God's Dogs Book 2
Chapter 26

Rapidity is the essence of war. Take advantage of the enemy’s unreadiness, make your way by unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots. 


Sun Tzu

The second-to-last stop was Berndt, the birthplace of the guild and the perennial enemies of Masul. It was also the site of the conclave that was scheduled to begin during Timi’s planned two-week visit.

Lord Aron and Lord Birac made their way to Berndt a week early. They ran into Lord Siamanu, with whom Lord Birac clashed about policy. Birac was still smarting from the cavalier way Timi defeated them in their own house. No punishment would be too severe for that embarrassment, in his view. Siamanu, though, saw a financial opportunity through supporting the Camtok.

“The man has no honor,” Briac told Aron as they sipped drinks at an open-air café. Siamanu had departed and was walking down the broad sidewalk back to the local chapter house.

“Well, there is no profit in revenge,” Aron pointed out.

“Not revenge. Satisfaction. She humiliated us, Aron.”

“Perhaps. You did attack her first. It could be argued your humiliation was the result of her defending herself from an unprovoked attack.”

Birac frowned at that. “Do you think the conclave will see it that way?”

“Some will,” Aron surmised. “Others will see it as evidence she must be stopped. It’s hard to predict how things will go.”

“Very true. I’ve never been to a conclave where there was such uncertainty beforehand.”

What was consistent, though, was Timi’s tour had proceeded unmolested. It passed through the last six worlds without incident. They were due to arrive on Berndt the next day.

There was also a new peace treaty in place, but Aron didn’t put much stock in yet-another agreement between Berndt and Masul. Besides, the guild, as a multi-planet corporation, would pursue its own agenda regardless.

What that agenda might be was unclear. Aron had never seen the guild leadership so fragmented. Opinions on what to do ranged from reconciliation to assassination. There was no clear majority, and many found positions between those two extremes.

Aron did find it quite entertaining, and he was looking forward to the inevitable confrontation when Timi’s group arrived.

The parade to the parliament building was the signature kick-off to Timi’s two-week visit to a planet. They followed that protocol and left the spaceport in a cavalcade of ten vehicles with Timi and the queen in the lead car.

It began well, but since it was Berndt, the citizens were less enthusiastic about a Masul princess and her mother, the queen. But the Camtok? That aroused curiosity. The streets along the parade route were populated with the curious, who at least waved to Timi in half-hearted welcome.

Ruski, seated in his customary shotgun position, stiffened momentarily. Then he ordered, “Out of the car!”

Timi and her mother bailed out, one on either side. Six elves surrounded each woman, and they fell back to the rear of the car to consolidate the two groups.

Quinn was a hundred yards in front of the lead car when Barry stiffened momentarily and then announced, “Second floor windows. Both sides of the street.”

“Pax, Moss, second floor, both sides of the street. River, find their contingency plan.”

A series of clicks acknowledged his order. Then he jogged back to the abandoned lead car. Before he could make it halfway there, he saw laser fire erupt from the second-storey windows on both sides of the street.

The elves had pulled shields from their backpacks and activated them once the two groups merged. The full Charlie squad was arrayed in a tight circle, force shields providing overlapping coverage, and the two women and Ruski in the middle.

They activated their energy shields. With the proximity of the other energy sources, their implant A.I.s offered the option of forming their shields to umbrella protection with a connection to the elves’ shields.

Soon, Ruski, the squad, and the two women were safe in a dome of protective energy. The laser fire was relentless, though. In time, the shields would fail.

Moss and Pax found their way to the second floor of the buildings to the east and west of the parade route. They entered the buildings on the north side of the ambush site. Then they began working their way south room by room. Kicking in doors, blasting unsuspecting snipers and their guards, they quickly dispatched a whole building worth of attackers and moved to the next building.

Quinn held his position outside the ambush site and waited. He figured the intense laser fire was meant to drain the shields’ energy for a follow-on assault. But where would that come from?

Barry surveyed the scene and said, “The citizens have evacuated to safety. The enemy is using lasers to minimize collateral damage.”

“That was nice of them. Where’s the real attack coming from?”

As if on cue, River reported on the tac-net, “Assault ships incoming. One from the north, and one from the south.”

The laser fire was lessening as Pax and Moss worked their way along the second floor of the facing buildings.

“Well, two can play the crossfire game,” Quinn muttered. Then he called out, “Sergeant Tsa! One team in the east building; one in the west building. We have incoming shuttles. Put them in a crossfire. Ruski, get the women to the extraction point and contact the ship for extraction.”

Sgt. Tsa wore a dark blue pauldron on his left shoulder, his two corporals wore blue pauldrons, and the troops wore pale blue. When the enemy laser fire dropped to almost nothing, he directed the two units to storm the buildings, clear the second floor on each, and set up for their own ambush.

