Rogue Stars

by C Gockel et al.

  “Aye, sir.”

  Colgan stood and stretched the kinks out of his back. He winced as vertebrae popped loud enough for him to hear. He’d been sitting too long. He stepped around his station and went for the elevator.

  “If anything else breaks, call me,” Colgan said before stepping inside. Everyone laughed, but as soon as the elevator doors closed, his shoulders slumped and the false cheer dissolved from his features. “Deck two,” he said and the elevator jolted into motion.

  What the hell was he going to do?

  He was out of contact with the Alliance. He had no idea what the Admiralty would do when they learned the Shan had shot up Invincible, but he feared the answer. He could safely assume the Alliance wouldn’t start a war over a single shooting incident, and that was good, but that left quarantine as their only other reasonable response. If he was right, they would right off Canada and his crew. So sorry. Needs of the service and all that. They might even construct a memorial somewhere out of the way. Somewhere that no one would ever visit. Can’t scare the civs after all.

  The only way out for his ship and those aboard her, was to make contact with the Shan, and hope friendly relations resulted. He had to rely solely on the civs for that. Assuming the boffins had learned enough to do it, he would be going ahead with phase-two of the President’s plan without orders or even his sanction.

  So be it.

  The elevator stopped and Colgan stepped out. The deck was deserted. His crew would be at their battle stations for a short while yet. They had learned through hard experience not to stand down immediately after an apparently successful evasion. Chakra’s captain was a hellishly lucky bastard, and he could be unpredictable.

  The Shan skipper had nearly trapped Canada twice in recent days by using his shuttles as observers. By positioning them high above the asteroid belt’s ecliptic, Chakra had used them like remote sensors. It was by the narrowest of margins and good luck, Groves had noticed and countered them in time.

  He wouldn’t underestimate Chakra’s skipper again. His crew would stay at battle stations until they were absolutely sure their evasion was successful.

  Colgan entered the brightly lit briefing room to find twelve white uniformed men and women sitting around the cluttered table looking anxiously at him. The clutter represented months of painstaking work on their part. Printouts and compads lay on the table in such profusion, the high gloss finish of the simwood was completely hidden. All the wall screens were on—a dozen screens each displaying different aspects of the contact teams’ studies. There were pictures of Shan going about their lives, pictures of their peculiar (to his eyes) cities. There were lists, and graphs, and god knows what else displayed wherever he looked.

  In the centre of the table, the holotank was displaying one of the natives turning slowly within the holomatrix. The adult Shan stood on his or her hind legs—Shan sexes were hard to differentiate. To Human eyes, both looked almost identical. The females had underdeveloped mammary organs, hard to spot covered as they were by fur, while male genitalia were protected and hidden by what he could only describe as a pouch similar to that of a marsupial.

  Colgan turned his attention back to those he had come to see. They had long since become familiar to him. In a way, they were part of his crew now. An unofficial, but vital part.

  “I’m sure you know why I’m here,” he began after he found a spare seat and made himself comfortable. “Since Invincible jumped outsystem, we’ve been on borrowed time, and it has just about run out. I have no option but to contact the Shan.”

  The twelve intent faces broke from concerned stillness into eager anticipation. Their excited murmurs filled the room. This was what they had worked for all these months—worked hard for.

  “…contact the elders do you think?”

  “…see how we can.”

  “Their language is full of…”

  “…and what does harmony mean to them?”

  James was the only one to pick up on what Colgan hadn’t said. “I have a question for the Captain.”

  Colgan nodded. “Ask.”

  “When did the drone arrive? We’ve been hiding or running since Invincible jumped outsystem. I don’t remember you securing from battle stations long enough to pick one up, Captain.”

  “I’m sure you already know the answer, Professor. There was no drone. Our mission is unchanged.”

