All That Glitters Ch. 52

"The Faculty of Music still must review the draft of your dissertation. We will review your petition and render a decision on your case within forty-eight hours. If your petition is accepted, we will provide you with a list of courses that you will have to make up and an advisor for your dissertation.

"Thank-you once again for taking the time out to see us today," the Dean said, giving Junelliya a small bow, which she returned.

Aghavni came up on stage and hugged the children. "You two were just wonderful!" she told them, getting giggles from the pair.

A few minutes later, they were in her office for tea and cookies as they discussed what she thought.

"I have no doubt that you will be given a by, the only question is at what level. I believe that there is enough corroboration to justify going directly to the Doctorate level, but the faculty can be a little stiff on these petitions at times. We shall see what happens. It might be premature, but congratulations, Junelliya," Aghavni told her.

The family headed back to Liramor-23 in a much more upbeat mood.

The Piscium Family Apartment L-1229, Lima Deck, Liramor-23, The Piscium System

The Piscium family was sitting down to supper with some of their friends from the platform, including the Asoc and her mate the Asost, Dr. Heyya, Dr. Maya, and Professor Kuaté when they received the call they had been waiting for, however, it was not Professor Akopyan on the link.

"Good day, Professor Wiccan. Are you calling with good news?" Junelliya asked.

"I am, indeed, Dame Harlan. We have accepted your plea to move directly to a Doctorate-level degree. However, you must make up two courses at the Master's level while you are doing your Doctorates. You will be given a by on certain courses in our Doctorates program so that will allow you to continue with the program. You will need thirty-six credits to complete the doctorate level and we are accrediting you eighteen, minus the two Master's-level courses that you must also complete.

"I will send Professor Smeldt the list of courses and you can consult with her and Professor Kuaté," Professor Wiccan stated.

"I am here, Samantha," Professor Kuaté said, waving to her superior, who was shocked to see Asocans that she recognized in the Piscium apartment.

"It is a custom of ours to invite guests for supper, however, we tend to get many unexpected guests as well," Junelliya laughed.

"Mommy cook good," Ikekia told Professor Wiccan.

"Your advisor for your dissertation will be Professor Akopyan. She will contact you sometime tomorrow. Congratulations, Junelliya, and thank-you so much for that delightful audition," Samantha finished while everyone in the apartment was cheering for Junelliya.

"What of the children," Hanalei asked, tongue-in-cheek.

Samantha laughed. "While I was absolutely delighted by their performance, they did not do enough for a doctorate level audition. They will have to wait a little while longer to attend Malton University, though I do look forward to seeing them in our program."

The group laughed at that as Samantha smiled and signed off.

PV Olivia Brault, Paalind-5, The Paalind System, 230 Light Years from AsocAR, The Asocan Realm

The Olivia Brault appeared in the supercharged ionosphere of the gas giant Paalind-5 and slowly rose to just under the 'surface' layer of the upper layers of charged particles, where they would be undetectable from scanners but not from imaging devices.

A quick look around showed no other ships in the immediate area, so they lifted out of the gravity well of the giant. They had chosen their route very carefully so as to approach Paalind-4, also known as >KashtinAR, without having any of the bright light sources behind the vessel. At a position some fourteen light seconds from the planet and out of any routes normally used by any vessels, they stopped and started to listen.

On board were eight Asocan communications specialists whose purpose was to scan the wavelengths looking for intelligence. They hit a gold mine within seconds.

"What do we have?" Lieutenant (Navy) Collette Beauchene asked after the group had been at it for an hour.

"We have intercepted calls between certain Gurn who are known to be supportive of Unaayel," Petty Officer First Class Moggin Mutt Sim, a slim (for an Asocan) male of just 2m in height. "It would appear that they are planning to remove Raddon Summate Mutt >Kashtin from office and place a more 'malleable' person as the Raddon."

"And they are doing this over open frequencies?" Collette asked, surprised.

"No. But we are much more capable now that we have had your training. The current cyphers that our people use are simplistic compared to Union encryptions," Petty Officer First Class Larrot Mutt Nittin replied.

"Do we have a timeline?" Collette demanded.

"Yes," Moggin admitted. "They intend to ensure that Raddon Summate dies overnight."

