Page 44 of Neverwylde 6
Chapter 20
Clue
Kelen knew what her husband would say before he uttered the words.
“I will turn myself over to them.”
“Kyber!” She grabbed his arm, but his word was resolute. As much as she didn’t want him to be taken prisoner again by his brother, there was no other solution. Her husband would not sacrifice the lives of others for his own safety.
He refused to look at her, but continued to stare eye-to-eye with the colonel. After a few tense moments, Pfeiffer let out a loud sigh. As he parked himself in front of his monitor, his door signaled he had visitor. It turned out to be Lieutenant Colonel Williamsburg and Major Baffrey.
“Where are we on Operation Jeef?”
Apparently Kelen wasn’t the only person giving the colonel a quizzical look. The officer appeared nonplussed.
“Isn’t that what you said those little creatures called themselves?”
“Uhh, yeah,” Jules managed to answer first.
Williamsburg gave them the update. “I’ve requested a Kergocian battle cruiser to be delivered. It’s due to arrive within three hours. That means it should dock, barring any unforeseen circumstances, before the Seneecians. I was also informed it‘ll be carrying one hundred ninety-eight troops, including crew.”
“Good. That’ll give us time to brief those soldiers before the Seneecians arrive.”
“Why a Kergocian cruiser?” Mellori questioned.
“Kergo Ai has a hands-off treaty with Seneecia,” Baffrey explained. “It’s rather lenient. Not so much a peace treaty as it’s a ‘you leave us alone and we’ll leave you alone’ agreement. The ship will be manned by Kergocians. The Seneecians won’t challenge it. Even if they did, they won’t try to stop it.”
“We hope,” Cooter wryly remarked.
“What are we going to brief them on when they get here?” Sandow asked.
“Can you draw up some maps of the areas you explored?” the colonel countered.
“We can do better than that. We have the chip from Jules’ tablet that the Seneecians failed to find when they confiscated all our materials,” Kelen offered.
Everyone turned to see the navigator holding up the microchip that was no bigger than his little fingernail. “Give me another tablet, and I can download all the pictures and schematics you’ll need.”
“I don’t have one handy, but that shouldn’t be a problem.” Pfeiffer hit the comm button. “I need a tablet delivered ASAP.” He looked at the others. “Anything else?”
“That’s a solid beginning,” Kelen told him.
“So you plan to head out to Neverwylde before the Seneecians arrive? Is that it?” Mellori asked to clarify.
“That’s the plan,” Williamsburg confirmed.
“And you plan to use Kelen and Kyber as bait, to keep the sneeks from realizing our true intentions?” Cooter continued. Turning to Kyber, he added, “Sorry. Old habit.”
“No offense taken,” Kyber assured him. “And to answer your question, I guess you could say we will be more of a diversion than bait.”
“Decoy,” Dox inputted.
They were interrupted by the arrival of a yeoman who’d brought a tablet. Jules took the instrument from the young man and hurried to replace its CPU with his. Pointing to the monitor on the colonel’s desk, he asked, “May I, sir?”
Pfeiffer gave him permission with a wave of his hand, and Jules proceeded to link the tablet with the outpost’s computers. As it did so, Jules ran the images through the holo projector, enabling everyone to see. It took less than a dozen still shots before the lieutenant colonel let out a breathy whistle.
“Dear God.”
Fullgrath chuckled. “Wait’ll you see the vids. Those’ll blow you outta your skivvies.”