  Janice frowned. “Your career—”

  “My career is my concern, Professor Bristow. I am one man. Canada holds the lives of two hundred and twelve within her. She, and all of you, are my responsibility. Don’t think I haven’t considered taking a chance and trying to jump out, because I have. There are three heavies skulking about out there. Three of them. We’re no match for even one.”

  “Something else is bothering you… what?” Brenda asked him.

  “What do you think the Council will do when they hear about Invincible’s battle damage?”

  Concerned whispers erupted.

  “Quiet down people,” Janice called loudly. “What do you think they’ll do, Captain?”

  “Panic I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “They wouldn’t order an attack would they?” Brenda asked.

  The silence was absolute.

  “No,” he said firmly. “We defend the Alliance; we do not make war on those not threatening us.”

  Brenda didn’t look convinced. “But?”

  “But, the Shan did fire on Invincible even though she was running and not threatening them. Some of our people are dead, Professor Lane. Our forces will be on high alert, but not, I think, charging here to the rescue. We are on our own. If I’m right, the Council will quarantine this system. The aliens have no jump technology, so that’s all they need to do. None of that helps us or our situation. For all I know, our mission here has already been scrubbed.”

  Brenda clenched a fist and hammered the table in frustration. “The Shan only did what we would have done in their place. For God’s sake, haven’t we learned anything from our mistakes?”

  Colgan frowned. “We learned plenty. We learned the galaxy is a dangerous place. We learned to be cautious while exploring, and vigilant in the defence of our sector. Finally, we learned to blow away the Merki wherever we find them.”

  Brenda reddened. “You all know my thoughts on the Merkiaari,” she said breaking eye contact with Colgan and looking around at her colleagues for support. “The war needn’t have happened if a team like this one had been sent to talk to the Merkiaari.”

  “You’re wrong, Brenda,” James said. “The Alliance was attacked without provocation on the border of our sector. We lost a dozen worlds before the alarm was even taken seriously. When it was finally understood what was happening, delegations were sent to talk to the Merki. None lived longer than five minutes.”

  Brenda glared. “That’s because they sent military ships.”

  David Harrison, a professor of both sociology and biology raised his hand to attract Colgan’s attention. “She’s right, you know. The Merkiaari did fire first, but wouldn’t we do the same in that situation? I know I would.”

  Colgan shook his head. “No. We would have hailed them first.” At the sceptical looks he received, he explained. “It’s standard procedure. When an unidentified ship jumps in system, it’s queried for its identity and intentions. Even an Alliance carrier with IFF screaming its identity, would be challenged before routing it to docking or wherever else it’s heading. The Merki would have been challenged the moment they entered the system by port control if no one else.”

  “We’ll never know now,” Brenda said still looking sour.

  “On the contrary.” Colgan knew what was going through her mind. She thought he was spouting the same militaristic garbage that she so vehemently denied was the truth. He was in a way, but it wasn’t garbage. “A review of the ship’s data recorders and logs recorded during that period is part of our officer training at the academy. I assure you the Merki were challenged repeatedly.”


  Brenda looked rebellious but a gentle squeeze of her hand by James calmed her.

  “We’re drifting a little far afield here, Captain,” James said. “You want us to contact the Shan in hope of opening full diplomatic relations at some future time?”

  “In essence yes. I admit I’d be satisfied for now if you could just tell them not to shoot.”

  Colgan sat back to listen as the professors debated what they knew about the Shan. He idly picked up a nearby compad and glanced at it, but it was not very interesting. It was just a check list. He gathered up a few more and began building a tower while listening to the conversation between David and Brenda.

  “He should be male,” Dave said when asked about the speaker for the elders.

  “Should be, or is?” Brenda asked.

  “Well… Lieutenant Ricks tried to enhance the imagery for me, but I was still unable to see clearly. From what I’ve managed to glean from snippets snatched here and there, Chakra is commanded by a male.”

  “Where does that take us, David?” Janice asked.

  “I’m assuming the Shan are male dominated like most Human societies were in the past. I know it’s different today, but from what I’ve been able to determine the Shan still look at things that way.”

