A Leap Across the Abyss

Anyway, my offer has found fertile ground, but the toad still had reasonable doubts, and I had to work really hard to get him to cooperate.

“Tell me, Admiral, why should I be on your side?” asked the toad, looking closely at me with his bulging eyes, “Well, all right, let’s say you’re telling the truth and you’re genuinely willing to do whatever you promised me here. Let’s say, once again, that you and I will succeed, and you will win in the Groombridge Star system a grand, bloodless victory, capturing millions of prisoners. What’s next for you? You will return to your metropolis as a hero, but you will have no time to enjoy your triumph. I don’t know how many more weeks it will take for the High Lodge to assemble a new fleet and join the quargs in invading your space, putting an end to this war, but I’m sure it’s a month at the most. We make one more unlikely assumption that I will survive the upcoming slaughter, and I will be freed by my own. Should I continue?”

“Don’t bother, Officer Tlet, your message is clear. Have you ever wondered why, instead of preparing for a hopeless defense, our fleet launched this offensive?”

“That question has been bothering me ever since I got here,” admitted the toad.

“And I’ll explain that to you now, I’ll just start from afar. Would you care to recall how many active hyperportals are there in the space you control?”

“At the time of my capture, there were seven or eight,” responded the toad quickly, “I can’t say for sure – one of the portals malfunctioned all the time and was about to completely fail.”

“Here! And we have almost three dozen of them, most of them mobile, able to fly independently through hyperspace.”

“It certainly gives you an advantage in logistics,” agreed Tlet, “but it doesn’t help if we strike with all our forces at one point – your Solar System, for example.”

“And why do you think, Officer Tlet, that the hyperportal is the only technology humans have ever surpassed you?”

“Well, at least because in the battle at Kappa Ceti, which cost your fleet huge losses, you didn’t use anything else to surprise us.”

“Come on, officer,” said I and got up, “I want to show you something.”

Of course, it was a desperate bluff, but I just needed badly the toad’s approval to participate in the operation. I saw no other way to reach my goal, so I took a chance. Knowing how our conversation will proceed, I even before the start of recruitment set the task to the technicians of Dragon’s Tail, and they rushed through the work. Now I hoped that the result of their efforts would impress the toad.

The doors of the hangar spread out to the sides, and we were faced with battle machines lined up. Lit-ta kindly allowed me to take Swarm’s combat robot unit, found by the lizards on the cut-in-half asteroid, for research in the Jeff Department. I couldn’t afford to risk disclosing information on our contact with the Empire to the toad, there was no way to give information about the Empire to the enemy. But these machines made a strong impression on Tlet.

“I remember that your specialty is medicine, Officer Tlet,” said I as I watched the reaction of the toad, “but I think you’re familiar with the basic characteristics of your ground warfare equipment, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am, Admiral,” responded the toad in a few seconds, “Not as well as I should be, but who knew… What I see on the back of the larger robot is a protective field emitter?”

“I see, you’re showing false modesty, Officer. In fact, you’re much better at combat robots than I thought,” I’ve decided to flatter the toad a little, “And how does that make you feel?”

“These are dangerous machines, Admiral. I didn’t think you could do that, but to be honest, I’m not that convinced. There were no protective fields on your ships, which means you’re showing me single specimens that haven’t been mass-produced yet. And you don’t have time to rearm, but if you put anything on your ships in time, it’ll probably be first-generation fields – not very reliable and with very limited resources. I don’t think they can turn the tide.”

The toad was far from a fool, and despite his medical specialty, he was able to understand the most important thing about what he saw. Well, I had one last trump card left, and now it was time to pull it out of my sleeve.

“Now, dear Officer Tlet, I’ll show you something else. Perhaps this will help you make the right decision. Major Lavroff,” said I into the communicator, addressing my wife, “activate the camouflage fields.”

We certainly couldn’t make the protective shields of the Swarm’s robots work. Jeff and his men had still a long way to go to study them, but I just needed to show the toad something impressive, and I remembered what a shock my EW complexes, especially the later modifications, had on Federation officers. And yet they were nothing compared to the Empire’s camouflage fields. And now I had on board the camouflage field generators brought here by Yoon Gao for landing on Groombridge-2. It was these generators that the technicians of Dragon’s Tail attached in a hurry to the bodies of Swarm’s robots.

The combat machines were covered with the pouring currents of trembling air, and became almost transparent. The robots haven’t disappeared completely, but if the hangar were a few times more spacious, it would be difficult to see the robots from its far end. The opposite wall of the hangar could be seen through the robots in every detail. On my signal Inga has led in movement a Goanna, which has walked slowly behind the formation of robots, hidden by the camouflage field. The toad kept watching the field almost without distortion reproduce on the frontal armor of the combat machines the robot walking in the background, preserving the high quality of camouflage.

