The Captain's Oath

by Christopher L. Bennett

  Ribaul looked unconvinced. “Even if that explained you, it would not explain your equipment.” He gestured at the communicator. “This radio alone—its capability to instantly translate any language is extraordinary. Its signal range and the compactness and life of its power systems are far beyond anything we have.”

  Diaz leaned forward. “They’re prototypes. Gifts from an organization that wished to facilitate our travels to search for a treatment for our condition.” She gave him an apologetic smile. “It’s proprietary, I’m afraid. We couldn’t sell it to you even if we understood it ourselves.”

  “That’s hardly necessary,” Ribaul said, “for under the ongoing state of emergency, the government can nationalize any resources or technologies it wishes.” The premier narrowed his lips impatiently. “But I assure you, there is no need for this pretense. You are under no threat from us. We know you are not of this world. I implore you to speak plainly with me.”

  Kirk shrugged. “We can’t control what you believe about us. But neither can we confirm it.”

  The jowly premier gave a knowing nod. “I see. This is a negotiation. And I have not yet explained what we of Nacmor can offer you in return for your candor—and your aid.”

  “Even if we were aliens,” Mitchell said, “what would you need us for? You’ve been pulling off an alien invasion well enough without us.”

  Ribaul sighed. “I suppose the deception must seem bizarre to you, perhaps even comical.”

  “The loss of life is never comical to us,” Kirk said firmly.

  “Of course, of course. It is a grave matter, to be sure. Do not doubt that.” Clearing his throat, Ribaul folded his chubby hands before him and rested his elbows on the table. “What you must understand is that, not very long ago, our world was torn apart by war after war. This nation’s enemies attacked it and plotted against it relentlessly. When we developed nuclear weapons as a deterrent, they stole the technology in the name of conquest and terror. We were forced to break those enemies, to take control of their governments and resources for the greater good, so that we could institute and direct a global order to keep all Nacmorians safe.

  “During the wars, you see, our people came to recognize the value of a firm hand. Of obedience to higher authority, with no selfish bleating about individual freedom undermining the security of the whole. They saw—the people did—that a nation, a world, needed to be like a family, with a loving but strict parent ensuring that his children obeyed the rules, and disciplining them firmly when they strayed.” His hands parted and clenched into fists. Kirk controlled his reaction tightly.

  Ribaul spread his hands in a sort of shrug. “But now we have peace. Our enemies have been crushed, or have recognized the futility of defiance and consented to join the world order. This is an undeniable good. Yet as the peace has continued, it has made the people . . . complacent. Lazy. Self-absorbed. They have begun to lose sight of the urgency of obedience to the state. Groups among them have begun agitating for a relaxation of the laws that keep us safe. For a tolerance toward the . . . aberrations of belief and behavior that led to conflict and hatred in the past. For an elevation of selfish individual interest above the protective hand of the regime.” He shook his head. “You can see my fear, surely. Such loss of discipline threatens to plunge our world back into war and chaos once again.”

  Kirk folded his own hands before him. “So you create a new enemy. A larger, more powerful enemy for the entire world. And you frighten the people into continued obedience.”

  “Call it . . . an allegory. A reminder that safety is never guaranteed, that we cannot grow weak or undisciplined.”

  “And if it lets you burn down a slum so you can move in the upscale mansions and businesses,” Mitchell put in, “or blow up an immigrant neighborhood so maybe they have to go back where they came from, well, at least you’re not killing anyone who actually matters, am I right?”

  Ribaul looked wounded. “Oh, that’s a very harsh way of looking at it. As the parent to my people, I value them all equally. I wish to protect them all equally.” His froggish face took on a tragic mien. “But there are those whose weakness or laziness makes them unable to prosper, you see, and many of them are inclined to blame the system for their failure. And in those communities who cling to their old ways, who refuse to assimilate fully into modern culture, well, many fail to understand the reasons why things must be the way they are.

