Star Destroyers

by Tony Daniel

  As I write this, we’re coasting toward Magnolia, and will be conducting our deceleration burn soon. I’ve been reading everything I can find on the Wanderers, and I confess to hoping we encounter them, even if all it amounts to is convincing them to leave Alliance space. That’s what almost always happens, anyway. If they refuse, things will escalate quickly.

  The Wanderers are a particularly fascinating race. Per reports from the few cultural exchanges we’ve done with them, they no longer have a homeworld. It is unknown if they gave it up willingly or if they were driven away by some external cause, but apparently, they have been nomadic for as long as humans have been a spacefaring race. They seemed perplexed that we caught up to them, technologically, in such a short period of time. Notably, sightings of them have trended dramatically downward for the past few decades, leaving some to theorize that they’re moving out of this section of the galaxy.

  They are, by their own admission, split into hundreds of different factions. Some factions cooperate, but others make war on one another, and they seemingly try to avoid running into each other. There was a recorded incident, 128 Terran years ago, of two small fleets of Wanderer ships engaging in a vicious battle in the Kruger-449 system. The whole thing was recorded by a human exploration vessel. I watched the recordings of the engagement, and neither side gave any quarter. They didn’t stop shooting until all ships from one faction had been destroyed. They even fired on the remains and, apparently, the escape pods. There were no survivors from the losing side, and very little in the way of recoverable alien technology.

  Any encounter with an alien ship has the potential to make it into the history books. The only question is, will what is written tell of a successful de-escalation or a bloody disaster?

  David’s eyes went wide as he processed what his screens were telling him. “Captain!”

  Captain Akua was speaking with the ship’s XO. Both officers fell silent and turned toward David. “Report, Mister Weatherby.”

  “Sir, we have an unidentified contact,” David said, rattling off the Eulers and the range. “It just appeared over the planetary horizon. Sensor readings are consistent with known Wanderer ships in the records.”

  “Very good, Mister Weatherby,” the Captain said. “The computer concurs. Bring us up to red alert.”

  As the Captain consulted with the XO, David made a shipwide announcement. “Attention all hands, battle stations, battle stations, this is not a drill. Damage control parties stand by. I say again, battle stations, battle stations.” Returning his attention to his screens, he studied everything the sensors were able to tell him about the unknown ship. It was big, very big, dwarfing the Independence in both size and mass. It was an odd, curvy, organic shape, reminding David of a gourd. At some six hundred meters long, it was thrice the length of the Independence. Its smooth hull was interrupted by bumps, divots, and spines of unknown function. At the aft end was a massive exhaust port for its main thruster.

  “Captain!” It was a communications technician, a young enlisted rating whose name David didn’t know. “We’re receiving a transmission from the Colonial Government. They want to speak with you, and they say it’s urgent.”

  Captain Akua smiled, humorlessly. “I imagine it is. Very well. Put it up on the main screen. Helm, match orbits with our bogey, but let’s keep our distance. This is close enough.”

  “On screen, sir,” the comm tech said. In the front of the command deck, attached to a bulkhead, was a large high-resolution display. The image of the Wanderer ship, magnified thousands of times, was replaced with a trio of uncomfortable-looking humans.

  “Greetings, uh, Captain,” the foremost of the three said. He was a pale, thin, sickly looking man with unkempt gray hair and a transparent smart visor over his eyes. On his left was a scowling, heavy-set woman who looked to be a few years younger than him. On his right sat a much younger man with elaborate facial tattoos and some light cybernetic augmentation. “I am Ignatius Caledonia.” He indicated the woman to his left. “My counterpart here is Moonsong.” He nodded to the young man with the cybernetics next. “This is Johan Atticus. We are the Governing Triumvirate of the Colony of Magnolia. To what do we owe the, uh, pleasure, of a Navy visit?”

  Everyone on the command deck of the Independence sat in silence, waiting for the captain to respond to the ridiculous question. “Triumvir Caledonia, surely that was a joke?”

  “Why, no, Captain, it’s—”

  “It must be a joke, Triumvir, because there is a massive alien ship in orbit over your colony, and you’re asking me why I’m here? Your government is party to the Proxima Accords, is it not?”

  “Of course we are, Captain! I don’t—”

  The captain cut the triumvir off again. “And, you have actually read the articles of those Accords, haven’t you?”

  This time, Triumvir Moonsong replied. She was obviously unused to being addressed in this manner. “We’re not going to sit here and be insulted by the likes of you. We are the democratically elected governing body of this colony, and we’re not going to be talked down to or intimidated by some militaristic authoritarian ineptly attempting gunboat diplomacy.”

  “Please speak to us respectfully or you don’t speak to us at all,” Triumvir Atticus added.

  Holy shit, David thought to himself. This was some world-class political maneuvering. Instead of addressing the obvious, alarming issue at hand, they were deflecting, finding something to be outraged about, and trying to put Captain Akua on the defensive. Three tours on the Independence and David had never once seen the captain on the defensive.