"Right, let's encapsulate all of this and fire it back to Liramor-23 with the recommendation that Marrat send this as an e-mail to Raddon Summate," Collette ordered.

Office of Raddon Summate Mut >Kashtin, >KashtinAR, The Paalind System, 230 Light Years from Asocar, The Asocan Realm

"You have an email from Marrat, Raddon," her aide-de-camp, Sarl Mutt >Kashtin, advised her.

Summate immediately opened the e-mail to find a rather innocuous message about the family life of her supposed 'friend' Marrat Mutt Semt. "I do not understand?" Summate told her aide. "Why would she send me images instead of vids?"

"Raddon, the file seems overly large for an image," the younger male replied very quietly to his boss. He brought the cursor over one of the images and found that it was somewhat larger than he would have expected. The other images appeared to be of appropriate size.

He copied the image out of the main file and worked on it for a bit. He quickly discovered a hidden file within the image. The pair looked at each other. Not for the first time Summate was surprised by Sarl's intelligence. He had been hired as 'eye candy' for the office but continually surprised all with his intellect.

What a remarkable way to hide data! Summate thought to herself, until the data was revealed.

">Castan!" (a mild expletive used by Asocans) Summate said under her breath when she saw the lines of text.

The pair read the texts and a hardened look came over the face of Summate. They looked at each other and nodded once. They would be prepared.

************

Raddon Summate Mutt >Kashtin retired for the night a little later than had been expected but that was not an unusual occurrence for a senior politician. Those who were watching her dwelling waited for a couple of hours then crawled quietly forward. They slipped open a ground window and slid into an unprotected hallway, their rubber-soled feet masking the telltale clicks that their claws would produce, hiding the noise on the hardwood floor. Four of them slid up the stairs to the Raddon's bedroom and quietly entered.

The foursome were a well known and very well-paid assassination group. They were skilled at their trade and seldom failed in a strike. They never left any telltale signs behind.

The foursome could see the bulk of the Raddon, sitting back on her tail, asleep in front of an open window. They moved silently into place and all four simultaneously struck with their >Curtal. The purpose of this assassination wasn't an accident, it was meant to intimidate. The figure fell to the floor, only to reveal itself as a dummy.

Two new figures slipped from the shadows and struck quickly against the four assassins, killing three but leaving one alive, as Summate had turned her blade at the last moment and delivered a very powerful blow to the back of the head of one of them. Despite the power of the blow, the assassin did not fall down, but she did drop her >Curtal.

Sarl snarled and slid manacles over one wrist then pulled the assassin's hands behind her back and secured both of them together. Asocans had very limited movement of their arms if they were secured behind them. A loop was placed around her snout and quickly cinched tight, forcing her mouth closed, all this before she could fully regain her wits.

The blow to her head had been strong but Asocans were formidably built and resilient, the assassin was quickly recovering. She tried to raise her tail to use as a weapon only to suddenly have a pike driven through her tail and into the floor, effectively pinning her in place. She tried to howl at the surprising pain but very little sound left her trapped snout.

Through eyes filled with immense pain, she looked around and saw the Raddon and her aide, both holding bloody >Curlats.

"Assassination is frowned upon by the courts," Summate snarled. "It is a death sentence. Unfortunately for you, you will never see the inside of a court."

The assassin knew real fear then...

PV The Wanderer, Parking Orbit of Liramor-23, The Piscium System

The next morning, Marrat received an e-mail from Summate, thanking her 'friend' for keeping her up to date on Marrat's family situation.

"While everything seems good in your family, Marrat, unfortunately, three of my aunties died suddenly last night and a fourth was so distraught that she had to be placed under special surveillance. She is not expected to live much longer," Summate stated.

Summate included several pictures for Marrat to look through. When she did, she found several large files embedded in the images. They contained a veritable windfall of intelligence data on the alliances of the Raddon and Gurn of the Realm.

SSP The Piscium, In Orbit of Harrad Hoffes, The Harrad System, 787 Light Years from Terra

While all this was happening, The Piscium came into orbit over Harrad Hoffes, the home world of the Harradi, and made its way down to their parking orbit. They advised the Harradi government that they had the medical equipment that had been ordered and additional medical equipment that they might be able to use. They also told Customs that they had items for the Hallat Corporation, including servers and satellites for the new personal computer network.

