Shepherd Moon, Book 2: Homeworld   by Roberta J. Cabot

Chapter Four Tasha's and Sahsha's "mission" to Earth and their short conference with Dr. Isabella Puerrot answered many of their questions about being able to have a baby. For Sahsha, it was almost a sure thing, and she would be able to have a child by Mia through standard AI, or if that didn't work, she could still try for one by using the process known as EECF-SCPI, or the process where a human egg cell is fertilized without the use of sperm. As for Tasha, even with the blood and tissue samples she provided, the doctor's analysis showed it was not a sure thing. After all, Tasha was an Elyran and Mia was an Earther. Common sense would tell anyone that this was an impossibility. But Tasha had collected evidence that it might actually be possible, including a photograph of an intriguing Elyran sculpture many millennia old. But all that was put on the back-burner. At the moment, they had some things they had to take care of.

---

 

Chapter Four: Trooping of the Color

 
Her name is Via

Marjorie was feeling tired as she walked towards the airport bus.

"Man, I feel so tired!" Elmo, one of her fellow grad students, groaned. "It's only been three hours since we landed, and we were sleeping on the halo flight most of the time!"

They stepped in and the bus started for New York City, to a visitors' residence facility near the U.N.

"You should have kept up with your exercises," Octavia said as she straddled one of the benches and the others found seats. "Being in a low-G environment for long stretches of time affects Elyranoids when they go back to a higher-G one." Her Earth-made translator gave a very passable likeness of a young Earth woman's voice.

This only earned her razzberries from her fellow grad students-slash-interns. This didn't make her angry. In fact, she did that nodding and spinning-arms thing that Arachnians did instead of laughing - Arachnians couldn't really do subtle emotional gestures like most races. Smiles, frowns and laughter were out, given they were mostly covered in chitin, and couldn't really make the vocal noises most others could. So Arachnians and the few races like them made do with large arm and body gestures to communicate emotional subtleties.

Octavia also wasn't really her name. It was just a nickname that Marjorie made up for her. Her real name was "Eighth Terran Studies Student." Which was awkward for her fellow students to say, much more use. So Marjorie started calling her "Octavia," or "Via" for short. Which Octavia loved, because it sounded very close to "Mia."

About three Arachnian years ago or so, Via was a rising diplomatic candidate in the Arachnian diplomatic corps, but then the Earthers burst upon the scene and she was captivated by the noisy, brash, curious, loud, brave, brilliant and honorable race of Elyranoids, or rather "Humanoids," saving the Federation at least three times, and was instrumental in defeating their biggest enemies. And from there, they started instituting Federation reforms that she thought were long overdue, started several philanthropic programs that benefited everyone, but mostly the less priviledged parts of the Federation. And then there was all the tech, the instantaneous communications, their faster-than-the-fastest interstellar spacecraft, and the largest and most powerful single military spacefleet in the alliance.

To Via, though, all the tech, hardware and military didn't matter as much as the other things did, and she told her clanmothers that it was for those reasons that she will be petitioning the hive masters.

And though it was rather late in her cycle, because of the Earthers, and Mia, and Queen Tasha and the brave Sahsha, she decided to make a new life choice and re-dedicate her life. She wanted to change careers, which Arachnians very rarely did. Arachnians were almost always the best in their field because, once they chose a profession or a career or a vocation, they dedicated their life to it. That's the main reason why their names reflected their professions.

And it was extremely rare that something would change in their lives that they would actually contemplate changing careers. But Via's imagination was caught up in the whole Earth Alliance thing, and the promise that the Earthers brought with them. And she felt she wanted to be part of that. It was a kind of calling that she never felt before. And though the hive masters never allowed such changes, they made an exception for her.

In fact, they had such high hopes for her, and what she could do for Arachnia and the Federation, she was immediately assigned to be the First Ambassador's apprentice, provided, of course, that the First Ambassador concurs, and she does well in her Earth exchange program. This upcoming reception and her first meeting with the Elyran royal family would tell the hive masters if they were wrong or not.