  Today was no exception. “As you wish,” the captain said, coldly. “With respect, you’re going to tell me everything you know about the alien vessel in orbit over your planet. How long it’s been here, the extent of the aliens’ contact with humans, and I want transcripts of all communications with them. If you fail to comply with my request, I must very respectfully inform you that I am prepared to declare Magnolia in violation of Article Thirty-seven of the Proxima Accords.”

  Article 37 was the section that outlined the Alliance’s absolute authority to control all contact with alien species. Alliance worlds enjoyed the protection of a vast and powerful starfleet in exchange for giving up the right to treat with aliens unilaterally. An Article 37 violation was a very serious charge. If Captain Akua declared Magnolia to be in violation of it, he had the legal authority to apprehend all members of the colonial government he suspected were involved in the violation. He could throw them all in the Indy’s brig and bring them to the nearest Navy base to stand trial. He would have to testify, of course, and defend his case in front of a tribunal.

  Exercising the powers delegated to Navy captains in cases like this was a serious responsibility. If the captain removed these government officials only to see them acquitted, he would in turn be charged with gross abuse of his authority. He would be stripped of his rank and honors and imprisoned. Captain Akua wasn’t one to bluff, but even if he had been, no one bluffed about this. Even making the threat without good cause could get an officer court-martialed.

  The Triumvirate of Magnolia sat in stunned silence. David surmised that they never really thought the captain would go that far. Such things were almost unheard of, given the heavy political price that came with it. But the captain of the Independence took his duty very seriously, and he did not suffer fools.

  Triumvir Moonsong was the first to speak. “How . . . how dare you threaten us?” she asked, her eyes wide without outrage. “You can’t—”

  The captain interrupted her again. “I can, Triumvir, and I assure you that if I deem it necessary I will. This is not a threat. It is a statement of fact. Magnolia has a half a million colonists, and if you do not cooperate with my efforts to protect them, then I will remove you from office and bring you back to stand trial.”

  “There is no need for that, Captain,” Triumvir Caledonia said.

  Moonsong looked at him with daggers in her eyes. “Ignatius,
you cannot be serious. You would give into this . . . this thug’s threats?”

  “No, he’s right,” Triumvir Atticus said, bitterly. “I don’t like it either, but the law is clear. We have no choice but to cooperate. I sent a message to legal, and their response was to just tell him everything he wants to know regarding the Wanderer ship.”

  “Johan, you campaigned on greater independence from the Alliance!”

  “That was before they showed up over our heads with a warship!”

  Caledonia raised a hand, exasperated. “Enough! Now is not the time for a debate. Captain, you should be receiving an upload shortly. I’ve instructed my staff to send you everything we have on the Wanderer ship. Recordings of all contact, all ships that have come and gone, full-spectrum analysis . . . everything.”

  “I appreciate your cooperation, Triumvir, and will note in my report that your government met its legal obligations without issue, once we got the initial misunderstanding worked out. I will go over everything you sent me, but I need to know something immediately: Why are the Wanderers here? Did they contact you?”

  “They did, Captain,” Caledonia said. “They requested asylum.”

  This is unbelievable!

  I was excited when we were dispatched to Magnolia, but even then, I doubted that I’d get to actually see an alien ship. Not only was the Wanderer ship still in the system, but they apparently arrived requesting asylum!

  It’s unprecedented. I ran a search on the historical records of the Alliance, and the records of every human colony, everything available, going back centuries. Never in recorded history has an alien ship approached a human government requesting asylum. There aren’t even any protocols for it in place. Hypothetical scenarios have been discussed from time to time. There was actually a thesis on this subject, written some four hundred Terran years ago. I forwarded it to the captain for his consideration. It was all I could find.

  The problem with trying to game the scenario is that there are too many variables to plan a course of action around. I consulted with the ship’s AI, and even with its help I couldn’t come up with anything actionable. Each of the known spacefaring alien races is unique, and while there are entire disciplines of science devoted to their study, we only have a tenuous understanding of most of them. Trying to understand the psychology of nonhuman intellects is a very challenging thing. Even logic isn’t a constant, as what is “logical” is dictated by your own priorities, wants, and needs, and assumptions. Alien minds work differently than human minds. That sounds elementary, but a lot of people have a hard time really grasping that fundamental difference. As wide as the gulf between human cultures can be, it’s immeasurably wider when dealing with beings with an entirely different evolutionary history than ours.

  That’s one of the primary reasons behind the Alliance’s seemingly xenophobic policy on alien contact. It can be difficult, if not impossible, for people to really comprehend the motivations of nonhuman species. This fact makes diplomacy a tenuous proposition at best, and a fool’s errand at worst. After all, the last time we tried to initiate peaceful relations with another race, we made contact with the Bugs, and how that turned out is self-evident: a billion humans dead and the Insect Civilization extinct. The real hell of it is that even now, after two hundred years of studying the records, including expeditions to dead Bug colonies, we still don’t understand why they attacked us. They had no written language, none of the familiar hallmarks of culture (music, literature, religion, tradition), and never responded to any of our attempts to communicate.

