Sleeper Ship

by Jim Rudnick

  Tanner took a moment to prioritize the remaining cases for the crew to manhandle into the shuttle's hold and then looked up.

  "Appreciate your opinion, Captain, but this was EYES ONLY this AM from the Admiral. She gets to go. She gets to watch. But she does NOT speak for the Confederacy at all on any point. She is just here to tell first-hand what happened—along with the recordings too—to the next RIM Council meeting of members. That's it ..."

  "This could well be a dangerous mission, Captain," Siegel said, his voice indicating he thought it might very well be and that was no place for a Royal.

  And he's right, Tanner thought, but the admiral said take her.

  "Which is why you and I and Captain Morin and our XOs will be there, along with my own four men plus her own two EliteGuards so we should be okay—enough to watch her should the need arise ..." he added a bit quietly.

  "Just hope it's enough to quiet her down, is what I hope, Captain!" Siegel added and then walked back to be presented to the Baroness, who at this point was in deep conversation with Lieutenant Sander, the Marwick Adept officer.

  Tanner walked over to catch the eye of Lieutenant Bram Sander, and motioning with his head, he indicated he wanted a quick chat. Both of them moved slightly away from the group.

  "Bram, this will be an interesting away mission. We've got a Royal and some Novertag politicos who'll try to bend things to their own benefits, not to mention an alien ship twice the size of our biggest destroyers. I'm going to need your help if you can ... anything you see or feel—especially with regards to the aliens—I need to know. Got it, Lieutenant?" he said and stared hard at the Adept officer.

  Bram nodded.

  "Aye, Sir, if I catch anything at all, I'll let you know soonest ..."

  "Interrupt if you need to too, Bram," Tanner said, "this is pretty damn important." He finished and patted the younger officer on his arm.

  Adepts were often able to 'see' things that others couldn't even fathom, he knew. That ability came from their Issian culture and genes, and Bram, while young and still only a couple of years out of the Navy Academy, had skills that Tanner had not even yet tapped. Until now he hoped ...

  The rest of the supplies were finally stowed, and the Marwick away team of six plus their nine guests all made their way up the walkway to take their seats and get ready to move off toward the alien ship. Moments later under Impulse Drive, they left the shuttle bay and moved off toward the aliens on their way to make first contact.

  Yawing to port, the shuttle plowed across the space between the Marwick and the alien ship in less than five minutes, and the shuttle pilot slid her right up to the very edge of the huge rectangle that was amidships and locked her to the side of the alien ship with magnetic grapples.

  Tanner put his hand on the shoulder of his XO who sat in the co-pilot's seat at the very front of the shuttle. He knew behind him those Royal eyes were boring through his back watching each and every moment of this as were others too. But he knew his skills included this too, a forced entry of an alien ship.

  "XO, interior scans show?"

  "Bare bulkhead for eight feet, Sir, plus more than enough to carve an entryway. Permission to create that entry, Sir?" he said, and his finger poised over the console in front of him.

  "Aye, XO, and careful, please ... let's not try to ruin anything within, shall we?" He pulled back to watch the view screen at a better angle.

  Templeton's fingers gently, it seemed, stroked the sliders and toggle switches to get the shuttle's force field generator to suddenly flicker into existence and then to push out and away from the shuttle port toward the alien ship. It moved the five feet or so slowly and then grabbed onto the alien steel and adhered to same, a blue shining corridor.

  "Flood 'er," he said to Lieutenant Paterson, the Marwick's science officer who turned on the compressed air that now jetted into the force field that locked the shuttle to the alien ship, and moments later, he received confirmation on the gauges that it was now breathable space.

  "Okay, bull, place the charges, and I mean exact placement, yes?" the XO said to the best ordnance man on the Marwick. The XO watched as studiously as everyone else aboard as Lieutenant JG Whiteside twisted the door-locking mechanism and opened up the shuttle landing port. The lieutenant took a bag with him and moved down to the newly opened force field corridor to the outer side of the alien ship. He knelt and opening his bag, he pulled out a large tube of explosive resin, then opened the barrel, and waited.