There were already several who had gone into Earther studies - in fact there were already seven that were on the cutting edge. But Via was very driven, and did well in the evaluations. She became the eighth. And the hive masters crossed their fingers (an expression borrowed from the Earthers, of course) that she would do well in this next event of hers so she would be allowed to continue on.

- - - - -

As they walked to the quarters assigned them, Via continued.

"You endoskeletal types are so affected by your environments, I can't believe how much the environment affects you. You don't see us having the same problems." She did the nodding, arm-spinning thing again, showing that her words were wry and humorous instead of hurtful or insulting.

Her Earther friends, and Maio-Maio and Shu-Shu - the only two Telcontari in the program - laughed, although the Telcontari's laughter was more like a cross between snickering and chuckling.

Miao-Miao, or "Meow" to her Eather companions, was the more bold of the two. "We can't all be as lucky as you exoskeletal types, who're practically immune" she said. "But then, we don't have to molt every five years." Which was greeted with more laughter

Via made the complicated gesture which was an Arachnian's equivalent to a sigh. "Don't remind me..."

"When is it again?" Marjorie asked with some sympathy, "your molting party?"

"Sometime next month. I'm dreading it."

Marjorie hugged her Arachnian friend around the shoulders - a gesture that wasn't too common among Arachnians for obvious reasons, but was as natural as any cross-species gesture could be.

"I know you're far from home," Marjorie said, "but we'll be there to help you through it. I've been studying up on it. I think I'm ready."

"Thank you, Marjorie." Via said.

"Well..." Elmo grumped, "I'm still tired. One G really takes it out of you."

"You should have kept up on your exercises, like the manual says," Ivan Ogilov, their exchange student from Russia said. "Look at Marjorie - she isn't worse for wear."

Marjorie smiled and flexed her biceps like a bodybuilder. "Yep. You shoulda kept up with the exercises, dude" (although, inside, she felt as tired as Elmo sounded, probably even more). Everyone laughed - Marjorie's muscles were puny, just like any sedentary female who rarely exercised. "But having a nap, and staying horizontal for a while should help."

When they got to their temporary quarters, she found that she was sharing her room with Meow and Shu-Shu. She sighed - this meant she won't be able to get much sleep. Telcontaris have a reputation for being chatty, and Meow and Shu didn't really dispel any of that reputation.

"But they're good kids," she thought, unconsciously falling back to the tendency of most Federation citizens to think of the Telcontari as young children, but these two were not as young as thay appeared to non-Telcontari - true, both were barely older than Marjorie, Elmo or Ivan, but that made them adults already.

"C'mon, guys," Marjorie gestured, and allowed the two to proceed her into the room. Naturally, the two picked the bunk bed and jumped on the beds to try them on for size, Meow naturally picking the top one, of course.

Marjorie laughed and, more sedately, put her bags on the other bed near the window.

"So, guys, what do you want to do? We have twelve hours before we have to be at the reception."

But the telltale snorring, which sounded more like purring, told her that the two had fallen asleep already.

She checked, and, yes, the two were out cold. Seems it wasn't just Elmo.

"Oh, well," she giggled.

 
Formal Attire

Mia had decided to wear her Class A EarthForce admiral's uniform, though Tasha preferred her to wear her Elyran Royal Admiral's uniform, and it was a very loud debate. As usual Sahsha brought the argument into better focus when she said that they were on Earth, after all, and it would be better if she wore her Earth uniform.

Tasha looked at her, and after a moment - "You think you're so smart, huh?"

And the three of them burst out laughing.

"Girls," Mia said, "the Shepherd's currently about thirty hours behind you, but we've already called in for a rapid deceleration approach to Darkside. And if Earth Control gives us the go-ahead, then we'll be landing in Kennedy at the same time you do. I'll call back as soon as we know."

"All right, my love," Tasha said.

"Seeya soon, Mia," Sahsha said.

Mia gave them a flying kiss and signed off. She turned back to Captain O'Connell. "Any word yet, Beth?"

O'Connell looked to Comms.

