly like that tiny insect from Earth, with brains and courage to rival any of the other races on six worlds already discovered, waited as she approached, stopped in front of them, and held out her hand. A half dozen alien arms eased toward her, touched her hand, held her fingers softly in hard, opposed pincers. Others touched those touching her, and like a growing ripple in a still pond, the scent and signal of the touch spread throughout the crowd, racing outward even to the very farthest edge, to the most distant ragged fringe of the gathered illi-illi.

  These, the most despised, Stevie thought with regret, of the other species, hence their inferiority complex, were to her the most like humans of all the rest. Few agreed with her, but she held her belief anyway. And she liked them. As a species, as a group, and as individuals, those she met and knew. So different in appearance and social organization, yet so similar in outlook, lives, and desire to please and get along. And all too often rebuffed. Few traded with them, especially for the anti-gravity devices they craved and so in demand here and everywhere, but Stevie made sure her company did. Her company lost some customers, for sure, from that, but she did not care. Plenty of orders to go around, once the secretive Pokoniry decided to sell their AG machinery, but not their plans, to her and a handful of firms on planet Earth, and a few others.

  Stevie swung Amanda forward, propped her on her knee, took the small hand in hers, and held it toward the crowd. A low under current of alien murmuring ceased instantly. The cambots zoomed in on the tiny pink hand. Amanda, eyes wide, stared in silence at the shining, dark shells before her, at the strange, large glistening eyes, the many small appendages below two twin jaw pincers, the large thorax, and smaller abdomen, the four legs, and two others, that could be arms, could be legs. Several alien hands on the ends of the first set eased slowly forward again, and gently, so gently, Stevie noticed, grasped the tiny fingers. Amanda’s hand closed on the alien pinchers. Cambots hovered close. The baby giggled once, and tugged on the appendage, tried to pull the pinchers to her mouth, but could not.

  Now the massed illi-illi began to sing, a low, steady chirping, soft at first, which the translator ignored, only occasionally saying, “Honor...,” and “Earth Lady.”

  The cambots carried the image to all, to all the assembled illi-illi, and out to the uncounted billions world wide, the image of Stephanie, the Earth Lady, and her first born, Amanda, held closely, yet touched by the people. Then a small alien reached out toward Amanda, and Stevie watched it closely. It touched a fat cheek, and Amanda giggled. Two opposed pinchers hovered over the baby’s face. And Amanda reached up and caught the dark, hard claw in front of her, and held it, wiggled it, tried again to get it into her mouth.

  The translator said, “The First Born of the Earth Lady likes us–it holds our hands. It tries to kiss us in the alien way...” The chanting song changed, to include “First Born...” Scrambled words came from the translator– “She touched us...the First Born held our hand...she shows no fear...the young of the Earth Lady touches us...”

  Stevie waited for another moment, for the hand and pinchers to separate, and stood and stepped back, turned and walked up the ramp. At the top, she stopped, faced the crowd again, held Amanda up, as the cheers began, in an incredible volume now, “Earth Lady! Earth Lady!” over and over, a crescendo of sound washing up and over her, and her daughter. Waving, she walked around the platform once more, stopped at her air car, and waving out again, entered it. She rose ten meters, and flew up and over the crowd, trailed by her honor guard, and a flock of cambots. She circled the crowd several times, slowly, spiraling outward, and at the very edge, raced inward again, and straight up, and out of sight.

  High above the rolling plain of the place of her first address to the illi-illi years ago, she looked down on the burnt-orange of the planet Ixixil’s surface. From higher still, from the small space station, the planet looked little better–dry, arid, scarcely a river or a speck of green anywhere in the equatorial latitudes, only growing darker to the far north and south, scant oceans, tiny by Earth’s standards, one wondered how life could survive here, let alone prosper, learn, and take to the stars. Yet the insect-like inhabitants did, their exo-skeletons even providing protection in the vacuum and frigid cold of space, and everywhere, it seemed, in the mid-lands of the planet Ixixil.

  Hive cities were few, true, but settlements–clusters of the rounded, low lodges, were found all over, the inhabitants subsisting on variety of plants, and getting around in ground vehicles, most powered by petroleum products. Along the few river valleys, extensive crop lands dominated the landscape. Those, the illi-illi, like humans, squabbled or fought over from time to time.

  The species exhibited their own xenophobia, so perhaps they understood her use of the term. They hijacked a number of Pokoniry starships in Williams Space, something the Pokoniry were slow to forgive, and would never forget, and one of the bigboys’ from the heavy planet Seram Laut and they, too, remained pissed. Only an Earth vessel, the Kokopelli, on which she was a passenger, survived and repelled a surprise attack, an incident that lead humans and Pokoniry to meet the illi-illi, and three other, new intelligent races on three new planets.

  The Earth would hardly be the same. Or any of the worlds, now six in all, with intelligent beings, and many more being settled on planets around stars in the near rim of the Milky Way galaxy. Trade and exploration began to boom, the marvelous products, inventions, machines, computers, art, foods and plants and everything else, in demand on all the planets, as people everywhere began enjoying the variety of goods from six species’ minds. Stevie mused in her own mind, a small smile on her lips, remembering that it all began when she discovered her air car, her marvelous Eagle One, the amazing anti-gravity device, on the planet Valdebaron, while deployed as a USAR Lieutenant. From that day, nothing on six worlds would ever be the same.

  Looking down at the glowing sphere below, Stevie thought that
at least peace prevailed. Never mind the inherent difficulties of making war with command and supply time lines of weeks or months, let alone trying to control entire planets, or even portions of one. No, everyone, even the belligerent bigboys, and the equally, if more impatient humans saw the futility in hostilities. Better to negotiate, compromise, or even walk away, than to try to slug it out, and the last being standing take it all. Or what was left.

  The variety of goods and wine and whatnot brought back on the Kokopelli, after its brief visit to one of the new worlds, created a frenzy of desire, and led to other expeditions of exploration and trade. Thus Stevie’s trip back here to Ixixil–with her new baby. And without her husband. And didn’t both those facts lead to dissent and worry in the families back home.

  But Stevie’s instinct, and her feelings for the illi-illi, and inner confidence, as well as the constant presence of her powerful air car, Eagle One, gave her a certain ease and sense of security. She didn’t worry about her trip to this baked and overcooked oven of a world, and in fact, enjoyed the attention, even devotion, of the natives. For she, and she alone, had ended the nuclear bombardment, from orbit, by irate bigboys, anxious to avenge their sense of honor, and thereby saved a dozen or more hive-cities from certain destruction. And in doing so, saved herself.

  “Well, you really did it again, you know,” Mark Wusong, her Saxon Company planetary factor said the next morning. “One statue isn’t enough, now they got another one going up at your shrine.”

  “It’s not a shrine,” Stevie said, shaking her head. “What’d they do?”

  “Look at this,” Mark said, turning the flat screen toward her. It showed a new statue, a second one, of Stevie holding up her baby, facing outward on the other side of the platform from the first one, several natives putting finishing touches on it, and a steady line of illi-illi already approaching, to touch it as they slowly passed.

  “Again? I never imagined,” Stevie said, shaking her head again. “Who ever can figure the minds of these aliens?”