  "Ready, XO," he said and watched as a bright red rectangle was suddenly flashed onto the alien steel. Using the tube, he then painted directly over the red rectangle inch by inch with the explosive resin, ensuring that it was at least as thick as his little finger. A couple of times he wasn't happy with the coverage and redid the thickness of the application and eventually he was done. But he took the time to once again run over the whole line of putty checking on the coverage, the thickness, and the continuous flow.

  "Done, XO," he said and stood waiting.

  "Arm and acknowledge, Lieutenant," the XO replied.

  "Aye, Sir," he said, and he turned back to his bag and fished out a small battery with a protruding antenna. Placing it solidly on the inside of the red rectangle, he added the leads to the line of putty and ensured the antenna was pulled up and ready to receive. Then he reached over and threw the toggle on the top from one side to the other.

  "Done, XO—she's armed and ready to go."

  "Aye, Lieutenant—return please and re-enter the shuttle, then lock her down," the XO said and waited while Whiteside did just that. Everyone noticed that he double-checked the shuttle port to ensure that it was locked and secure and that the force field now also protected the shuttle too.

  "Right, Captain? Permission needed, Sir?" the XO said as he turned back to Tanner.

  Tanner had watched the complete process and turned only to his Adept officer and raised an eyebrow—which got him a simple headshake, a negative answer.

  He nodded back to the XO and said, "Aye, XO, it's a go!"

  As the XO pushed a button on the console in front of him, the shuttle rocked slightly when the explosive putty blew all at once, and the steel rectangle that had once been a part of the alien ship blew inward and disappeared inside the ship.

  "Entry complete, Sir," the XO said, "and scans show negligible damage ... other than the plate steel is lying in the middle of the corridor, Sir."

  "Open the shuttle port again, please, XO—and now we wait, one and all," Tanner said, took one of the jump seats, and settled in to see what the entry would bring.

  First contact was perhaps only minutes away ...

  #

  Nine years earlier, Tanner had been only two years into his first-ever ship captaincy on the Gillmarten when a Sleeper ship had entered the Earldom of Kinross. At least that's what they figured when the new ship suddenly popped up on the long-range sensors only three weeks ago. After the ship had been found off the planet Niher, all hell had broken loose when the klaxons had rung.

  Admiral McQueen had immediately sent three cruisers—the Gillmarten being one of them—to aid the Battleship Hillman at the southern inward border of the Earldom. The Hillman had just lifted off Niher, having completed new updates to all of its operating systems. The Niher dockyards and the admiral figured, Tanner thought, that having three more cruisers there would be just good backup.

  The Sleeper ship had been open to being boarded, and Tanner had heard the first contact had gone well—the humanoids were from relatively close having sought refuge from the Taylor Wars deeper within the galaxy but had been asleep for over 600 years. Nominal maintenance and support had been provided by the ship’s AI but supplemented by an awake crew of only ten crewmen. Each, the Earldom's Navy had learned, had lived out their lives of less than seventy years and had awakened the next crewman in turn. Training had taken quite a bit of time, but they had little to do. With such small crew, the draw on life support and food resources was minimal as the real sle
epers slept on waiting to awaken on their new home world.

  With no natural disasters or shipboard issues, the Sleeper ship called the Z'Lundom, plugged along, Tanner learned, at one-tenth the speed of light. Their home world was only sixty or seventy light-years inward, the outer limits of the Taylor Republic. Yet without the TachyonDrive technology more than 600 years ago, they had built their ship to get maximum Impulse Drive and then forge ahead at that speed until their destination was reached. ...and that planet lay within the Earldom, a world called Eldirol, it appeared from the vector heading. And that was the issue that was being discussed right now in the Captain's conference room aboard the Hillman.

