Carrearranis (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 5)

by S MacDonald

  They knew, Alex realised. He had of course included the incident with Silvie in his report, knowing that the president would appreciate it and that the Diplomatic Corps would find it useful in their efforts to get to grips with quarian psychology. Alex had ensured that it was Silvie who had stepped off the shuttle first, giving her people the legal first-footing rights over the system. Once she’d been brought to understand that, he’d tried to give her a practical tutorial in diplomacy by attempting to negotiate with her for the sovereign rights over the system. Alex had learned a lot more than Silvie had during that exchange, and ultimately, the system had changed hands for one dollar sixty four cents. Given the privilege of naming the planet on which they had first-footed, Silvie had called it Flatworld.

  It had, at that, fared better than the planet they had come to investigate; the one with a living biosphere. Officially named Haven by Excorps, it was more generally known as Stinkworld for the extreme pong of the methanogen slime which was its highest form of life. The Haven X-Base they’d constructed was, therefore, on the first planet they’d landed on, near to the flag-planting site on Flatworld.

  Ignoring the laughter, and with no hint on his stony face of the amusement he felt himself at the memory of those bizarre negotiations, Alex proceeded doggedly with his presentation. A brief overview was given of the three other systems, with a statement that their supplies situation meant that they could only attempt to reach one of them. At this point Mr Janil Caldova had provided a probability analysis which had given Aseltor a significantly higher possibility of a sophisticated biosphere, so the decision had been made to proceed there.

  Again, Alex gave dates, coordinates and technical data as the route was shown on the screen behind, with a growing sense of expectation in the room as they waited for the denouement.

  Finally, he got them to Aseltor, with the few seconds of images which were genuinely all they had managed to obtain during that approach.

  At this point, he gave the agreed ‘For public consumption’ version of events, in which their attempt to contact the planet using all known forms of communication got a response on a very basic kind of technology, an audio transmission on radio frequencies.

  ‘This transmission was clearly very anxious in tone, so we made the decision to withdraw,’ said Alex, and paused while an isolated fragment of the actual transmission they’d received was played, a near-hysterical shriek of incomprehensible words. ‘We were able to translate a repeated word within this as ‘Dapra’, which we translated as an order to depart. In respect of this, we withdrew our ship from their territorial space. We did, however, leave a drone at the edge of transmission range, providing information about ourselves and our peaceful intentions. We then returned to Oreol, as we had assured them that we would, promising that we would not return unless by their invitation. Two weeks after we returned to Oreol, we received the following transmission from them…’

  He played part of the historic first-contact message, with the man who introduced himself as Arak standing at the front of the image and more than eighty people gathered behind. The backdrop was that of a very simple village of huts and tropical forest, their clothing was homespun and their lifestyle looked like that of hunter-gatherers. Yet they clearly had a sophisticated cosmology, identified their world as Carrearranis, understood about starships and knew that Telathor was an inhabited world. Even leaving out all references to the Guardian, it was clear that these people were no kind of spear-shaking primordials.

  ‘We responded with this message…’ Alex felt a twinge of anxiety as the edited version of his response was played. Even with cutting out his own references to the Guardian, he would never have wanted that footage to be made public. It showed him as he was in private, after all – relaxed, happy, talking to the Carrearranians as if they were friends. He had achieved that by thinking of it as if it was a private call he was making to reassure anxious people. But now it was in the public domain, and he knew very well what the League’s media would make of the contrast between that cheerful demeanour and the glacial manner they saw out in public.

  ‘It appears,’ said Alex, ‘that they have acquired some knowledge of other worlds, along with basic comms technology, most probably from contact with a ship which never made it back to League space to report the discovery.’

  Once he’d finished the public version of events, though, the president told them all that they were now to hear the still very highly classified truth, giving Alex the nod to proceed.

  So, he backtracked to the point at which they had arrived at Carrearanis, and this time told it how it really was.

