Tchaka ignored him and continued staring at the screen for another full minute. Then he turned to us, the trace of a smile on his thin lips.
“We will not engage them,” he announced.
“But isn’t that what we came here to do?” asked the first officer.
“We will choose one ship,” he continued. He turned to the officer. “I will give you the honor of selecting it. And once you do, our entire fleet will attack it with every weapon at our disposal. I want enough firepower not just to disable it but to blow it apart. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
A few minutes later we closed with the enemy. Their ships tried to move into a defensive formation, but Tchaka had learned and experienced spatial warfare tactics when he served with the American fleet, and it was obvious that the cargo ship commanders had only a rudimentary knowledge of them. We managed to isolate one ship, and once we englobed it the other thirteen ships quickly retreated.
“Now,” said Tchaka, and a moment later the full firepower of our twenty ships tore the enemy ship apart.
“Spectroscope—fast!” ordered Tchaka as the ship’s inner atmosphere seeped out, slowly at first, and then in a huge translucent cloud.
“They’re chlorine breathers, sir,” said the officer manning the spectroscope.
Tchaka smiled. “I thought so. The structure was so different I had a feeling that they hadn’t evolved on an oxygen world. There was no trace of welding, no indication of any science having its basis in heat or fire.”
“Shall we pursue the other ships, sir?” asked an officer.
“No.”
The officer looked surprised. “Sir?”
“Do you want to live on a chlorine world?” asked Tchaka. “I don’t—and why fight for worlds we can’t use? We’ve already found and claimed seven oxygen worlds. That is where our interest lies.”
“But what of Earth, sir?” persisted the officer.
“What of it?” replied Tchaka with no show of concern.
The officer stared at him uncomprehendingly. “Our colonies are under attack, sir.”
Tchaka shook his head. “Earth’s colonies are under attack. As of this moment, we are no longer a part of it.”
13.
Commander Sanchez sent half a dozen furious messages, all of which Tchaka ignored. Then the battle must have taken all of her attention, because the messages abruptly stopped.
Tchaka sent one of our ships into orbit around each of the seven oxygen worlds. They reported that three were inhabited by sentient races, four were not.
“It is time to announce the founding of the Zulu Empire,” he said when the last ship had sent back its information. “We will inform Earth that these worlds have acknowledged me as their inkosi.”
“Would it not smooth the way more if they acknowledged you as their President or Premier, rather than their king?” I asked.
“It would indeed,” agreed Tchaka. Then his face hardened. “It would smooth the way if we were willing to kowtow to the wishes of America and China and the rest, if we cared what they thought of us, if we heeded whatever organization they have created to succeed the last in an almost endless line of failed international organizations. But we do not.”
“Then, to be totally accurate, we should claim an Empire of four worlds, not seven,” said James Mkhize, who was not quite an aide or an advisor, though he sat in on all policy meetings. As nearly as I could tell, he had appointed himself as Tchaka’s biographer, and it amused Tchaka to let him act as such.
“Seven,” Tchaka replied.
“But—”
“If the original Tchaka had avoided all Shona, Matabele, Swazi and Xhosa lands, would the first Zulu empire have ever grown beyond the size of a large farm?”
Mkhize wisely chose not to argue the point—people who argued with Tchaka tended to disappear—and asked what type of sentient life existed on the three worlds.
“I’ve no idea,” answered Tchaka.
“Will they object to our presence?”
Tchaka seemed amused. “Does it matter?”
“No,” said Mkhize quickly.
“They have not yet achieved space flight,” continued Tchaka. “They will present very little problem.”
“Which planet will be your headquarters?” I asked.
“I will look them over and then decide,” answered Tchaka. “In the meantime, we need to populate these worlds. I have already sent word back to Pretoria that the government will pay to transport any Zulu who is willing to emigrate to any of them.”
“Including the three populated worlds?” asked Mkhize.
“Of course. They will be pacified before the first Zulu colonists arrive.”
And it was as Tchaka had said.
He named the seven worlds after seven Zulu kings and princes—Mpande, Cetshwayo, Dinuzulu, Mthonga, Bakuza, Jama, and Mbuyazi. It was the last three that held sentient populations. I almost said “alien populations”, but of course on their worlds we were the aliens, not they.
The inhabitants of Bakuza were humanoid—small, quick, shaggy bipedal beings averaging less than five feet in height. They still lived in their culture’s equivalent of the stone age. They were primarily nomadic, and they had just invented clublike weapons to bring down the herbivores that shared their planet. Arrayed against them were Tchaka’s warriors, armed with laser and sonic weapons, pulse guns, and projectile weapons. We had body armor; they had none. We had rudimentary force fields to protect us from any incoming weapons; they had none. We of course had equipment that allowed us to see in the dark; they were all but blind at night.
The Battle of Bakuza took three days. The totals were staggering: four Zulus dead, three wounded; eight hundred thousand Bakuzans dead, another ninety thousand wounded.
Tchaka contacted Peter Zondo, one of our half-brothers, whom he had placed in charge of the “pacification” of Bakuza, and told him to send out parties in all directions from wherever Zondo chose to make the new capital of the planet, and elicit pledges of loyalty from the Bakuzans.
“And if any should refuse?” asked Peter.
“Kill them.”
“We may need them to work the fields once we begin cultivating the planet,” said Peter. “Perhaps we should invite them to—”
“Kill them,” repeated Tchaka, breaking the communication. He turned to an aide. “Have Captain Nene make sure he does what I have told him to do.”
“And if not?”
“Kill him, too,” said Tchaka, as if the question was too foolish to have been asked.
Jama’s inhabitants were like nothing anyone had ever seen before. I’d say they looked like centaurs, but even that is misleading. They had short stubby legs, elongated bodies, narrow torsos, and heads that seemed composed entirely of wrinkles. They had no eyes, but possessed some unknown sense that functioned every bit as well, because I never saw one trip over or bump into anything. They had a complex social order, but no technology. They greeted us with open arms—well, that’s a misstatement; they didn’t have any arms, not by our definition—and seemed happy to give us all the land we wanted. They had no objection to being impressed into labor camps, and in fact seemed so totally lacking in resentment that many of us felt that, social order or not, they were equally lacking in sentience. After all, ants have a complex social order, and no one claims that they are sentient.
Mbuyazi was the most traditional of the three populated planets. They were humanoid, they had sophisticated weapons (though nothing to match our firepower; theirs would have been better suited for warfare in