"Aye, sir," the duty comms officer responded. "Fleet Command, care of Earth Control replied just a second ago. Inertia deceleration maneuver approved for the dark side of the moon at our discretion."

"Ahhh, good. Acknowledge, please, and then inform Yamato, Musashi and Shinano that we shall be executing the maneuver as planned."

"Aye, Skipper."

"Plot, did you hear that?"

"Aye, sir. Executing maneuver in ten minutes, per instructions."

By law, only EarthForce ships had the inertia conversion systems which converts inertial energy to light energy, allowing any of them that were currently traveling anywhere between 0.3C to 0.99C to brake to an effective standstill, converting all that energy to light energy, which could then be dissipated as such.

But because of extraterrestrial traffic and assorted visitors within the Earth system, all fleet traffic were forbidden to use their inertia systems unless they were cleared and were in the proper navigational corridor to prevent observation by any aliens.

There was one such corridor, which EarthForce captains called the darkside approach, because that involved the ship coming in and braking at exactly the area matching the line from the earth to the moon, since that side of the moon perpetually facing away from Earth was called the Dark Side. And because no aliens were allowed on the Dark Side, that aproach was the best one to hide a ship using their "inertial brake" from any observers on the Earth or the moon.

Of course, random observers on the other planets might still see them, but the distance and the secrecy with which they kept the "Darkside Approach" made that risk negligible. What concerned EarthForce Command more, though, were random ships in the vicinity, which was partly why ships needed to be cleared first before making such a deceleration maneuver, to make sure that no ships were in visual range or position.

EarthForce was not naive enough to assume these precautions would work forever. Sooner or later, someone would see something they shouldn't, but the Admiralty was adamant to postpone that time as much as possible.

In any case, the Shepherd and her escort of the three K-One clipper class "corvettes" of the Fifth Fleet - DSC Yamato, Musashi and Shinano - almost simultaneously slacked off deceleration and got back up to 0.9C. In less than two hours, they were near the moon. They then fired their inertial converters and stopped less than a thousand miles from the dark side.

In less than thirty seconds after braking, they fired their sub-lights and made for Kennedy Spaceport. Otherwise, they'd already start falling towards the moon.

The Shepherd and her ships made their way towards Earth, as did the Talon and her escorts. Earth Control gave them clearance, and Talon, using techniques that Reena and her crew deveoped primarily for showing off, made their flashy entrance.

Fire and smoke emanated from her emergency retros, and Talon rode down on pillars of fire. Ground crews were aware that something like this was going to happen, so the Elyrans were cleared to land at the large, all-purpose empty tarmac at the south side of the spaceport, and all crews had taken shelter.

Minutes after they had landed, the Shepherd and her three small escorts that looked like smaller versions of the Shepherd made a similar maneuver. The escot ships landed at the edge of the tarmac while, with great precision, Shepherd landed in the space that the Elyrans made for her, and only Shepherd's legendary crew could manage landing there without damaging the ships around her. To the regular people watching, they would ooh and ahh at the pyrotechnics, but to the people who knew, like spacers and pilots, they were probably more impressed by the Talon's and the Shepherd's precise navigation.

After a few minutes, obviously synchronized, the Talon's and the Shepherd's forward ramps extended down, and Tasha, wearing her Elyran finery, and Sahsha, wearing an Earth equivalent, walked down the Talon's ramp arm in arm, with the Elyran Royal Guard surrounding them, twenty-four carrying the flags of Elyra's ruling monarchies - the eight kingdoms on the mother planet, with the Great Plains and the Northern Kingdoms being the richest and most powerful among them, and the sixteen Elyran colony worlds.

Tasha didn't wear her well-worn battle sword with her elegant dress as she usually did, but wore the duplicate that was designed by Mia and fabricated by Chief Engineer Haskell onboard Shepherd Moon. It was Mia's wedding gift to her.