  “As a result, dissidents and rebels often arise in those communities. If we wish to quell rebellion, we could simply charge in and arrest or slaughter the lot of them, but that would make them see the state as their enemy and create worse resistance.”

  “I get it,” Diaz said, barely controlling her disgust. “So if they think they’re under attack by aliens, it makes them feel they’re on the same side as you, that they have to stand with you against the ‘invaders.’ ”

  “Exactly!” Ribaul beamed, untroubled by her disapproval. “The problem is, our . . . simulations . . . can only remain convincing for so long. People are already starting to ask questions. Why has no one outside the government seen the invaders from space? Why have we yet to shoot down any of their ships, capture any of their personnel?” Chuckling, he gestured toward the four humans. “As I said, you could not have arrived at a more fortuitous time.”

  Kirk frowned. “If your intent is to show us off as captive aliens, I’ve told you—”

  “Oh, my friend, you show a lack of vision. Surprising from one whose people have the imagination needed to cross the gulfs between the stars.

  “Think on what I have said,” Ribaul went on, his eyes gleaming. “The appearance of a threat from outside serves the interests of the state. You and we should be allies, however much we may seem to be adversaries on the surface. All you would need to do is reveal yourselves publicly. Use your spaceships and weapons to stage an open attack or two—in a manner consistent with the established pattern, of course. Issue a proclamation declaring your intent to conquer us, to destroy us, to steal our water, to take our women as mates—whatever will sow the most fear.

  “Then, once you’ve had your fun, you permit us to achieve a staged victory over you, drive you away and thereby demonstrate our strength . . . while making it clear that more of you are out there and will continue to pose a threat.”

  Ribaul looked them over, his expression showing that he was not as oblivious to their reactions of distaste as he had pretended before. “If my proposal troubles you, consider that this would actually save lives. We are forced to resort to large-scale attacks to convince the populace that the threat is real. In the absence of visible, confirmed aliens, we must create fear through the sheer shock and magnitude of the destruction. But if the people could actually see rocketships descend from the stratosphere and blast our factories with disintegrator rays . . . if dozens of hairy, circle-eyed, pink- and brown-skinned soldiers in spacesuits marched down our streets seizing captives . . . all of that would drive home the reality of the enemy from space with a considerably more measured loss of life and property.

  “And our loss would be your gain, keep in mind. What you seize in your raids would be yours to keep, as payment. Our gold, our petroleum, our uranium. Or perhaps you would benefit from slave laborers. If you require scientists or engineers to service your technologies—or if you really do want to take our women—we could direct you toward the most troublesome, rebellious ones, and the transaction would benefit us both. If it’s territory you want, we could permit you to establish a base on one of our moons, or on another planet of our sun. Then the people could see the threat you posed on a continuing basis, and they would continue to accept their dependence on us for their protection. There is no need for us to be adversaries, for we can benefit the most as partners.”

  “In other words,” Kirk said, “you’d be uniting with an enemy power against your own people.”

  Ribaul laughed. “But not a true enemy, of course. A fellow . . . performer, shaping the narrative that guid
es the people in their submission.”

  Kirk was growing sick of this. “Whether we’re aliens or not, our answer would be the same. Your proposal is obscene. You’re a petty tyrant who sees your days are numbered and is desperately trying to stave off the inevitable rebellion. But we can do nothing to slow the arrival of that day—nor do we wish to.”

  The premier hardened his gaze, abandoning the pretense of hospitality. “Very well. I attempted to appeal to your reason, but there are other options. Your cooperation would have made things easier for us both, but our needs will still be served by the display of four captured alien spies. Perhaps we will even film your vivisection and run it in the theaters. It will be educational, so there will be no reason to turn away the children.”

  The guards moved in on them, but Mitchell remained defiant. “Don’t you think our fellow aliens out in space will have an objection to that? Maybe launch an attack for real, and not according to your script?”

