AL:ICE-9 by Charles Lamb Read Free Book Online

inhabitant’s noses.
    Unfortunately, an automated long-range scanner, searching for the lost exploration ship, detected NeHaw technology on a planet not known to contain such. HeBak again altered the report content. He couldn’t actually delete the alert as they went straight to High Council, but he altered the associated report to his favor. HeBak needed this planet to stay off the Council radar, so he stated the planet was developing black market NeHaw technology. The planet was unevolved and was off limits due to an inhospitable environment. This stipulated there were to be no landings, and vaporization of the planet was forbidden. There were to be no actions that compromise the planetary value as a communications relay location or unskilled labor resource in the distant future.
    As such, action in the shape of a single cruiser, instructed not to engage the population, investigate the situation and if challenged, just to bomb the Technology out of existence. With the cruiser sent by the Council in faster than light, HeBak secretly sent a message directly to the planet. The message demanded the destruction of all NeHaw Technology and the return of the ship and crew. HeBak knew that with the inhabitants stirred up prior to their arrival, the ship’s captain would defend his ship and launch immediately , destroying a large part of the population and keeping his secret intact.
    This would mean no future worries of High Council investigations and HeBak would not need to sneak in when he was ready to retire. The surviving population would be devoid of any technology that might detect his presence. All his problems solved.
    However , this well-developed plan had completely disintegrated in the last series of reports. HeBak was not aware the cruiser captain had seeded the space around the planet with sensors after the bombing and left a Communications Unit on the fourth planet. While reports were completely under his control, alerts as before went directly to High Council.
    As with the first report, he altered the single cruiser engagement, making it appear a faulty bridge panel failed, evacuating the ship atmosphere and killing all aboard. In the second engagement, he had to be more creative, implying the NeHaw commander had gone rouge with the year’s tribute collection in the abandoned single cruisers hold. Attacking his own sector companions, he had rebelled, possibly convincing some to join him. All these events were not unfamiliar to the NeHaw, as HeBak had seen similar actions in reports of the past. The High Council tried to keep them quiet, but he was well aware of all the dirty laundry the Empire had to hide.
    He had hoped to buy time and delay any further High Council involvement, but in a surprise move, they immediately dispatched the newly deployed, yet unassigned, battleship to the sector. This was a bad timing issue for HeBak, as he had expected a several cycle delay. The expected behavior he had counted on was for the NeHaw to restructure the adjoining sectors to gather a sufficient force to deploy against the rogue commander. He had assumed the overwhelming force would destroy the upstarts and save his retirement.
    HeBak was disturbed beyond reason, as his retirement was in jeopardy. He had taken all his savings, a not inconsequential sum, and purchased a ship with all the automated mining equipment necessary to land and claim his prize. He had to figure out a way to subdue the usurping inhabitants and get the NeHaw High Council looking the other way again.
    What was even more disturbing to him were the rumors he was hearing of the other five species in Nu Tau Beta. Apparently, they were telling tales of the defeats in the three confrontations. Evidently, there were disturbances in other sectors based on these stories. If the truth got out and discovery of his altered reports became known, the leadership would execute him on the spot. The only bright side was the other uprisings might give him much needed time