Though it was her first time to wear it at a public event, everyone knew about it already, of course. It looked just like her real sword and felt the same in her hand, except this one had a tempered glassite blade, as strong and as sharp as her real sword's blade, except this one had a laser edge (most Elyran battle swords had straight-edged triagular-shaped blades similar to Italian Cinquedea swords, which made them well suited to being adapted to laser conversion), and, when the blue laser was switched on, it could cut through almost anything. Tasha had yet to use it in actual battle but given how she performed with it during tournaments and practice matches (the sapphire laser turned off, of course), she was confident that she'd do well.

Tasha, as well as Sahsha wore the appropriate headdress, as dictated by Elyran royal ettiquette: Tasha wore a simple circular crown encrusted in precious jewels while Sahsha wore a silver tiara with what looked like dozens of clear white diamonds. Sahsha took it upon herself to pick whch crowns they would wear. Among the three, she was the most fashion-conscious and the other two left it to her. And her choice of crowns matched their clothes well, especially their swords.

Like Mia's "cutter" sword, Tasha's looked like the blade was made of crystal, but when switched on, the transparent glassite blade shone with a bright sapphire blue color, a color Mia had deliberately chosen to match Tasha's eyes - a quality that everyone commented on.

Not wanting Sahsha to feel left out, Mia had a crystal sword specially made for her as well, using Sahsha's preferences as a basis. So Sahsha became the owner of her own deadly crystal sword. It was shaped in the likeness of a curved, medieval-age Indian Talwar, as Sahsha specified. The talware was a kind of scimitar, but lighter and thinner and more elegant than most scimitars - though hers was shorter than a regular Talwar - about twenty inches long. But since it was curved, her glassite talwar blade couldn't have a laser edge like Mia's or Tasha's. But the transparent metal blade was specially tempered and hardened, and was so sharp, it cut throug most things effortlessly. Sahsha was actually a bit scared to carry it around so she'd wear her rubber sword when she was just going out, and only wore her crystal sword when she had to.

And since this was a special occassion, Sahsha wore it this time.

Tasha had switched on the light function of her sword, so Sasha copied her and switched her own sword on as well.

Since Tasha's sword was blue, and Mia's red, Mia didn't want Sahsha's to duplicate those colors. Mia could have made it glow green - the other primary color, but, instead, Mia made Sahsha's sword emit a faint light that shifted through the entire spectrum of whatever ambient light Sahsha was currently in, sort of duplicating the effect of a diamond, refracting and reflecting the light that was shined upon it. And since it was a fairly faint light, Sahsha's sword didn't need much power, So Mia put in solar cells that used the ambient light around it to power itself, and to accumulate enough power to charge up its small battery so it could function even if the current ambient light was too faint.

 
Inspection

Sahsha quelled her rising nervousness and took strength from Tasha as they walked down the ramp.

"Don't worry, my love," Tasha whispered to her, "I am with you."

As for Mia, she switched on her "cutter" sword and set it to its lowest setting, and only made it glow faintly. Unlike Tasha's and Sahsha's, her sword didn't really have switches but more like a dial, which adjusted the power strength setting. One of these days, she'll have to have that changed.

She wore the dress uniform of an EarthForce admiral, with a few additions: it was still the same navy-blue coat with gold trim and epaulettes that had hanging braid fringes, a stiff, gold-trimmed high collar with her fleet and admiral pins, and with gold braid strips near the cuffs of her coat sleeves to signify her rank as a fleet admiral. She wore the tight, stretchy short white skirt with tall riding boots instead of the white leggings because Sahsha said she had incredible legs and she should display them as often as she could. She also had her sidearm in a holster on her right hip and her glowing sword in its transparent glassite scabbard on her left, both hanging from the belt around her waist that was covered by the red sash of the uniform. All the gold buttons on the double-breasted coat gleamed and emphasized her very noticeable bosoms.