  Ribaul narrowed his eyes with reptilian smugness. “Your leader’s words have told me what I need to know. ‘We can do nothing.’ You refuse my offer for the same reason you refuse to admit your identity—because you have some law or inhibition that forbids you from interfering in our affairs. That means you cannot stop me. Even if we expose you to the world, it will be an enhancement of the plan I and my government have already been carrying out on our own. If anything, it would be greater interference if you did stop me.”

  He rose and gestured the guards forward, ordering them to take the prisoners back to their cell. First, however, he removed the communicator from around his neck and handed it to Kirk. “Here. A gesture of good faith, so you may relay requests to the guards and understand their orders. I am aware it will let you speak to your spaceship as well. Discuss my offer with the rest of your people—perhaps you have a superior who will better understand the responsibilities of a leader. But make sure they are aware that you are hostages for their good behavior. You will be closely watched, and if they attempt to mount a rescue, you will be killed one by one until they desist—beginning with your female.” He smirked. “This bunker will be closely watched as well, by government film crews as well as the military. Should your compatriots come in force to break it open and free you, it will give me exactly what I want from you anyway. Either way . . . I win.”

  U.S.S. Sacagawea

  “This is Kirk,” came the captain’s voice over the comm channel from the surface. He went on before Adebayo or the others on the bridge could respond. “I’m just checking in to let you know we’re all right. We’ve been taken in by government troops, but they haven’t harmed us. They’re just detaining us—watching our every move.” He chuckled. “They have this crazy idea that we’re people from outer space. They’ve been staging the attacks they’ve blamed on offworlders, using them to maintain their grip on the populace, and they want us to help them by launching a real alien attack. As if we were capable of such a thing. They let us have our radio back so we could discuss it with you, but obviously there’s nothing to discuss.”

  Sherev exchanged a concerned look with Adebayo and McCoy, who had been hovering on the bridge awaiting news of the landing party. The doctor took a breath, but Adebayo touched his arm, keeping him quiet. Sherev could see that the first officer had taken Kirk’s hint to mind his words. “That’s . . . quite a mess you’re in, Jim. Is there anything we can do to help?”

  “For the moment, I don’t think so. Even if you could get us out, they’ve taken the rest of our belongings. I’m worried they might cause some damage if they tinker with them. Hopefully the four of us can figure out a way to talk them out of it. For now, just stand by. We’ll be in touch if we need you. Kirk out.”

  “Well, there it is,” said Adebayo, looking up at Sherev again. “We can’t just beam them up, because it would be witnessed, and because the Nacmorians would still have their phasers and tricorders. And a more overt raid would surely bring exposure.”

  “And apparently play into the government’s hands,” Sherev said.

  “Unbelievable,” said McCoy. “A government attacking its own people and blaming it on imaginary aliens. It’s monstrous!”

  The elderly human made a noise in his throat. “Sadly, all too believable, Leonard. The powerful have always found it easy to use outsiders as scapegoats for their own abuses of the less powerful. Although making up imaginary outsiders is a twist.”

  “Still, it makes a kind of sense,” Ensign Chalan said from the communications station.

  McCoy stared at the young Cygnian. “How in the name of all that’s holy does this make sense to you, Ensign?”

  Chalan kept his cool. “Not to me, Doctor, to them. Judging from the news and dramas we’ve heard, the government takes pride in having unified the planet under its rule, crushed all dissidence and rebellion. Saying this new threat is from within would be admitting weakness.”

  Sherev nodded. “And since they’re in the early decades of radio technology, they’ve no doubt begun detecting pulsars and other astronomical radio signals, and they’ve probably speculated that they might be from alien civilizations. So the idea would have been seeded in the popular consciousness by now, available for the government to exploit.”

  “And now we’ve given them actual aliens to exploit,” Adebayo said. “How long before they discover how to activate one of our hand phasers? Imagine the attacks they could stage with those.”

  “Well, for God’s sake, man,” McCoy urged, “don’t just stand there talking about it. We’ve got to do something!”

