Queen's Quest

Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen Shipping Them Home

I was involved in other duties so didn't get the opportunity to greet our guests or see that they were properly secured in their rooms, Lieutenant Geardot and Lieutenant Commander Tormish along with Mynce took care of that, in fact she gave me a full update as to where they were all located when I returned to the bridge.

According to Mynce (now an Ensign) the earth bound Fae were being quartered in a special section of the Nessa,

"I can gain access to certain parts of the Nessa's computers and discovered that they're all located on the 18th level C and D sections, security is also located on that level as well, guess they don't want any trouble this time. It also looks as though they're using the dining room on level 20."

"Interesting," I replied, "might take a stroll over there once things settle down." It was quite awhile before I could follow up on my idea; our time was taken up with training drills with a couple fighter squadrons, and the Frala from the Osha. Shortly after that, we were assigned the task of long range recon again, with the Frala, we took up a port position with the Frala way over on the right. Things got pretty boring as we maintained course through the endless miles of space. Mynce's whole attitude was completely altered from when she first became incorporated into the Inkara's computer.

Since she had been reinstated into the witches guild and had received a promotion, she took her duties very seriously, she was back in the guild, and was getting noticed, as well as a second chance, something Mynce was determined not to waste. Jina spent quite a bit of time talking to her, I wasn't privy to their discussions but I think they were working out past animosities, which was fine by me. I made no real effort to visit our former "guests" as we would meet soon enough when it came time to land them back on their own planet.

About halfway back to earth, the Frala reported that her long-range sensors were picking up some sort of spacecraft and it was heading our way. This brought everyone to action; we were immediately called to action as was the Nessa and Osha. Commander Lungdil of the Frayla reported that he was still too far to determine what type of craft it was or who it might belong to, however it was coming from the direction of earth, which was causing all of us to ask the question; "Were we wrong about earth having the ability for long range space travel.

Someone must have asked our cousins from earth their thoughts on the matter at about the same time Commander Lungdil reported that the craft was some kind of un-manned probe as there was no evidence of life aboard the ship, which was also reported as being rather small for an intergalactic starship.

Word came back from the Nessa that the United States had launched some sort of deep space probe sometime last year, and this was that craft. It didn't take long for Commander Lungdil to get word from Captain Demlin to cloak and disable the craft with a pulse beam and tag it for the Nessa to pick up for study. The pulse beam would knock out its propulsion system as well as communications, if it was transmitting back to earth it would suddenly go "dead," and never be heard of again, however it would give us an excellent opportunity to study earth technology at our leisure. About half an hour later, Commander Lungdil reported the craft "de-activated," and waiting for pick-up.

About the time we entered earth's galaxy I was given the opportunity to get a close up look at the craft, we were called back to the Nessa to pick up the Fae in our part of returning them home. Although our scientists and techs were still going over the craft all agreed this was a rather unique creation. There were four long engine nacelles with the main body of the craft located in the middle; somebody had put a lot of thought into this craft even though it obviously didn't have any form of advanced propulsion such as hyper drive. As we were looking at the dismantled craft, Commander Tormish offered a unique opinion.

"Just a wild guess, but this thing looks rather expensive, somebody's going to be rather upset when they can't raise her."

"No doubt," I replied, "once our people go through this thing we'll have an edge on these humans, we'll have a good handle on the sum of their technology." No doubt about it, this probe was a godsend; the most advanced example of human technological achievement is sitting right in our hands…Incredible."

Before we returned to the Inkara, Lieutenant Geardot and I were involved in a lengthy meeting, which involved a top-secret briefing. Along with Commander Lungdil and his first officer lieutenant, Geardot and I were briefed on the mission of the Abbai by its commander Adryan Vordana. According to the plan, once our guests had been returned to earth and sent on their merry way, we would join the Frala in earth orbit then escort the Abbai down to the northern polar region where the submarine would be secretly launched. The Abbai was equipped with special communications equipment that would jam military and civilian radio traffic and generally create all sorts of problems to distract any interest in our activities.

"Won't the humans become alarmed or suspect something when all their communications are disrupted," someone asked.