What was different with her uniform was, on the sleeves, just above the admiral's stripes on her cuffs, were two circular devices, one in gold and one in metallic blue, which showed her to be the admiral and commanding general of the Querubin - the Elyran Northern Kingdom, as well as the commanding general of the Great Plains of Elyra. Among the medals and devices just above her left breast that showed all of her military honors were a few miniatures that were honors bestowed upon her by Elyra and other Federation governments, and she wore around her neck the Blue Heart, the large blue diamond that was the symbol that she was the rightful ruler of Elyra's Northern Kingdom, and she also wore a simple silver circlet on her head, as dictated by Elyran royal etiquette (Mia picked the simple silver hoop instead of any of the more ornate crowns available to her because it was the most plain and most simple).

She looked to her left and noted Ben in his EarthForce Uniform. He had the braids and insignia of a lieutenant, and wore more Elyran miniatures than Earth ones on his coat, and he also had a red ribbon around his neck that meant he was an Elyran citizen. He also wore the standard sidearm and a short dress sword. Aside from that, his uniform was pretty conventional.

Of course, he wore an aguilette that hung from his right shoulderboard. The aguilette was made of four different cords wound around each other - one in red, one in blue, one in silver and one in gold. This meant that his duties as Mia's adjutant was far-ranging, indeed, because it showed that he rendered official service across three military services - EarthForce, Elyra and Elyra's Northern Kingdom.

This also made him the most influential Elyran around, save for Tasha and some of Tasha's royal peers - an unusual position, to say the least, especially since he was an unmated Elyran male bridge.

"Can we go now, Ben?" Mia whispered to him.

"In a few more moments, my princess," Ben said. He was listening to the drum-beats of the royal buglers and signallers. And when his count reached the appropriate number, he nodded.

"Now, my princess," Ben said.

Mia raised a fist in the air and smartly brought it down. "Execute," she said crisply, and she and the rest of her company marched down the ramp.

Immediately behind her and Ben were two marines - one carrying the Crystal Staff, the official sigil of her position as the Northern Kingom's ruler, and another carrying the Fifth Fleet's colors. Behind that pair were two other marines, one carrying the UN flag, and the other one carrying the EarthForce flag, and behind these two was another pair - one carrying the pennant of the Elyran Republic and the other carrying the pennant of the Northern Kingdom.

As their group and Tasha's group met, Mia, along with Ben and Captain O'Connell, marched to the front, and Mia took her place beside Tasha, while Ben stayed behind Mia and beside Lena, Tasha's lady-in-waiting, while the royal staff's chief maid, who acted as Sahsha's lady-in-waiting during official events stood on the other side of Lena and behind Sahsha. Captain O'Connell and Lady Reena took their places behind them, while all of the color bearers arranged themselves behind O'Connell and Reena.

As for the rest, they executed what they called the "pincushion maneuver," an extremely complicated maneuver that allowed both both groups to integrate themselves into one and marched in step and in formation behind the color bearers.

"Brigade ready!" shouted the lead sergeant in English. Part of Tasha's Royal Guard, she was the one put in charge of this important ceremonial detail. As such, she was in the very last column in the formation, and her vantage point would show her if the formation was ready. And her shout said that the formation was now ready to move forward.

"Execute!" Mia barked, also in English, and the group started marching in "time-and-a-half," which was fifty percent faster than normal marching. This allowed them to reach the group of dignitaries arrayed at the edge of the tarmac fairly quickly.

Among these dignitaries included Queen Margaret II of the United Kingdom and her husband, Prince Stephen, UN Secretary-General Alexandra Romarkin and her husband, Admiral Benjamin Silverman, the commander of EarthForce, and his wife, the current head of CETI, Professor Phil McIntyre and several of his students from Triton Station #17, the former head of the Propulsion Research Commission, Dr. Marta Running-Stream, and several other Earth luminaries.

As for the extraterrestrials, there was the First Ambassador of Arachnia and his Erocii colleague, the famous Dr. Autumn-Sun-Rising-In-the-East (or just "Autumn," for short), Admiral Dax from the Dixx Space Defense Force, Ambassador Foal from the Detterex Empire, who had a personal escort and guide assigned by the American State Department (actually an EarthForce marine currently undercover, whose assignment was to watch for any untoward behavior by the Detterex politico), the famous Elyran actor, Rom, and his current partner, Arda, Ambassador Fal of Elyra's First Colony and her husband, and Ambassador Lulu from Telcontar. There was even a representatative from Dravidia, a Mr. Coll (no one knew his title, but he was sent by the Dravidian central council itself to represent the Dravidians in this ceremony). A squad of marines, supposedly to serve as an honor guard to Coll, was also there, although everyone knew it was to guard the Dravidian himself.