Ruski and the women sprinted east to the emergency rally point in the basement garage of a building owned by a Masul corporation.

The enemy shuttle inbound from the north met fire from River and swerved. Then it dropped to street level, trailing smoke. It slid to an awkward landing south of Barry and Quinn. They retreated to opposite sides of the street and took up defensive positions. Troops piled out of the rear hatch, but they began falling to River’s fire. The remaining troops sprinted toward the cover of the cavalcade of cars.

The shuttle from the south made a better combat drop. It was out of River’s range. She was too far north of the ambush site. The southern shuttle made its drop of a platoon of soldiers and swung back into the sky. The troops, though, came under fire from Moss and Pax, which drove them forward toward their original target of the cavalcade.

The troops from both north and south surged forward to converge in the kill zone at the cavalcade. Then the elves opened up on them. Moss and Pax stationed themselves to prevent a retreat. Barry and Quinn held the front. The enemy was boxed in.

To make matter worse, their remaining shuttle, which had circled to prepare for a strafing run, came under River’s sniper rifle, and was now trailing smoke, limping off to the south.

Quinn activated his suit’s loudspeaker. “You’re surrounded. Surrender now or die in place. I don’t care which.”

A wave of psychic energy pulsed out from the troops sheltering by abandoned cars. It was a mind control attack.

Quinn met the attack with his mental defenses and pushed back until he found the source.

“By the blue car,” he reported on the tac-net. “West side.”

The elves fired, and the mind attack ceased. And with that, the remaining troops raised their hands in surrender.

The warble of sirens announced the arrival of the local police. Six air-vans swooped in to land at the perimeter of the conflict: two on the roof of the east building, two on the west building, one on the street to the north, and one on the street to the south.

Barry stalked up to one of the policemen and ordered, “Stand your men down. Guardian protocol beta-four-two-five. We are taking charge, and the situation is now under our control.”

The man relayed the command with its authorization, and a more ornately dressed Berndt officer pushed through the group of police.

“I’m Chief Podanz. We will take over.”

“No, chief,” Barry told him. “The Congress has jurisdiction. You will climb into your vans and leave.”

“This is my city,” the chief blustered.

Barry cut him off. “And you failed to protect visiting royalty. I hope, for your sake, this does not adversely impact the peace process with Masul. Now. Get out.”

The chief stood for a moment, his reptilian eyes blinking. Then he turned and ordered his forces to withdraw.

Ruski checked in on the tac-net, “Extraction complete. We’re on our way to the ship.”

“Good,” Quinn said. “Send us a shuttle. We’ve got however many of us and eight prisoners.”

Moss and Pax finished disarming and securing the prisoners. The elves checked the bodies and collected the weapons. River changed position to be closer to the battlefield. The police vans were in retreat. For the moment, all was calm.

The Masul embassy on Berndt was the largest one of the ten they visited. The next day, the group flew directly from the ship to the embassy, and once there they were shown to their assigned rooms. In fact, it was an entire wing.

While that was going on, the communication circuits overloaded with what the attack would mean politically. The press was a frenzy of talking heads and speculation.

Lord Aron followed the reports as best he could and noticed a new topic emerging from the conclave participants: What if the Coyotes decided to take down the guild?

The battle on the parade route was foolproof, the planners had said. A retired army officer designed it. Aron was impressed with the stratagem. It even included adepts using mind-fogging tactics. Even so, there were two decimated platoons, eight survivors, and two crippled assault shuttles to show for it. Of the Camtok’s party, there were no reports of casualties at all.

The reasoning person was left with an obvious conclusion. Since the attacking force did not lack competence, it followed that the Coyotes and their squad of Silvertonae were an order of magnitude better. It also followed that their next obvious move was to counter-attack.

Lord Aron mused over this logic and the potential impact on his fellow lords and ladies, and reluctantly he decided to act. He called a Berndt reporter he knew of and invited him for an exclusive live interview.

They met in Aron’s hotel room that afternoon. The reporter, like many of the races of the ten worlds, possessed a gnome-like appearance. The Berndt’s evolutionary path, after the nova wave front irradiated this world, retained reptilian features. This was so, Aron assumed, because of the protection against radiation an armored epidermis might offer.

The reporter’s name was Caradrang, and his reputation as an investigative journalist was impressive. Crooked politicians and corrupt corporations had felt the consequences of his investigations.

After the hovering camera drones were in place, he sat across from Aron and began.

“Lord Aron, thanks for offering us the opportunity for a live interview. It is definitely timely because of the recent attack on the Camtok’s party.”

“I hope to cool the fires so that intelligent dialogue prevails,” Aron said.