Accan Hallat himself, came up to see the ship, which he had only seen via vid-link the day that The House of Ur took possession of her. He brought his daughter, Desmodian, and wife, Freldlam, up with him.

"Caye! So good to see you again," Desmodian said on stepping into the ship.

A smiling Caye nodded her pleasure and greeted the family. "It is good to know that we have friends that we can recognize here," Caye replied.

"You have the comps, servers, and satellites?" Accan asked.

"Everything we need," Caye assured him. "We even have one Pod-Drran computer specialist and three human computer specialists who worked on the compatibility between Harradi systems and human systems." They had been working remotely with four Harradi specialists to prepare the servers for this trip, though there was still much to do.

"We have talked with planetary control and they have provided us with the placement of the satellites," Accan opened his comp and sent the data to Caye. He looked forward to being able to do that from anywhere on his planet in the next few days.

"We have brought Anuuran spices with us, Accan. I would like you to look at these and determine if your people can use them. We can sell them elsewhere but Lannat tells us that we should be able to sell them here," Alya told him.

The family went to the hold with the spices. As soon as the hatch was opened, they were regaled with the scents in the hold. It was heady to their senses.

"Oh, I could live in here for years," a smiling Freldlam said as she stepped into the hold.

Lannat explained the situation with the older and newer spices. Freldlam agreed that the newer spices would be too much for most Harradi. She suggested that this material be sold exclusively to high end restaurants. They were not sure about the amount of spices the ship had but Lannat assured them that if they sold a little bit to each household, they would sell the contents of the entire hold within the first month.

Both Accan and Desmodian were waiting patiently to see the new comps, so that is where they went next. The number of pallets shocked the pair but once again Lannat told them that, once the system was up and running, they would sell all they saw within a month. Harrad Hoffes had roughly three billion inhabitants. Other Harradi worlds, with more favourable climate conditions, had many more. It would take many trips by The Piscium to achieve market saturation with the Harradi.

Caye-Ur passed on a gift to Desmodian. "Hanalei said that you would love this. It is a gift from her," Caye told the teenager.

Desmodian lifted the lid on the box and shrieked out her pleasure. It was a 3D imagery printer for making cloth name tags, the same kind that they had used to make her name tags at Denders. She could make a small fortune for herself using this device! The adults smiled at the younger female's enthusiasm for the gift.

************

The crew followed the instructions from Planetary Control and set the satellites in orbit where indicated. The next task was to put the antennae and the servers in place on the surface. It took them several days to link the Union and Harradi systems together as they were not really all that compatible even with all the work that had already been completed. They were working flat out for six days before they were satisfied with the results.

They finally allowed the link to open in the capital and tested it for four days. There were only a few glitches that were easily repaired. They were ready to go global.

The other server sites had already been set up and the servers emplaced so all they needed to do was to clone the control data to the other sites and they were ready.

By now, those who had purchased their comps were eagerly awaiting the transition to the new system, especially when those in the capital had informed them of some of the true capabilities of the comps. When it went live globally, there were a lot of very excited Harradi. When they were told that they could now contact anyone in the Greater Community using the devices, the elite of Harrad Hoffes descended on the Hallat Corporation stores en masse.

Desmodian was working in the school they had set up to teach Harradi how to use the new comps. Many of the students were online, using the comps they had just bought.

When it went live, the Harradi were suddenly confronted with a system that had been tested for hundreds of years on human planets. They were very much surprised at all the capabilities on their personal comps, and Desmodian made a fortune selling 3D name tags to her students.

Inside of the first week, Accan Hallat had sold half of his merchandise and was asking for more from Caye-Ur.

Sales on the spices also went surprisingly well, having sold most of the shop out within the same three weeks. The Harradi loved the spices which went well with their vegetarian diet.

The government, too, was pleased with the medical equipment it received. They were more than happy to take several tons of extra material, including the portable surgeries and other such units that Caye had brought aboard. They were made for the human physique but the Harradi were within the norms for humans so most of the materials worked fine for them. They immediately contracted for more of the items.

Caye-Ur was going to show a major profit from just this one voyage. Her share owners would get a very nice surprise at the next shareholder's meeting...

End of chapter fifty-two.

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