As the Earther/Elyran ceremonial formation approached, they executed yet another maneuver, and in short order, their entire contingent was arrayed in front of the grouped dignitaries, with Mia, Tasha and Sahsha at the very front, with Queen Margaret, the secretary-general and Admiral Silverman directly in front of them.

The tricky maneuver was done smoothly and without error, and everyone was amazed.

"Formation, halt!" Mia barked, and the entire group stopped with a synchonized stomp that made it sound almost like one gunshot.

"Parade rest!" Mia said, and everyone fell into a stance that Earther military people called "parade rest."

"Display Colors!" Mia said. The color bearers all raised their flags and pennants and the entire formation, with the exception of Tasha and Sahsha, saluted.

Applause rained down, and the three broke formation, and greeted their friends.

After that little time-out from protocol, Mia "invited" Fleet Admiral Silverman to inspect the troops, an Elyran variation of the Earth tradition.

So Mia and Admiral Silverman "walked the line" and Silverman did an inspection, much in the manner that he usually conducts such ceremonial inspections.

Though it was largely ceremonial, Silverman would occassionally stop in front of an EarthForce spacer or ensign to ask a question, usually something personal but also casual, but he would more often stop in front of an Elyran warrior and have a longer "chat."

Mia was a bit familiar with this habit of the admiral's, because, over fifteen or so years ago, she used to be under Silverman under the old Allied armed forces, when many of the volunteer soldiers of the Allies were deployed to counter the threat of the short-lived but disastrous "satellite wars." And "he" i.e. Mia before her sex change operation, had to endure a couple of these inspections.

Silverman stopped in front of one of the Elyran warriors who was carrying one of those Elyran shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile launchers, and asked the warrior to break down her weapon.

The warrior was surprised, but only for a moment. With great skill and precision, she broke down her weapon, and then put it back together on command even more rapidly.

Silverman nodded in appreciation and continued on down the line.

The Elyran was breathing a bit hard, because rapidly breaking down and then reassembling such a large, heavy and ungainly weapon wasn't easy. Also, because she was nervous, having to do it for the Earther supreme military commander.

Among Elyrans, the stories that Mia and Sahsha told of their lives as Earthers were always of great interest, and for anyone assigned to the 5th Fleet, the Royal Staff or to Seraphim, it was one of the fringe benefits, and such stories were recounted by word of mouth, from warrior to warrior. Of course, like chinese whispers, these stories got exaggerated over each retelling. So, by the time the warrior heard these stories, especially the ones about the Admiral, it had raised Silverman's reputation to near legendary status. Her nervousness was therefore very understandable.

But more than that, Silverman was quite attractive, and his aura projected an image of a very powerful submissive bridge, almost as powerful as the Lady Sahsha's aura.

Mia, who was trailing the admiral, leaned towards the warrior as she passed.

"You must really have impressed the Admiral," Mia stage-whispered to her. "Good work, warrior."

The warrior grinned from ear to ear, but pulled herself together when she saw her platoon commander giving her the evil eye.

 
The Air Show

After the inspection, Mia and the admiral returned to the front row of the VIPs, preparatory to dismissing the company. (Because of the late hour, the itinerary for the day excluded any speeches, truncating the usually long ceremony.)

In lieu of the speeches, a fancy flyby and aerial show was scheduled, to be performed by the Silver Arrows - the Fifth Fleet's air demonstration squadron composed of a mix of Shrike and Eagle fighters, the Turtleheads - the Fifth Fleet's combined elite Electronic Warfare & Detection wing composed of a mix of Cobra and Mud Turtle shuttles, and the Elyran Twelfth Wing precision flyers. The Silver arrows and the Twelfth Wing fighters made fanciful and intricate maneouvers in the air as they trailed multicolored smoke, and the Turtleheads fired several volleys of noisy, multicolored fireworks, making the gathered crowd go ooohhh and ahhh.