  “I don’t agree,” James said.

  Colgan raised an eyebrow. James was not usually one to put himself forward at these things. Being the odd one out, he had little to contribute to the group that others weren’t better qualified to offer. Most of the time he assisted the others on their projects. Everyone liked him, and all were glad he was there to assist, but they also realised his field was a little redundant in this situation.

  “Why not?” Janice asked with encouragement in her voice.

  James leaned his forearms on the table and interlocked his fingers. “It’s this harmony thing.”

  Someone groaned and muttered that the harmony issue was a dead end.

  “It’s not,” James said stoically.

  “Prove it,” Sheryl said with a smile.

  James sighed. “You know I can’t, but think it through. How can there be harmony if there’s discrimination between the sexes?”

  “There can’t of course,” Sheryl said. “But that’s what I’m saying. Where is there harmony on the twin worlds of the Shan? Nowhere, that’s where.”

  “You’re missing the point, Sheryl. Their language is replete with sayings such as, and I quote: Look ahead in harmony, and what about this: May you live forever in harmony. Those are direct translations.”

  “If we have the translations right,” Sheryl reminded him.

  Before Professor Singh could protest that his work on the translation could do the job, Janice did it for him. “Those tapes are accurate. I would stake my reputation on it.”

  Colgan knocked on the table to draw everyone’s attention. “You’re staking a lot more than that, Professor. All of our lives depend on them.”

  That silenced everyone.

  “I stand by them,” Janice said.

  “Those sayings are old,” James said, taking back control of the conversation. “I hesitate to say they have a religious significance, but they certainly have a cultural one.”

  Bindar stood and crossed the room to the autochef. He selected coffee and took it back to his seat. “Religion can be a powerful factor in the development of a society. Look at the multitude of religions on Earth. Wars were fought over it; bombs were planted because of it. A powerful force it is, but I see no sign of a religion among the Shan. Their world is completely devoid of the things we associate with worship of a deity. What does that say about their culture?”

  “That’s my area I think,” Bernard said. His area was cultural studies specialising in the Merkiaari, but as the Shan were only the second alien species to be discovered, he was the closest thing the Alliance had to an expert. “I do happen to agree with James on this. The Shan are remarkably open with each other, and lucky for us their communications security doesn’t exist.”

  “They don’t think in that way,” Colgan interjected. “As far as they know, FTL is impossible and the only people in the system are Shan.” He shrugged. “Up to a point, we were the same before the Merki War. We didn’t concern ourselves too much with signal leakage, and where security was necessary, we just encoded the data stream. The Shan know nothing of the Merkiaari so…” He shrugged again.

  “But they do know about us,” James stressed. “They’re going to start adding two and two, Captain. The FTL thing is already in the open. They saw Invincible jump outsystem. If I was an elder, I would be worried about talking in the open. If we don’t contact them soon, the Shan will be the ones contacting us in a few years.”

  “We were in space for centuries before we cracked the problem. If they start now they will still take that long.”

  “You’re wrong there, Captain.” Sheryl said. “We didn’t even know FTL was possible when we stumbled onto the answer. The Shan have seen it in operation. It won’t take them anywhere near as long to figure it out.”

  Colgan frowned. Sheryl Linden was greatly respected in her fields of physics and engineering design. She was worth listening to. If she thought there was a risk of the Shan developing a workable fold space drive, then he believed her.

  “Can we get back to the present issue?” Bernard asked impatiently. “I thought you were desperate to have us perform a miracle for you.”

  Colgan smiled. “Quite right, Professor Franks. I do need a miracle. I need Chakra off my back. More, I need the Shan friendly and willing to allow me to fire off a drone to Alliance HQ.”

