“I’m not sure. I’m taking a shuttle down to the surface to see what’s going on. Standby and I’ll let you know.” Kosiev looked at him with an expression that Tag had come to know well, “Don’t worry, I’ll be safe.” Then Tag left to board a shuttle. “Atlas, these people aren’t members of the Alliance, how do I communicate with them?”
“Their leader is on the ground at the town of Ross. Just touch him and I’ll put a link in him so you can communicate thru your thoughts.”
Tag landed and all the new inhabitants ran from his ship. They were humanoid in appearance but were dark brown in color and had six fingers on each hand with two opposable thumbs on each hand. Their arms were shorter than Humans but had elbows that appeared to be able to rotate 360 degrees. Their black hair was sparse but covered most of their body. The head was large with a brow that had a ridge of raised skin that ran from their eyes to their ears which were small almost bat like. There was obvious intelligence in their face and one of them began walking toward his ship. Tag stepped out and waited for the Alien to come to him. The Alien said something that was completely unintelligible and Tag held out his hand. The Alien looked at him and then took Tags hand in his own. Tag could feel the small shock that went into the alien and watched him give a sudden start. “I think you can understand me now,” Tag said.
The alien again gave a start and said, “What did you just do?”
“I placed a link in you so we could communicate. I’ve been told that you are survivors of an attack on your world.”
The alien looked at Tag with an expression even Tag could understand, “My world is being eaten alive. Everything is being consumed. They totally destroyed our fleet, blew up our largest cities, and then landed and began eating my people. We had defeated their first attack but the second one overwhelmed us. Thousands and thousands of ships attacked us.”
Tag could see in the aliens mind what had happened. He was sick with revulsion and felt a deep sorrow for the alien’s loss. “One of my friends saved your ships and brought you here. This will be your new home and we offer this world to you to settle along with any of our colonists that might return later. Now is not the time to talk about what happened here but later if you don’t mind, I would like you to tell my leaders what happened at your world. Get your people settled and in the mean time, I am going to order some food transports to come and give you enough to survive until you can start your own agriculture.”
The alien looked at Tag and said, “My name is Klas and my people are called Pydres. Thank you for your help. I’ll discuss what happened after my people overcome their shock and grief.”
“I’ll be back later.” Tag then offered his hand again and the Alien took it and Tag shook it. “This is our way of greeting each other.” With that Klas shook it firmly.
Chapter 18
Three months had passed since the battle at the Alliance Central World and State Leader Sten had seen remarkable change among the members. The members that had quarrels were brought in and put in a room to resolve their differences and they were not allowed to leave until they were. Headman Dgzh was the mediator of these meetings and Sten often felt sorry for his assistant and friend but progress was being made. Even the Vgrig were changing their warlike ways after the Subleader became a hero of the Alliance and Supreme commander of all Alliance space forces. The first action he took was to take the fleet to his home planet and make the leaders come to terms with what would be accepted in the future. It’s hard to argue with 8,000 warships above your planet. But something was lacking. Sten just couldn’t find what it was that would make them a real Alliance. So he called Tgon-Gee and asked for advice.
Tgon-Gee told Sten, “Your members don’t share a common vision. You have 800 members and they all have their own vision of the universe with them controlling it. Until they share a common vision, you’ll always have conflict.”
“How did you and the Cainth unite with a common vision?” Sten asked.
“That was the easy part. We listened to our Queen. She united us,” Tgon-Gee said. “We would gladly give our lives for each other now.”
“Do you think she might speak to our members?”
Tgon-Gee looked at Sten and said, “I’ll ask her.”
Seven rotations later Sten received a com from Tgon-Gee. “State Leader, Queen Danielle has agreed to speak to your members. How do you want to arrange it?”
“We will call a gathering of all representatives of the members and have her address the Assembly here at our Central Government Planet. When can she come?”
“Ten rotations from today and we will be bringing our fleet with her to insure her safety.”
“I’ll announce the meeting immediately. See you in ten rotations.”
Sten sent the order for all representatives of the Alliance Worlds to come to the General Assembly at Alliance Central in nine rotations and announced that on the tenth rotation the new Queen of the Glod, Cainth, and Human Races would address the assembly. One would have thought that a bomb had been dropped on every planet in the Alliance. There was almost civil war on a large number of the planets as to who would attend the assembly. Sten was inundated with requests to attend. The rumors about the new queen were rampant and had circulated among the membership until everyone wanted to see this new queen that had united such diverse races. It was getting out of hand. Finally Sten announced that the meeting would be broadcast to all worlds and that she would address the assembly in the outdoor arena that would hold 300,000. The reservations were gone in less than a drag. Sten looked at Dgzh who was sitting in his office and said, “I’ve been trying to find something that would unite us and the only thing so far has been the arrival of this queen. What’s wrong with this picture?” he asked.
“You haven’t met her and besides after the Humans defeated the Hargon fleet all of our members developed a huge curiosity about them. You would be surprised at how little is known about these Humans. The members also can’t understand how the Humans allowed the Cainth to become their brothers after trying for so many cycles to destroy them. That doesn’t even approach their amazement at the change that has taken place in the Glod. Did you know that the Glod actually offered to leave their ships behind to protect their former enemies from attack and asked for nothing in return for doing it? The stories about these Humans have given them a super race mystique that has fascinated all of us. The members were stunned that they just left and didn’t conquer us all.”
“So am I,” said Sten.
“You haven’t talked with their queen,” Dgzh responded.
“No I haven’t. Maybe it’s about time I did.”
Nine rotations later Sten was in front of the chosen representatives of the members and was trying to bring order out of the chaos. The races were loud and the accusations that were thrown at each other were being roared. Suddenly, Tgon-Gee walked up to the speaker’s platform and looked out at the assembly without saying a word. Some of the members noticed him and started pointing; soon everyone was looking at the platform and the noise lessened until finally silence prevailed. The seven foot tall Glod made an imposing figure next to the four foot tall Sten. After the crowd grew quiet he turned to Sten and said, “State Leader, may I have permission to address the Assembly for a moment.” The members were amazed at the deference being shown to the Small Adjemt.
“Yes, Tgon-Gee, you may.” Sten walked back to his chair and sat down.
Tgon-Gee looked out at the assembly and said, “You show a remarkable lack of respect to the leader that saved your worlds from destruction. If not for Sten, you would not be here today. I don’t think you fully understand his contribution and bravery in standing up and making sure of your survival. However, I’m not here to teach you respect, I’m here to tell you how and why we chose our Queen.” The entire room leaned forward to make sure they heard every word. Then Tgon-Gee told them about how the royal families and rulers were selected on Glod and the role of the fifty peers. Then he said, “I know some of you are skeptical about psychic abilities but our race can see the aura around a person that possesses the ability. Some have a very light aura almost white and are unaware of their talent. Some have a blue aura and know they possess psychic abilities. I don’t ask you to believe me on this issue but my race has recognized the meaning of these auras for thousands of years. The strongest aura among our peers is a medium blue. He is without question our strongest psychic. When I first saw our new queen, the first thing I saw was that her aura was deep purple almost violet. It is the strongest aura ever seen by my race. We know what her aura means; she can find truth in any situation and if we would but follow her then my race will