It was quite a spectacular ending to the ceremony, and everyone was making a move towards the exits as the fighters and shuttles flew away.

But just as the crowds were getting up from their seats, what looked like an old-style Tirosian fighter zoomed high above. It was flying faster than any Tirosian fighter has ever been observed flying in atmosphere, and trailed a rocket and vapor trail tinged with blue instead of the yellow and orange that most Federation ships were known for. In fact, it was clocked as flying faster than even an Earther, Telcontari or Arachnian fighter ever flew in an Earth-type atmosphere. The sonic boom was loud as it overflew the crowd, and made a large sweeping circle as it flew back for another pass.

The Flying Arrows and the Twelfth Wing fighters wheeled around, apparently intending to "engage" this "enemy fighter," and as they raced back, while the lone Tirosian ship turned around and seemed to positioning herself to fire her weapons at the crowd below.

She fired her energy weapons and twin red beams instead of the expected white shot out, and the crowd gasped in terror. But the beams were stopped short, seemingly by an energy shield similar to what spacecraft were fitted with.

The crowd laughed in relief and cheered this wonderful, though monentarily scary, display.

The fighter then zoomed faster, like it meant to fly right into the crowd. But at almost the last moment, it fired a missile and veered upwards.

Somewhere from the soldiers at parade rest, one of the Elyran Royal Guardswomen fired her surface-to-air missile, and took out the incoming weapon. The missile exploded and disintegrated in the air, making a spectacular cloud full of fire and smoke. The crowd cheered at the wonderful aerial pyrotechnics.

As the "enemy ship" pinwheeled back, as if trying to make another run, something happened.

Something at the back of the Tirosian fighter exploded, and it tried to pull back up, but it couldn't. The best it could do was to soft-land and skid on the grassy part of the spaceport beyond the tarmac.

Moments after it had skidded to a halt, two new rockets came down near the downed fighter, and something like a soap bubble enveloped the little fighter. Seconds after that, several other rockets landed around it, and exploded. Judging by the thick billowing white smoke that started to surround the little fighter, these rockets were actually smoke bombs.

As the smoke started to spread, it completely obscured the fighter.

Overhead, over two dozen marines leaped out of several mud turtle and cobra shuttles, deployed six-foot collapsible wings as they fell, and glided the rest of the way down to where the fighter was - it was EarthForce's version of the 20th century paratroopers of World War Two.

As soon as all the paratroopers landed on the smoke-obscured ground, and were swallowed up by the white smoke, they fired signal rockets trailing red, yellow, green and blue smoke trails, and it made the white smoke look like some kind of enormous flower, or something like that. The crowds cheered this last bit of showmanship.

Soon after that, someone announced on the PA that the ceremony was over, and everyone dispersed to go home or to party, while the VIPs made their way to one of the large hangars nearby redressed to be the location of the reception party that was scheduled next.

On most of the television (and equivalent) entertainment channels, the media that was present recounted everything that happened in rosy, excited tones, for it was an exciting event. In fact the extraterrestrial mediapeople kept on saying, if this was typical of official Earth events, then they needed to cover more of these things.

 
Behind the scenes

What the public and the media (and many of the VIPs present, including Queen Margaret and her entourage) didn't know was the last part of the ceremony wasn't really a scheduled event.

It was actually a literal attack on the gathered luminaries, but one that was so skillfully managed, no one was the wiser.

Actually, Mia and the Admiralty already suspected that such an attack was being planned, and though they didn't know the detials, they prepared as best they could - that's why there was a shield over the crowd, and Mia's people were able to manage so well when the Tirosian fighter came upon the scene.