  “Well then,” Professor Singh said. His area of expertise was linguistics, but unlike Janice Bristow whose interest in the area was secondary to her studies in exobiology, linguistics was his passion. “We have an extensive library of Shan verbal communication. Ship to ship traffic has helped us no end with the translation. The various broadcasts from the high orbitals, mining outposts, and planets have helped fill in a great many holes in our understanding. The—”

  “Excuse the interruption, Professor,” Colgan said. “Are you saying the tapes are not ready, or that they are?”

  “I’m coming to that, Captain. I’ve been unable to eradicate all errors, but that’s to be expected without a native speaker to converse with. Most Shan words are pronounceable after a fashion by Humans. Janice and I believe that in time we could learn to speak without artificial aid.”

  Janice nodded and gestured at the holotank. “Their physiology dictates the shaping of their language. As you can see, their mouths are completely different, more like a feline’s muzzle than anything else I can think of. Certain sounds will probably sound odd to them, but we think they will understand the attempt.”

  “Yes,” Bindar went on. “But for now, we will supplement the spoken word with the tapes you’re so interested in, Captain. They are ready for testing. Though gaps remain, we believe they will suffice.”

  “Gaps,” Colgan said without expression. “How big are these gaps?”

  “We have perhaps seventy percent of the Shan vocabulary, or rather we believe so.” Bindar was obviously uncomfortable with the uncertainty, but under such hardships as constantly racing to emergency stations whenever Chakra closed on them, it was remarkably good luck they had managed to reach seventy percent and not a figure much lower. “On the plus side, we have an extensive library of common phrases that will be very helpful.”

  “Take me to your leader, things like that?” Colgan said with a grin, and the others laughed.

  Bindar sighed. “Not that one, Captain, but how about this: we come in peace, don’t shoot.”

  His laughter died. “I like that one very much. Can you teach it to me?”

  “I’ll dupe the chip for you, Captain. We should all start carrying the translators chief Williams tinkered together for us.”

  “Well done, Bindar,” James said.

  “Outstanding dedication. Can’t wait to try it out my friend,” Berna
rd said enthusiastically to the embarrassed professor, and the others chimed in with similar things.

  Bindar blushed at all the attention. “Thank you, thank you all. Janice was extremely helpful.”

  Janice snorted. “I hardly knew where to start.”

  Colgan broke into the congratulations. “So, we have the means to converse with them. Now we need the opportunity.”

  James glanced at Brenda and then back to Colgan. “I’ve been thinking about that, Captain. It seems to me that Chakra is the only source of Shan we have available.”

  “That’s obvious.”

  James nodded and glanced at Brenda again. She frowned obviously wondering what he was going to say. “I suggest we send one man in a lander well away from the ship and allow it to be captured—I volunteer.”

  “No,” Brenda gasped looking at her lover in horror.

  James took his time with his inspection of the lander. A week had gone by since he volunteered for this mission; a week of intensive training and strained silences between him and Brenda. Both had taken their toll on him, but despite it all, the excitement of meeting a Shan face to face had not left him.

  Despite their disagreement, Brenda had done her part. All week she had worked beside him, tirelessly helping him learn what he needed to know to make the mission a success. But at the end of each day, when they retired to their cabin, Brenda would eat in silence and then go to bed—without him. She had made it plain he wasn’t welcome in her bed, not even to sleep.

  James stopped and peered around the empty bay. He didn’t want to leave without trying to straighten things out between them. He had hoped Brenda would come to see him off, but she hadn’t yet, and he couldn’t delay much longer.

  After their last meeting with Colgan, Brenda was angry. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand why he had volunteered for the mission. She did… or so she said. What made her mad, she said, was that he hadn’t discussed it with her beforehand. He tried to explain that until that moment, he hadn’t known he was going to volunteer, but she wouldn’t hear excuses, and she was right. Although he hadn’t known Colgan would pre-empt the President by going ahead with phase-two without orders, James had long ago considered ways in which it could be done. His work with Williams on the translators was a big part of that. He tried to tell himself that he hadn’t lied to Brenda, but deep in his heart he knew the truth. He had been working toward this mission almost since the day he offered his help to Bindar.