  "Captain Donnel of the cruiser Agamemnon, you were saying?" Captain Grayson of the Hillman said, toying with the mug in front of him. A captain who'd been with the Earldom since his days at the Navy Academy thirty years ago, this man had seen it all. Wars, space battles, long months of fatigue, and boredom added to the chores of being a captain of one of the Earldom's three battleships meant he'd seen it all. With more than 2100 crew and 384 officers, a battleship meant big headaches to go along with the big responsibility and accountability. The simple fact that he'd been on the Hillman for more than ten years meant that he'd more than done the job well—it was whispered that he'd be moving up to a full admiral rank when the new Navy officers rosters came down from Kinross next month.

  "Sorry, Captain, what I meant wasn't if we believe what we've been told by the Sleepers, but if we can determine if there's something they're not telling us. Sir. And yes, Sir, I do realize that as this is the first time we've ever encountered this set of circumstances, there may actually be no answer to that at all ..." she said, leaned back against the chair, and crossed her hands in her lap.

  Captain Nancy Donnel, Tanner knew, was more than capable, and her ship the cruiser Agamemnon was one that was held up to the rest of the more than fifty Navy captains as one to emulate. She ran what could only be called a tight, by-the-book ship and suffered fools very poorly. If she transferred you off her ship, your career was not going to amount to much and that meant that you'd have troubles finding a commission on any other Earldom Navy ship. Pretty, he thought, though she was at least ten years older than he was, but when in the mess, she could hold her ales with the best of them. But on this point, he thought her wrong.

  "But, begging your pardon, Captain, if the worst that anyone can see happening is that the Sleepers move on to land on their proposed destination on Eldirol in fifteen or so years, then what's the issue? Without us taking over their ship and adding a TachyonDrive to it, the issue is fifteen years away at the earliest. Correct?" he said and looked at the other captains at the table.

  To his left, Captain Marmor Anelora of the cruiser Kobibaru nodded.

  "Agreed, Captain Scott," he said, "I see no problems for fifteen plus years at the earliest ... and no, I think we should not give up any new technology to them. They are from the Taylor Wars section inward, and as refugees, they want a new world to settle. What could be easier to allow than that? And yes, Eldirol can absorb the Sleepers no problem."

  "Course," Captain Grayson said dryly, "none of us is the Earl, so none of us get to make that decision. Captains, I think we are really in a holding pattern. We await official word from Kinross on this, which I believe will come in the next few weeks, and until then, our orders are to just escort the Z'Lundom as she lopes along to Eldirol."

  "Unless," Captain Donnel said as she leaned forward, "we get orders to interfere with the ship's terminus, and that too just might happen. So in that case, I suggest we all think about what we might have to do and how that will affect the what—7000 Sleepers on that ship? That's a lot of lives to affect ..." she added and again leaned back.

  The four captains all sat for a moment and reflected on that premise and then left to return to duty, all thinking, Tanner figured, about what exactly the Earl would order—and knowing that it really didn't matter for another fifteen years.

  Three months later, after chafing at the consort duty of moving along the Earldom space at such a slow speed, Tanner was summoned back to the Hillman, and he hoped it would be their orders about the Sleeper ship that they'd be given.

  Captain Grayson looked solemn, he thought as he took the seat between Captains Donnel and Anelora and turned as did they to face Grayson, whose hands were tented together as if he was praying.

  "Captains, I have received EYES ONLY communications from Admiral Canton, our Navy commander, and I am sorry to say, this is not good news. Not for us, but for the Sleepers, yet it's still orders."

  The captains in front of him leaned in to listen attentively.

  "We are to turn them around and send them back. They are not to be allowed to move towards Eldirol nor for that matter are they even to move any further into the Earldom. Decision is final. Orders are to turn them around within five days and escort them out of our space," he said quietly.

  "Sir," Captain Anelora said forcefully, "these are refugees, and they wish only to find a world, Sir ... even if we don't let them land on Eldirol, could we not—"

  "No. No changes to be allowed with these orders. I've asked already," Grayson said quietly.

  "Orders are orders," Donnel said, "so what are our assignments?"

  Tanner was frustrated but listened instead of interrupting; knowledge is power, he thought.

