by C. Gockel
“Captain, a second front is potentially opening up here,” his superior replied.
“Understood, sir.” They could not afford a second front in a war that the Galactic Senate refused to believe was happening. The incident in System 5 was just an “unfortunate” terrorist event to most of them. They did not trust Fleet Intelligence’s analysis that Ambassador Zhao was being held hostage—they saw it as just a ploy for more funding and a formal declaration of war. If they’d seen the holos of the infected children in the pirate camp … Orion swallowed. He didn’t think even that would work. The holos showed Volka firing on the children. Senate would call for an inquiry. The mutant would be arrested and not allowed access to her ship—and then Fleet wouldn’t have access. The press wouldn’t understand what they were watching, that the Dark had been controlling the children, having them merrily throwing themselves into phaser fire. The public wouldn’t understand that the children, at that stage of infection, had not been savable. Orion had seen a lot in his time in Intelligence. That scene had been worse than torture. At least torture victims knew they had been harmed; they lost a part of themselves—the part that trusted humanity. The Infected lost everything. He felt a chill climb up his spine and found the weere’s eyes on his. Her ears were sagging, and her eyes were wide and sympathetic. He straightened his spine. More likely it was just cluelessness.
Orion took a breath … and found her eyes narrowed, and her ears flicking again. The werfle on her shoulder hissed.
“There are now seventeen ships,” Orion said. He began to formulate a plan. “We may have to use your spaceship-facilitated telepathy.” Hopefully, it was real. “But first, we’ll compose the message we wish to relay. Command will sign off on it first.”
“Sir,” Young said. “That will take too much time. The Galactic Senate will get word, and want a part, not to mention Earth’s local leaders. Everyone will insist on signing off. This will wind up taking months.”
Orion bristled at the hyperbole. “Lieutenant Young, with more input, we’ll be less likely to cause another diplomatic incident.”
Volka’s ears came forward. “Lieutenant Young,” the weere woman said. “Archbishop Sato told me that we are all blind in some ways, and that the only way to see in our blind spots is to get another point of view. Maybe mister—” She looked at Orion, and her cheeks turned pink. She didn’t know his name or rank. He supposed she’d forgotten them. There was a reason etherless Luddeccean Guard put their names and rank even on their work uniform.
Ears flattening, Volka jabbed her thumb in Orion’s direction. “—maybe he has a point?”
Orion rolled on his feet. Not sure if he was pleased to have her support—especially when it came with the name of a religious fanatic attached.
“Archbishop Sato is one of the wisest people I know,” she said, eyes narrowing on Orion again, but his focus was slipping to the ether. A group of the Galactic Republic’s most prominent politicians and military leaders would be helpful—the multiple inputs of men and women who’d gone to the most exclusive institutions of learning in the galaxy were bound to produce a superior welcome message.
Reaching out to the Chief Intel Officer, he was vaguely aware of one of the weere woman’s ears drooping. Just as he felt the pulse of connection, a chorus rose around him. “We are here to serve Admiral Wolf.” The words were distinct and yet all wrong. It was like hearing the wind talking.
“What was that?” The question erupted from his mouth and his mind.
Time Gate 1’s Chief Communications Officer replied, “We don’t know.”
And a message from his contact in security said, “What the hell? That wasn’t the ether or the speakers!”
“It’s the ships,” said Young.
The doctor nodded. “Unlike Sundancer, the elderships can talk.”
“Who were they talking to?” Orion asked.
The mutant woman was looking upward, as though she could peer through the great metal doors of the outer airlock. On her shoulder, the werfle lifted its snout. Its beady eyes glinted, and the ether-to-speech device on its neck crackled. “They’re talking telepathically to you and every human on this station.”
The voices rose again. “We are here to serve Admiral Wolf.”
“Who is Admiral Wolf?” Orion demanded, etherly and aloud.
The Marines and the doctor did not answer. They lifted their faces to the airlock door, just as the mutant was doing. Their eyes lost their focus.