  The Alliance was founded during that war, and ever since then the policy has been to avoid contact with alien species as much as possible. Do not initiate contact; respond to contact attempts only with great caution; do not allow trade or exchange with alien races except under tightly controlled circumstances; do not interfere with alien activity unless failing to do so jeopardizes human lives, or if they enter Alliance space; enter into no pacts or alliances with nonhuman species; keep all alien craft out of Alliance space and away from human worlds; protect the human race by any means necessary, up to and including the extermination of hostile species.

  That’s the harsh truth of the universe we live in: The only universally understood language is violence. Every species we’ve encountered has a collective, if not individual, survival instinct, and we’ve spent the last two centuries making it clear that we want to be left alone. I told my sister that people don’t understand how much violence goes into ensuring they live peaceful, prosperous lives. Most of it is never publicly disclosed. Some of it may have even been unnecessary. I also told her that sometimes we do things that I don’t like. On my first deployment, we were sent to Leonov-31b, escorting the initial colonization mission. It’s a mostly ocean planet, and when we got there, we found that aliens (Slimers; I forget the scientific name for them. They’re sentient blobs of gelatinous ooze that mass anywhere from ten to forty kilograms) had colonized the bottom of the sea, in two locations. We didn’t even try to tell them to leave. Captain Yeats ordered the colonies obliterated from orbit with nuclear weapons. I was glad that most of the initial colonization fleet was automated. A new colony has it tough enough without witnessing a mass murder the day they arrive.

  I didn’t come away from that one feeling proud, even if I was just a snot-nosed midshipman in no position to argue with the chain of command. They said it had to be done, though. The Slimers’ aquatic terraforming efforts would have left the oceans of Leonov-31b uninhabitable to Terran life. It was us or them.

  I expected the skipper to have the ship’s AI tell the Wanderer ship to leave, and if they didn’t, that he’d simply destroy it. That’s what Captain Yeats would have done. Hell, he may not have ordered them to leave first. Captain Akua is a different sort, though. He’s more contemplative. That makes sense, considering the rumors of the former skipper being forced to retire due to his trigger-happy nature. There’s always the risk that if we’re not careful, we’ll start a war that we can’t win.

  I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me when he told us we were going to talk with the Wanderers and see what they wanted. We’re all alone out here, and we’re not going to fold back to base to request instructions. Whatever decision the captain makes could have long-lasting ramifications. Doing the wrong thing can get people killed.

  Now, when he told me that I’m going to be his envoy, and go down to Magnolia to meet with the aliens face to face? Nobody can blame me for not seeing that one coming.

  The hangar deck of the Independence was located below the cargo bay but above the engineering deck, and was where the ship had mechanisms for launching and retrieving its small fleet of parasite craft. Magnolia had an atmosphere, so one of the two winged shuttles would be required. As he did nearly every time he had business that required use of one of the ship’s small craft, David had asked permission to pilot it himself. He was a rated transatmospheric pilot and wore a pair of golden wings above the left breast pocket of his blue Navy coverall. On his second deployment with the Independence, his primary duty was a shuttle pilot. He didn’t get to fly nearly so often with his current assignment, but tried to log as much time as he could to keep his ratings current.

  The UT-41 Raven shuttle was ubiquitous in the Alliance Navy, and had been in service for the better part of a standard century. Powered by two variable-cycle thermonuclear turbines, it employed a delta lifting-body airframe. Its engines could breathe air in an appropriate atmosphere for more efficient flight, or they could power it into space without the need for additional boosters or external reaction mass tanks. The shuttle usually operated with one or two pilots, but could pilot itself with rudimentary AI, if needed. Most of the ones in service carried only basic armament, but the pair the Independence carried were Block 91 multirole variants. They were better armed, better armored, and had upgraded propulsion systems to compensate.

  David wouldn’t be going down to the surface alone, though, not for something as uncommon as an in-perso
n meet with an alien species. The Raven could seat six, and four of those seats were occupied by Alliance Marines. The team, led by a gruff NCO, was fully decked-out in light combat armor and carried heavy weapons. David suspected this was more of a show of force on the captain’s part for the benefit of Magnolia’s governing Triumvirate, than it was for the aliens. Joining them was a civilian xenoscientist of one discipline or another, David wasn’t sure which. His name was Dr. Vladof. All of this was to be expected, given the situation.

  What wasn’t expected (but, David reflected, should have been) was the psychic spook from Naval Intelligence joining him. She wore a black coverall with no insignia and introduced herself simply as Ophelia Cruz.

  “How are you feeling about all this?” she asked, strapping herself in to David’s right. Instead of riding down below with the other passengers, she had joined him in the cockpit.

  Truth be told, the mind-reading intelligence people gave David the creeps. “Don’t you already know?” he asked, more coldly than he had intended. He watched his displays as he ran the shuttle through the preflight checklist.

  Ms. Cruz put two fingers on her right temple, staring at David while squinting. She waved her left hand at him. “I sense . . . I sense anxiety. You’re pensive, not only at the meeting with the Wanderers, but with being stuck with me.” She smiled, disarmingly. “You can relax, Lieutenant. I’m not probing you. This isn’t an interrogation.”