Caradrang thought to himself, ‘Good luck with that,’ but schooled his face to a neutral mask and asked instead, “It is widely rumored that you are the leader of the purist faction in the Nebula Guild for Psychic Research. Are you the leader of the purists?”

“I would say I am one of them. We allow ‘natural’ leaders to emerge, people whose considered opinions others find useful.”

“Less formal, then.”

Aron smiled and nodded his assent.

“I suppose you have a considered opinion about the crisis the guild created by their attack.”

“Yes,” Aron said and sat up straight. “The purists denounce it unequivocally.”

“What do you think should happen now?”

“The leaders and organizers of the attack should be prosecuted. The guild, as a whole, should offer a meaningful amends to the Camtok. And the agenda of the conclave should include a proposal for binding arbitration between the Camtok and the guild.”

The reporter took a moment to respond. In effect, he introduced a trick he learned from an acting coach, known as a ‘dramatic pause.’ It was used to grant weight to a statement and build suspense for the next one.

“The guild is known for its secrecy and for keeping its internal affairs out of public view,” Caradrang pointed out for emphasis. Then he asked, “What pushed you to break the code of silence?”

“When a prophecy is fulfilled, then all that came before is prologue. With the prophecy fulfilled, the real story begins. It is for us to find a way to gracefully merge with that story.”

Again Caradrang paused for effect. Then he went on, “The Camtok myth promises the ten worlds will be restored to their former glory.”

“It does,” Aron agreed. “And what that actually means is open to interpretation. The princess, whom we confirmed as the Camtok at her birth, sees the means to that end as comprehensive healing: mind, body, spirit. She sees it for all the people of the ten worlds, not just Masul or Berndt or any privileged few, but all people.”

“Others interpret the prophecy differently.”

“Most assuredly,” Aron said and smiled. “Their efforts to impose a different outcome have met with spectacular failures.”

“So, to be clear, where do you stand on this issue?”

“I am in complete alignment with the Camtok’s plan for the ten worlds.”

“Healing centers, schools, marketing strategies, collaboration with others, and the rest?”

“Yes,” Aron pronounced. “I even have ‘considered opinions’ on how to make it work.”

Caradrang chuckled at that and turned to the camera to close the interview.

It was carried live on Berndt news outlets, and Timi, the queen, and the Coyotes watched it in the queen’s sitting room.

Moss observed, “That guy has a sense of humor.”

Timi smiled. “I might like him for an advisor.”

“You could do worse,” Pax said. “All the guild people we’ve met so far were power addicts, and we were threatening their supply.”

Quinn said, “I take it the purists are the minority faction.”

The queen answered, “Yes. The pragmatists are the majority. It began when science became more effective in psychic research. The purists were like theoretical scientists. The pragmatists were like engineers, seeking answers about what to do with psychic power.”

“The purists explored its depths,” River concluded.

“Yes,” the queen replied and went on, “Over the centuries, though, the pragmatists became enamored with psychic power for its own sake. The purists remained a restraining force, but this is the first time a lord has spoken openly in criticism.”

Moss said, “Brave and a sense of humor. I think I like this guy.”

The rest of it was working out the details. Aron gave the guild a way out, and they took it. Congress sent mediators to bring the guild and the Camtok to a shared purpose. Penglai dispatched an exo-research team, like ones they sent to the alien worlds in the League, to further the research in psychic phenomenon, adding to that endeavor all that Penglai knew.

Their mission complete, the team returned home. But not before attending Timi’s triumphant return home.

The parade through the streets to the palace was eight miles of cheering Masul citizens in their bright clothes and ceremonial hats. The palace, now repaired of its battle damage, also sported banners hanging from windows. A pavilion stood in the courtyard outside flanked by rows of spectator stands. The three hundred foot long pavilion was festooned with brightly colored canopies. Bunches of flowers lined a ten-foot wide walkway to its center.

On the platform were dignitaries of the ten worlds as well as ambassadors from the Congress, Penglai, and the two sponsor worlds of Berndt and Masul.

The royal cadre escorted Timi and her mother to the stage and held post on either side of the walkway. Barry and Ruski, wearing their white bishop’s mantles, escorted the royal pair up the stairs to present them to the king.

Quinn and his team, by this time, had melted into the crowd and found a viewing spot on one of the bleachers.

“Pretty cool,” Moss said with some feeling.

“Yeah,” Pax agreed. “Who is the Penglai master?”

“I don’t know,” Quinn answered, “but I see Consul Singh up there.”

“I suppose we should meet with them,” Moss said uncertainly.

“They are our ride home,” River noted.

Then the speeches began, and the team made their way to the back entrance of the palace. There should be food there.

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