The werfle puffed its fur and hissed. “You’re so smart but not smart enough to figure it out?”
The Communication Officer responded to Orion over the ether. “Sir, we are looking for references to an ‘Admiral Wolf.’ So far no results aside from a twenty-first century member of the U.S. Navy.”
The Chief Intel Officer’s voice rang across the ether. “What is your status, Captain? Who is Admiral Wolf?”
“I am—”
The werfle hissed. “You are an idiot. You’re all idiots. They’re here to serve Volka. Volka is Admiral Wolf.”
“We’re here to serve under you,” the elderships’ words whipped through Volka’s mind and heart. Her consciousness was suspended in the void between Time Gate 1 and the ship. Her mind was spinning with the ships’ stories.
Once upon a time … The People, a beautiful, peaceful, telepathic, bipedal species had built massive colony ships that crept slowly between the stars. The People were numerous, inventive, and creative. They met the elderships, fellow peaceful travelers. The elderships did not crawl through the void. They skipped along the surface of the universe and space time itself. They winked between the stars, drinking the orbs’ light and heat. Superficially, the two species couldn’t have been more different. Culturally, they couldn’t have been more similar. They shared telepathy, they defended themselves without violence, and abhorred killing. Both knew killers. The People had been prey, and the elderships had observed the savagery of carnivores on the worlds they visited with hopeless horror. They had both lost worlds to natural disaster—an asteroid for The People, a supernova for the elderships.
The elderships gave The People their ability to free-gate.
The People gave the elderships their endless imagination in all the forms of their art and technology.
But really what they gave each other was love. Before they’d met each other, they had not realized how terribly lonely their orphan races were. They fit each other so perfectly that if either species had believed in a God of the Abrahamic tradition, they surely would have believed He had made them for each other.
And then one day a team of elderships and their bipedal partners—lovers?—had come to a world of water covered only by a harmless seeming species of blue green algae.
If The People had approached the world with one of their slow moving ships, only that one outpost of The People would have died. Instead, the elderships carried the Dark to hundreds of colonies before understanding the danger. They refused to transport it further and helped survivors run, but by then the Dark had mastered The People’s technology and were building their own slow moving EM drive ships to carry them to all of The People’s outposts. The elderships watched as outpost after outpost of The People fell. Eventually, the Dark tricked the elderships past the edge of the universe, where they died or slept a dreamless sleep … wasn’t sleep without dreams death? And then a violent, hierarchical, jealous race that killed not just others, but their own, and stole, and coveted, and did not share, had woken them.
The elderships were disgusted by humans on a deep, intrinsic level. In some ways, the humans reminded them of the Dark—in some ways, humans were worse. Beneath the Dark all were equal, none got more or less than any other.
But the humans also empathized with the death of The People, a race they’d never met. For all their flaws, humans could love and sacrifice, mourn a race they had never known, and seek atonement for what had befallen that lost race while sacrificing, fighting, and dying to preserve their own.
The elderships could have done more than help survivors run.
“You didn’t know how,” Volka said.
They still did not know how, but they needed atonement.
“We will help you find it,” Volka said.
Perhaps. They were not sure. Humans were disturbing to know. They’d touched seventeen human minds, and only seventeen ships had come. They weren’t ready to know more humans as deeply as they now knew the members of Volka’s crew. They were definitely not ready to know more of The One—the only reason Sundancer could stand Carl was because she was so young and didn’t know any better.
Volka felt a twinge at that. Carl and Shissh were, well, not friends precisely …
In one voice, the ships finished her thought. “The One are less remorseful in their application of violence and pain than humans are.”
Volka remembered Shissh nearly killing her tiger body trying to save Ben and her protectiveness toward FET12. She thought of Carl being thrown across a room by one of the pirates on the Copperhead.
