“Remember, the Corsair’s trip to Iris is mainly to check some recent repairs so they’ll be running a skeleton crew and will not have as many passengers on board. They’ll have up to 50,000 people on board during conferences and meetings in Sol, but there should be far fewer people in Iris,” said Marco.
“Katy and I will be wearing Fed engineering coveralls, and George and Greeley will be service staff,” said Jolo.
He paused for a moment in case there were any other questions, then ended the meeting. “Okay, we’ll hammer out the finer points tomorrow. In the meantime, get some sleep and get ready.”
What a Frog Doesn’t Know Can’t Kill Him
Bakanhe Grana Homeworlds
Warumon 5, Humanoid Synthesis and Production Facility
In the days after his separation from Jamis, Merthon stayed quiet and obedient. He immersed himself in work. Caring for the Emperor’s children was time consuming and required all of his faculties, but it was what he did best: nurturing, growing. Maybe Jamis was right, he thought, Vellosians were no good at scheming and plotting the demise of far stronger adversaries. I am beaten, he thought, get over it.
The angry days when he had risked everything to sneak the mangled body of a Fed war hero into one of the sick tanks without tripping any alarms, and the chances he took getting working fuel cells into the old Racellian pod seemed like another time, another Merthon. These days he padded through the halls slowly, sometimes humming snippets of old songs his mother had taught him in the pools long ago. He ate little. Slept less. Those bad thoughts, the ones where he would challenge a random warrior with mock ferocity in hopes of being taken from his misery by the hot end of a Grana’s red blade flared up now and then, but faded just as quick.
It had been two weeks since Merthon had seen his only friend, Jamis. But try as he might, Merthon couldn’t stop thinking about him. Jamis was going to tell him some new plan. But it never got out. What was he up to? Merthon thought. Jamis hinted there was something missing, but what? What could harm these nearly fully grown beings when the water quality was clearly fine and all other checks for toxic agents came back negative?
At work one day Merthon stared into a tank at one of the beings that he and Jamis had created. They were beautiful and even though he knew what they were to be used for, he was secretly proud of them. So many of them. He held a clear vial of water up, pretending to view it through the light, but actually to locate the guard. He was talking to a BG wearing the purple robes of a Grana priest, and so Merthon took a chance and slipped his hand into the warm, thick solution and touched the pale, slick skin of the creature. It moved slightly and its eyelids twitched and Merthon caught his breath. But it was too early for it to wake.
“You are my child,” said Merthon. “Do no harm.” Jamis would have laughed, he thought.
At night Merthon’s mind would not shut off. Jamis hinted he was leaving something out of the solution, he thought, but what? Nothing could be left out. That would be suicide. The BG had begun running their own rudimentary analysis, cross checking the Vellosians, ever since Jamis had tried to poison a few of the children.
It was one year ago when the offspring were young, half their current size. Jamis and Merthon had been going all day. Some of the young ones had died and neither of them could find a valid reason. Everything checked out. Merthon thought it was the bots the BG supplied to assist. They were not Vellosian spec and may have introduced contaminants. The Emperor recoiled at the notion his bots were to blame and hit Merthon so hard he fell to the ground. Merthon lay on the cold metal floor hoping he would just die. He could see nothing but the metal, three-toed foot of the Emperor. His robe brushing across Merthon’s face.
Merthon thought a final, fatal blow was coming. Jamis did too, so he grabbed a handful of hydroxy tabs and threw them out over the open tanks. The Emperor yelled and moaned like a father who’s children were in peril. There was nothing he could do for them so he turned on Jamis.
He pulled out his energy staff, the ends lighting up bright, electric red.
“Kill me!” yelled Jamis, “and they all die.” His hand gesturing towards the young humanoids growing in their clear tanks, hover bots as far as the eye could see tending to them under Jamis and Merthon’s careful instruction.
“You dare attempt to hurt my children. My children!” screamed the Emperor, the hot end of his stick in Jamis’s face, the light reflecting his large, wet eyes.
“If you want them to live, then do not touch either of us again,” said Jamis.
Merthon sat up. Don’t push the metal beast any further, he thought. He’ll kill both of us out of anger. He knows the children still need us, but not for much longer.
But the Emperor’s logic prevailed. “Do not threaten me again, or I’ll roast your skinny, frog body and feed it to the mizuma.” The mizuma were the young BG worms not yet fitted with a black mech body. They lived on the worm worlds and were soft dirt divers, but had sharp teeth and ate meat on occasion. “Now back to work.” And then he ordered a med bot to tend to Merthon.
Things were tense after that, but no more mishaps occurred and soon after Merthon discovered the dying offspring were due to a few contaminated tanks. And Jamis did not cross the Emperor again. He did his work and Merthon decided he’d given up hope. But now Merthon knew he’d been plotting something all along,