Postmortem on the attacking fighter showed it to be a genuine Tirosian ship, its markings showing it to be one of the recovered hulks from the swamps of Tiros Prime. But it was fitted with Dravidian chemical rocket engines. That was why its rocketfire was tinged blue instead of yellow or orange.

Most Federation, Tirosian and Detterex rockets used liquid chemical or solid fuel that had trace amounts of sodium, which made them burn with a yellow or orange flame, though a few, like the Dravidians, had engines that made use of fuel that was laced with copper, which made them burn with a bluish light.

But the enormous thrust the outsize Dravidian engines provided was apparently too much for the tiny Tirosian fighter to contain, so after about fifteen minutes of full thrust, the engines burned through their surrounding cowling and exploded.

As for the energy weapons used, based on their serial numbers, the weapons were Earth-made, and were from salvaged energy pulse weapons retrieved from some metal reclamation facility in Taiwan before they could be scrapped, which accounted for the red bolts that the Tirosian ship fired.

As for the rocket that it launched, it was a fairly standard anti-ship missile of a Dravidian design. And it was knocked down with the use of one of the ground-to-air missile launchers carried by one of the Elyran Royal Guards who was part of the parade. Mia had actually rushed down to the nearest one while everyone's attention was focused on the incoming Tirosian fighter, and instructed the warrior to set her launcher on automatic. And, as soon as the missile launched from the fighter, her missile automatically fired as well, and exploded the enemy missile.

As for the enemy pilot, she was captured alive.

After the fighter crashed and skidded to a halt, one of the mud turtles overhead fired two EM suppression field missiles, more popularly known as the "curtain of light," but these missiles only generated small fields - just big enough to surround the ship and effectively shutting down all of the fighter's electronics, and any booby traps (especially the atomic kind) were rendered inert.

After those two missiles, several of the other shuttles then fired off smoke bombs to obscure any of their or the enemy's activities, and as the "paratroopers" landed, because of the smoke and the curtain of light, they had no comms so they fired off signal flares instead to show that they had reached their target, each color-coded to the ship where they came from - red for Yamato, yellow for Musashi, green for Shinano and blue for the Shepherd Moon.

Of course, when they broke into the cockpit, they found the pilot knocked out and they were easily able to bring her out of the plane.

The pilot was an Elyran, and was wearing one of the Elyran Royal Guard uniforms. But after an antigen test, they discovered that the pilot was actually Detterex, and the uniform she was wearing was actually fake - a poorly tailored imitation at that.

Because it was a Detterex, many wanted to detain Ambassador Foal, but people from the Alien Threat Assessment Command nixed that idea - they said they'd probably uncover more information if they just put the unsuspecting Detterex ambassador under surveillance.

The Detterext pilot-spy was then passed on to the American CIA and FBI - their interrogation abilities almost legendary in the Earth intelligence community - and soon enough, without hardly any effort, they were able to break the spy down and get at the truth.

Apparently, the spy was hardly a spy - she was just one of the many destitute citizens of Detterex Prime, and was easily coerced to do the bidding of a group of Dravidians who promised wealth and material comforts for her and her family.

Obviously, the Dravidians selected a Detterex, specifically one of the "throwbacks" who looked very similar to Elyrans, especially in their height, so that their spy could travel to Earth without much suspicion, and the Dravidians wouldn't be implicated immediately if their scheme was somehow uncovered. Of course, the Dravidians also had a contingency plan - a self-destruct device onboard the fighter - but it wasn't triggered because of the EM suppression field.

The Detterex spy was unable to tell her FBI and CIA interrogators who these Dravidians were, but from her descriptions, it was obvious that the ringleader was none other than Mia's favorite Dravidian, the ex-councillor Cor.

So, though the Detterex ambassador Foal was not a direct suspect anymore, she was still considered a person of interest, and undercover surveillance was still initiated.

As for the Dravidian "observer," Coll, he was called in for an interview with Earth's Department of Foreign Affairs and Immigration. And it was not surprising, however, that Coll did not report for that interview. And as Mia's Tasha's and Sahsha's reception was concluding, a manhunt was initiated for the the missing Coll.

to be continued...

 

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