The elderships were adamant. They would not, could not bond with members of The One. Usually, they would bond with all members of a crew, but with humans, one was enough, and almost too much. They’d chosen their captains, and they’d chosen Volka as their leader, their “Admiral” in the human language, though they thought that was inadequate in its translation … they’d let human hierarchies handle the rest. They could not bond with more.
Volka thought of all the thoughts she’d read in the past hour—and how little she’d wanted to know them. She understood. “Our people must be informed,” Volka said.
They knew that. They understood. They let Volka go.
Volka’s consciousness condensed, and she was staring up at the airlock doors above Sundancer. Carl was on her neck. The little creature trembled, and his whiskers tickled her cheeks.
“What is it, Carl?” Volka asked.
“Kind of glad they aren’t violent,” he whispered. “Volka, they are powerful.”
“What is going on?” the Fleet Officer exclaimed. Volka could never remember his name or rank. She thought that she had perhaps blocked it out. It was strange—with telepathy she still didn’t know it.
Silently, Carl said, “You could crack open his brains—telepathically, I mean—and find out.”
She wasn’t going to do that. She huffed. Even if the man deserved it. A little. He was—
“He’s a schmuck, Volka. The word you are looking for is ‘schmuck,’” Carl replied silently. Not bothering to use telepathy, Carl spoke through his necklace. “The idiot is still confused.”
The Fleet Officer’s face went bright red.
Volka took pity. “The ships are joining us.”
Opportunities spun in the man’s mind. At last Fleet would have control of …
Carl blurted, “Your time bands are not synced! There are a few too many holes in your headcheese! Did you not hear them call her Admiral? Don’t you know her name means wolf?”
The Fleet Officer blinked.
Ears flattening, Volka clarified. “They are under my command.”
The look of hurt and confusion on the man’s face made her want to growl. He saw her as so much less … and yet … he also saw the Dark for what it was. He wasn’t the enemy. He was just …
“A schmuck,” Carl reiterated. “An idiot, a nincompoop.”
“They’ll need crews,” the man stammered. “To interface with human tech.” The officer’s gaze became blank and she saw what he saw: an overlay of faces and names scrolling past his eyes.
Volka’s ears flicked. “They’ve already chosen who will lead their crews.”
The consciousness of the Marines and Dr. Patrick came slowly from their telepathic trances.
“Who?” Orion asked.
Young cleared his throat. “They chose us.”
Ears folding, Volka sighed. She hated losing them. To the officer, she said, “You wanted them all reassigned. You got your wish.” It came out a growl.
The officer grit his teeth. “I am a Captain. Captain Orion Smith.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You got your wish, Smith.”
The captain’s lips snapped together. That isn’t how it’s done. He was thinking how genuine pilots and officers would be angered by this breach—no, outright knotting—of the chain of command. Flying the faster-than-light alien vessels was a dream assignment.
Volka sighed. “They’re aliens, Captain—they don’t do things our way. They know these Marines, and they are who they’ve chosen.”
They’d chosen well. Volka didn’t want another team.
Orion scanned the elderships’ chosen navigators. The doctor’s not even a member of Fleet. Command is not ready for this.
Carl snapped from her shoulder, “Adapt fast, Captain.”
Staring at the ground, Orion tapped his temple nervously.
He was scared. Volka remembered Young, feigning confidence when he thought they were going to die. Summoning all the feeling she used when she spoke with Sundancer, she said, “You can do it, Captain. We can do it. The Republic now has eighteen faster-than-light ships. This isn’t a problem, it is an opportunity.” Sundancer flashed warmly behind her. Volka wasn’t sure if she’d crossed the line into mind control, but Orion’s eyes met hers. “Have I been wrong about you?” he didn’t say aloud.
Volka bit her tongue and didn’t respond. He nodded once at her and began transmitting everything they’d just told him to command. A second later, he paced away from the group, deep in ether conversation.
“Good, Hatchling,” Carl said telepathically. “Prove him wrong. Show, don’t tell.”
