Shaka II

12.

Anyone who thought Tchaka would stay on Earth, trust his officers, and await news of the conflict in comfort and luxury clearly didn’t know him.

He named his flagship Great Elephant, the Zulu sobriquet for the original Shaka, and it was actually the first of our fleet to take off. I was the only sibling aboard the ship, but five other brothers and sisters were on other ships as our navy entered the wormhole just beyond the Port Cloud and emerged eighteen light-years away, precisely where Tchaka wanted us, midway on a wide arc between Delta Pavonis and DX Cancri.

As soon as we emerged and found that we were not confronting the enemy, Tchaka ordered one of his officers to pinpoint all the uncolonized oxygen worlds within five light-years of where we were.

“We might as well put the time to good use,” he told me. “If we wait, sooner or later these worlds will be claimed in the name of Earth”—a contemptuous grimace—“as if Earth was a nation or a government.”

Within a day the answer came back: there were seven such worlds. Tchaka immediately sent a small scout ship out to plant the flag, not of South Africa but of the Zulu nation, on each of them. It would take the better part of two months, but if we were attacked in the interim the scout ship would be no more use to us than a lifeboat would have been to a seafaring battleship of old.

As it happened, we did not encounter the enemy for almost three months. By then we were so bored with our dull, daily routine that the presence of a small fleet of ships, doubtless carrying cargo to the embattled ships around Delta Pavonis, actually surprised us. We had almost come to the conclusion (which none dared voice) that Tchaka had guessed wrong, and that the supply lines would be established elsewhere.

“There are fourteen ships, sir,” said an officer. “Shall we engage them?”

Tchaka looked at the viewscreen and frowned. “Something is wrong here,” he said, more to himself than to us.

“Sir?” said the officer.

“Their configuration is wrong.”

“Their formation, sir?”

He shook his head in irritation. “Their configuration.”

“They are probably not human or humanoid, sir,” said the officer. “Their ships will naturally be configured differently.”

“Shut up,” said Tchaka, still staring intently at the screen. “It’s more than their configuration. There are no welds.”

“What difference does that make, sir?” asked another officer.

“And the motive power,” continued Tchaka. “It’s wrong.”

“I beg your pardon?”

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.”