“Are you satisfied now, Officer Tlet?” asked I with a slight smile.

“I saw everything I needed,” the voice of the toad showed firmness, saying that he had made a decision, “Let’s not waste time, you haven’t yet told me the details of our joint operation.”

* * *

Groombridge-2 was waiting. It’s already been half the 48 hours that the humans have given. The cautious suggestion of the Head of Civil Administration to take advantage of the opportunity to evacuate at least civilians was met with complete misunderstanding by the Surveillants. Negotiations and any agreements with the enemy have been strongly discouraged before, and now, in the light of the new instructions of the Masters, they were subject to the strictest prohibition and the penalty of death.

The Head of planetary control, Fetz, hasn’t slept in over 24 hours. He was informed of all incidents involving attempts by servicemen and civilians to violate the will of the Masters on Groombridge-2. Much to Fetz’s regret, not all deviant behavior of the quargs could be prohibited by the mental block, and the Surveillants were carrying out the voluminous, difficult but desperately needed work of controlling the loyalty of the population and the army.

An emergency call alert made the Head of Surveillants to turn to the communications device.

“Chief, our scanners have registered a high-orbit combat,” reported the planetary defense commander.

“Has the fleet come to our aid?” There was hope in Fetz’s voice.

“Alas, Chief, it is not so. The battle was local and has already ended, although it is not entirely clear what it was. The enemy fleet has largely retreated to the outer limits of the system, but the light forces continue to patrol the central areas and the circumplanetary area. Two enemy destroyers must have spotted a ship attempting to approach the planet and attacked it. The operators of scanners observed explosions of missile warheads and cannon salvos. The human ships were allegedly damaged and retreated. We have not been able to detect the ship they attacked, nor any sign of its destruction. Maybe it was a reconnaissance ship with a next-generation camouflage equipment. If so, it could have gone into the atmosphere, and the humans did not risk chasing it for fear of a volley of anti-orbital missile batteries.”

“If these are our scouts, they will soon show up,” suggested Fetz.

“What if it’s staged and the enemy has infiltrated the planet?” The commander of the planetary defense was in doubt.

“That would make no sense to the humans. Why would the enemy draw attention to their own reconnaissance ship entering the atmosphere?” objected Fetz, “We just have to wait. Just to be on the safe side, bring ground forces in the area of a potential breakout into a state of heightened readiness for sabotage attacks. I don’t think it makes much sense, but let it be.”

“Yes, Chief.”

The new emergency call came in 30 minutes. This time, it was a scanner post reporting directly to the Surveillants.

“Chief Fetz,” the commander of the post reported in a disturbed voice, “Scanners have picked up a target outside the planetary defense force. It’s a small aerospace recon ship of the Masters. It’s moving towards the capital. You’ll have it in 15 minutes.”

Now for the Head of planetary control, everything was in place. If the Masters’ reconnaissance ship has broken the blockade, it is understandable that the humans could not shoot it down. The odd thing is why they even managed to detect it, but maybe the Masters, for some reason, decided to identify themselves with the adversary, who knows?

“Provide the recon ship with a safe passage! Pick up fighters for escort, but don’t get too close, the Masters don’t like it.”

* * *

“What did you promise him, Fleet Admiral, Sir?” asked General Clay, who approached me quietly. He closely observed on the tactical projection, how Yoon Gao’s reconnaissance ship exchanged shots of training and simulation munitions with our two destroyers in high orbits of Groombridge-2.

“Nothing out of the ordinary, General, Sir,” I smiled at my former immediate superior, and now a representative of the Allied Empire, “comfortable conditions of captivity until the end of the war and a high post in the occupation administration after our victory, and this post will be higher, the more useful he will be to us now.”

“And how did you convince him that your victory is achievable? You didn’t tell him you were in contact with the Empire before you sent him behind enemy lines.”

“No, of course not, but your camouflage fields, which I gave away as our design, made the required impression on the toad. He already knew we had a hyperportal, and yet another technology that surpassed our overall scientific and technological level did not surprise him, but it led him to believe that our chances of victory were real.”

“Aren’t you afraid that once the toad is in the enemy’s position, he’ll immediately forget all your arrangements?”

“Anything is possible, but I think he still values his life above everything else. The simple technical device attached to his body will protect us from his reckless actions. I think he’s making a good assessment of his chances of surviving an explosion of 300 grams of OKFOL. ”