“My ship’s name is Moonlight,” Rhinehart blurted out. “Or … that’s what it sort of translates to. She wants a kitten.”
Carl purred. “I know just the overlord for her.”
Volka’s ears perked.
Young inclined his head. “Night Wing is mine.”
“Far Song,” said Jerome. “It is very interested in the ethernet and Tab.” The little Q-comm carrying tablet in his hand flashed pink.
“Mine’s name is Bubbles, and it wants to meet my wife and kid,” Ramirez said, and Volka felt the warm blush that spread from his neck to his hairline.
Glancing in his direction, Volka unfortunately caught a view of Stratos instead. He was smiling blissfully, still telepathically connected to his ship, and they were imagining Rhinehart, Stratos, and a half dozen blue aliens.
Carl sniffed, and it sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “There’s someone for everyone!” Volka found herself biting back a laugh, too.
Young approached Volka, and for once spoke softly. “I’m not a pilot.”
She smiled up at him, tightly and bitter-sweetly. “Your ship is the pilot. You’re more the gunner. I know you can shoot things.”
He blinked. She remembered the accident he’d seen—or participated in—and she whispered, “And you know when to shoot.”
He met her gaze. “Sometimes.”
Her brow furrowed. Before she could formulate a reply, Orion came out of his ethernet trance. “Command is aware of the situation. We will need to work out how best to utilize the ships.”
Volka stood up straighter, her heart lifting. “We can help in System 5.” And she could find Sixty. At thought of him, Sundancer flashed a happy yellow.
There were murmurs of agreement from some of the Marines.
Orion stared at her in mute panic. Why did they have to pick someone so inept as their leader?
Volka’s nostrils flared, and her ears flattened. It didn’t matter what he thought, they were her ships. They’d come light-years to follow her; they’d follow her anywhere. The Marines would back her up. Most of them were ready to leave right now. She could feel their eagerness. It made her feel ten-feet tall—invincible. Young was hesitant, but he’d go along with the team. She knew that like she knew how to breathe.
Carl whispered telepathically, “Remember Zhao.”
Volka gav
e the werfle the side eye.
Carl sighed and said silently, “Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.”
Volka glared at him … but only for a moment. Orion was answering a question being cast to him over the ether. So she turned to Young. “Why wouldn’t it be a good idea?” Volka asked.
The lieutenant cocked his head. “Because we don’t have enough armor or guns for all the ships, we all need to get to know our new crew, and you don’t send new recruits into battle without training.”
Dr. Patrick—who definitely hadn’t been eager to jump to System 5—said softly, “The ships have never killed anything. Throwing them into the heat of battle would be a bad idea.”
Volka bristled. He wasn’t lying, but he didn’t want to order any killing, either.
Jerome said what she’d been thinking. “There are millions of people in New Grande that we could help.”
Volka nodded in acknowledgement of his words. But her heart sank. They’d be without weapons and armor. The only thing they would be good for would be ferrying people from the planet. That was a noble goal, but they wouldn’t be able to save millions … hundreds, maybe. “We have to help,” Volka whispered. “Every little bit helps.”
Orion dropped his hand from his temple. “Fleet will be there in less than an hour. They will engage the enemy immediately.”
Volka looked up at him, dismayed, though she shouldn’t be.
Orion thought, her heart is in the right place. Aloud he said, “We will send in transport ships to evacuate civilians as needed. I heard what Young and Patrick said. Sending these—”
“Universe skimmers.” Dr. Patrick shrugged. “The older ships are able to talk because … because, well, they’ve reached a stage in their life cycle where they understand words, and they have interacted with species that communicate audibly before. Universe skimmers is the closest they can translate other names they’ve had. It’s apt. It’s what they do. They dive in and out of time.”
“Like sea pterys dive in and out of water,” Volka said.
Patrick pursed his lips. Equations and all the mathematical reasons he found her metaphor unsatisfactory filled his mind.