  Clenching the back of the command chair, Sherev leaned closer. “We should beam down a team now. Stun everyone, seize our equipment, break out the captain’s party, beam away before anyone knows what happened.”

  “Sounds good to me,” McCoy put in.

  “If the captain thought that was a good idea, he would have ordered it,” Adebayo told them, retaining his calm. “Think it through, both of you. We can track the communicators, but not the phasers. They may have been separated already. And we couldn’t beam in directly, not that deep. We’d have to fight our way down from above, which would give them time to kill our people.”

  “Right.” She sighed. “Damn facts, always getting in the way.”

  “So what the hell can we do instead?” McCoy demanded.

  Adebayo smiled at him. “What Starfleet officers are trained to do: trust our captain.”

  Nacmorian government bunker

  Despite Kirk’s instructions to his first officer, he had little luck thinking of a way to escape Ribaul’s clutches without compromising the Prime Directive. He had racked his brain for precedents, but none of the established procedures quite fit this situation. On the one hand, the head of Nacmor’s global government had learned of the Starfleet personnel’s existence and nature and invited them to enter open dialogue, so technically, this might qualify as a legitimate first contact. On the other hand, that government head planned to use their existence to advance his own agenda at the expense of rival factions, and the noninterference rule prohibited Starfleet from taking sides in the internal political and military conflicts of any non-Federation world, even a post-contact one. Besides, Kirk questioned whether a world united by force under a single conquering power would really meet the Federation’s definition of a unified global polity.

  The Directive could be suspended when the safety of a starship was jeopardized or when vital to larger Federation interests, but neither of those applied here. There were cases where it could be justified for Starfleet personnel to reveal themselves to a small number of people if the knowledge was unlikely to become public. Eight years ago, on his first planetary survey mission among the Iron Age tribes of Neural, Kirk had found it necessary to confide the truth to the tribesman Tyree, who had sworn to keep his secret. But here, admitting the truth to Ribaul would only guarantee that he would reveal it to the rest of Nacmor.

  The problem was, not admitting the truth would lead to the same outcome. Within a d
ay, the captives were harried out of their cell, informed that they were to be escorted to the site of a press conference where the four of them would be revealed to the world—the story being that they were surviving crew members of a rocketship Ribaul’s government had shot down after its heinous attack on the Vekudi district of Derostur City. The group was allowed to keep the communicator so as to understand the guards’ instructions, but Kirk expected it to be confiscated before the conference, so that the offworlders would be unable to refute Ribaul’s account.

  As they were led into the bunker’s garage and toward a waiting convoy of motorized ground vehicles, Kirk whispered to Ensign Diaz under the cover of the engine noise, “Is there any chance you could remove the translator and speaker components from the communicator, rig them to work independently? They should be small enough to hide in our clothes.”

  Diaz thought it over. “Maybe if I had half an hour with the right tools. Under the circumstances, that seems unlikely.”

  Kirk feared it would be a moot point anyway. Being moved outside the secure bunker could be the best opportunity they would get to escape, but it would also increase the risk that they would be seen by the Nacmorian public. Perhaps that was why they were driven out of the bunker in a transport vehicle with large windows in the rear compartment, allowing Kirk to see that they were being driven through populated areas of Derostur, with curious passersby gathered along the walkways to watch the convoy go by. Sightings of escaped aliens among the populace would serve Ribaul’s plans almost as well as the press conference—in some ways, perhaps even better. Kirk leaned back from the window and gestured to the others to do the same. The guards sitting by the rear doors of the compartment smirked at their reticence, aware that they would not be allowed to remain hidden much longer.

  Soon, though, after the convoy had turned onto a narrower, less busy street, Kirk heard the galloping and groaning of one of the camel-ostrich draft animals. The vehicle lurched to a halt, almost knocking the humans over. A series of bangs sounded close by, and clouds of dense gas or smoke billowed outside the windows. The yells of the soldiers outside quickly gave way to choking and gasping.