"Probably," replied Commander Vordana, "not much we can do about it, however we've got a couple storm wardens with us who are going to whip up a beauty of a storm keeping all their aircraft on the ground, should make for an interesting time. The submersible will be down there for about a month, if there's anything worth recovering they'll find it, the Inkara and Frala will seek out places to remain hidden while that sub is underwater, we've chosen several nice sites from our terrain scanners you can hide in but you must be available and always ready should problems arise or the sub is discovered. Make no mistake, should we be discovered, you have full authority to use whatever fore you deem necessary to effect rescue and protect the sub as well as the Abbai."

The whole mission had everybody excited, we would be operating right under the human's noses without their knowledge that we were even there, but we all knew that things could just as easily go wrong and that we could end up shooting at them.

We were assured that all the top people were here, all veterans of the Morda war and experienced combat flyers. We were also told that under no circumstances were the earth-bound Fae to be told anything of this operation in fact Ensign Fashar and the rest of the pixies were assigned to "keep their ears open," for any hint these people were wise to this operation, in fact when it came time for our "guests" to transfer to the Inkara, they were escorted by two squads of marines clearing the corridors as the group made it's way to our ship. I wasn't sure this was a good idea, as being escorted to the Inkara by heavily armed troops would only alert them to the fact that something was going on. Once they were aboard we were ordered to depart the Nessa immediately, the final leg of the Fae's return to earth had begun.

When Lieutenant Geardot and I returned to the ship, we walked in on some sort of party.

Everyone was standing around nibbling on snacks and drinking soft drinks.

Malcanthet was in the midst of the gathering, talking to Brie and "The Morrigan," when she saw us; she broke from the group and came up to me.

"I heard you were coming with us," I said, "I also heard that you were going to be acting as a sort of Royal representative, think anyone will pay any attention to you?" Malcanthet turned for a moment to look at our guests then coolly replied,

"Oh they'll pay attention to me all right." She then directed me to a corner away from prying ears.

"If I don't get a chance to talk to you any further commander I'm very uneasy about this little "assignment" let me state for the record that I'm in perfect health, I have no addictions other than smoking the occasional Looma but nothing that I might take an overdose of by accident if you get my meaning. Commander, I have no illusions about these people, Bivale asked me to do this, knowing she would owe me, what can I say. It's politics, anyway, if things go bad on me I have a secret transmitter to contact you don't let me down I'm counting on you."

"I won't let you down," I said quietly, "Do you think things could come to that?" She looked around then lowered her voice, "Both Maguire and Kolee think things could come to that, my ass is really out on a limb on this one, but I didn't get to where I am by being dumb. One other thing, stick around for a while, I might be here for a bit before things start to happen.'

"I'll be here Malcanthet, have no fear," I assured her, "Commander Lungdil and I have to stand by while that sub snoops around, and whatever you do don't tell our friends over there, they aren't supposed to know a thing about it." Malcanthet gave me a wicked smile and nodded her head.

"By the way," I added, "What happens if you have to go into hiding, or something does happen to you?" She looked me dead in the eyes, and carefully said,

"That my dear commander is something you don't want to know and something I'm not at liberty to tell you, just know that these Fae won't ever be a problem again."

"One last question," I quickly asked, "Do you think there's any chance to re-establish some of the Faerie folk as well as your people on this planet?"

Malcanthet grimaced, then replied, "That is supposed to be my official mission here, whether anyone really believes that or not I can't say, guess we'll just have to see."

I found time to chat briefly with all of our guests getting the impression that they were all surprised that they were actually being sent home. Dayson and one of the dark Fae Balin expected to be arrested and sent to the Cantard. Brie and her friend Kendi were impressed with us more as extraterrestrial life than fellow Fae. Ciara was deeply disappointed that she really was not Queen of the Faeries, "The Nain Rouge" was hard to read, she never said much, however Ensign Fashar told me he had heard that on their tour of Mythal, she had expressed a strong desire to live there. Trick seemed to be the only one who looked positively at the whole experience, as well, he should, King Trueblood treated him almost like a brother, they really rolled out the red carpet for him in Dros Del Noch. For the most part, I had had enough of these people, and did my best to avoid them during the flight back to earth. I could see nothing they could offer us, and apparently, they weren't interested in anything in the way of advice we could offer them.