  "We go over to the Z'Lundom later today. We order them out of Earldom space. We take no less than a 180-degree turnaround by day's end. And we follow them out. Mission completed."

  "And if they refuse, even giving up Eldirol and saying they're just going to move through the Earldom, what then" Tanner said, squirming as he thought he might already know the answer. He looked at Donnel for a moment as Grayson sipped from his coffee mug and then gestured to them all as if to include everyone.

  "We have our orders—this is the Earldom Navy, and orders are orders. End of story ... sorry, Scott ... our space is closed to them."

  "Did you think to ask why, Captain," Tanner said suddenly.

  "I did, Scott, and was told simply this was a Royal ruling. You know you can't fight that kind of order, right?

  Reconvene back here tomorrow at 1100 hours to go to the Z'Lundom and re-route them back to their own space," he said as he looked them each in the face. No equivocation, no variances ... these were orders.

  They left slowly but in a group, and there was no further talk among the three captains who left for their own ships via shuttles. In nineteen hours, they'd fulfill those orders, with no exceptions. Not a single one.

  #

  The gasp that came from the Lady St. August was loud, Tanner thought in retrospect as an alien head suddenly popped into the new hole just cut from their outer deck. She had put her hand up to her mouth as if to stop the sound but had failed, and she, like the rest of the RIM boarding team, stared.

  Tanner noted that the two Marwick security men had already drawn their side arms, and while not pointing at anything or anyone in particular, he knew the speed at which that could be changed.

  It had taken almost an hour, but now, appearing in front of them stood the alien they would soon know was called Sachem Hassun, in full Feathered Serpent regalia. His head was wrapped with narrow banded pelts of some kind of animal that were bright, bright ocher in color that looked like oved skins. Above them, the alien had placed some kind of a tall, sloped rack of feathers that were blue and black and dark green, all shining somehow as if they were lit by built-in lights.

  Across the alien’s face were drawn narrow lines of red and green that slanted between his ears—two Tanner noted —and his single nose. Two eyes, two hands, arms and legs, jet-black hair, and really humanoid. This was a good thing, he realized. He only partially noticed the Lady St. August as she appeared to be setting up her recording device that was also a broach.

  Really, humanoid, Tanner thought and while the rest of the alien’s outfit looked more ceremonial than normal daily dress, the man—if in fact this
was a man—seemed to really enjoy just standing there waiting.

  Right, Tanner thought and waved forward his XO.

  "Communication, Craig ..." he said softly and noted that the alien partially turned to study him.

  "Aye, Sir, mark one attempt now ..." Templeton dialed a setting on the handheld robo-translator on the console in front of him. He looked over at the alien and simply said, "Hello ... we are from the RIM Navy ship the Marwick and we greet you."

  The alien cocked his head to one side as if weighing what he'd just heard, then digested it, and then replied with a language that none on the shuttle could understand. He spoke at some length, and the XO nodded as his fingers caressed the console controls and then said, "While we do not yet understand you, we can assure you that we mean you no harm. Your visit was a surprise to us, and we greet you with warmth and would welcome the chance to learn more about you and your race too."

  While the alien replied as did the XO back and forth for a handful of turns, it wasn't until ten minutes later that the robo-translator began to translate the occasional word, then a phrase or two, and in five more minutes, the alien could almost be understood.

  "Beaming the master algo to your own units," the XO said and made the final coding changes, and suddenly on Tanner's arm, his PDA flashed as he noted the update, and he stepped forward to meet the alien personally.

  But before he could even walk off the shuttle, he was pushed aside by the Lady St. August who marched down the few feet of blue force field and stood right in front of the alien.

  "I am the Lady St. August, heir to the Barony of Neres, and I welcome you to the RIM Confederacy on behalf of the Council," she said, and her own PDA translated and said the words in the alien language for her and she waited.

  The alien stood and looked at her solemnly and seemed to be thinking for a moment before he answered. But before he did that, he half-bowed his head to touch his forehead with the back of his right hand, sweeping it forward toward the Lady, and then he spoke, all of the shuttle team PDAs providing instant translations.