  ‘Within moments of our arrival, our comms were overwhelmed by very powerful transmissions which seemed somehow to be amplified by our own ships.’ He paused for the playback and there was a general exclamation and much hurried covering of ears as the blast of panicked, screaming voices hit them at full volume. ‘We withdrew,’ said Alex, not feeling that that decision required any further explanation. ‘Our comms systems were damaged by the overload, which we consider to have been inadvertent, the result of incompatible technology rather than any hostile intent. Translation confirmed that the broadcast was a warning that the world was in quarantine and a frantic plea for us to stay away. We therefore withdrew, leaving a first-contact probe just as stated earlier. The undisclosed aspect to the communication we then received was this…’ he played the part which had been edited out, in which Arak explained the role of the ship they called the Guardian in keeping them safe, and mentioned the Singing Stones, a reference to the global communication system which the Guardian provided for them. Finally, he showed the images of the Guardian itself.

  There were gasps, though all of them had seen this before – it seemed different, somehow, being shown it by the first people to capture the image. It looked like an enormous jellyfish, with a translucent crown and white tentacles. The whole thing was more than sixteen kilometres across

  ‘This ship has, of course, been sighted by vessels in the Telathor Sector many times over several centuries,’ Alex said, and everyone could hear the words Space Monster of Sector Seventeen hovering in the air. ‘Though it has been widely and variously misinterpreted. We now know it to be an unmanned drone-ship of ancient origin, tasked with providing quarantine protection for the colony of Carrea Rensis, now known to its people as Carrearranis. This colony was established by a people we know as the Olaret, a race who colonised many worlds back in the time of the plague, creating genomes which could thrive on the worlds chosen for them. The Olaret themselves have been extinct for ten thousand years, but we believe it possible that the Guardian may be a remnant of their technology, and clearly still functioning.’

  He paused a moment to allow the awed silence he was expecting, but instead they started cheering again, jumping up to give a standing ovation.

  ‘All right,’ said Joy Arthas, calming things down after a couple of minutes and getting them to resume their seats, ‘Questions.’

  This took a very long time, as just about everyone had a very long list of questions they wanted to ask and even yes/no answers generated even more. Alex bore with it patiently, even when the questions seemed to him dumb beyond belief. The only one which took him by surprise was a question about Silvie and her role in the discovery.

  ‘Did Ambassador Silver play any key role in the exploration or contact?’ Being able to ask only questions with a straight yes/no answer required the journalists to really think about what they were asking, rather in the nature of a game of twenty questions.

  ‘No,’ said Alex, without hesitating, and over a series of questions was able to establish that Silvie had taken no active part in either the exploration or first contact, as quarians were not by nature an exploring people.

  ‘Would it be fair to say,’ asked a very well informed journalist, delicately, ‘that she’s not really even very interested in Carrearranis?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alex, considering that it would be entirely fair to say this,
as it was nothing more than the truth. Silvie had been mildly interested at first, but had quickly become bored by the minutiae of analysis going on about every tiny aspect of information the images could convey. Typically, she had asked why on earth they cared how the Carrearranians fastened their trousers. She certainly saw no point or pleasure in speculating about what might be, as quarians considered that kind of speculation pointless.

  ‘So, might she come back to Telathor?’ The journalist sounded hopeful. It had come as a shock to them to realise that they had been fooled into thinking that the ‘alien visit’ to Telathor they’d been briefed about had been a group of Solarans when in fact it had been the quarian ambassador, and an exo-visitor from the mysterious Veiled World, too, who was serving with the Fourth and helping to take care of Silvie.

  ‘No,’ said Alex, definitely. Silvie was perfectly happy to stay with them wherever they went and whatever they were doing, at least until such time as she felt she had fulfilled her mission and was ready to go home. She felt safe with the Fourth and was learning so much from them, it was certainly the best place she could be.

  Not long after that, the president called a halt to the slow torture that was question time, and Alex was able to go and meet with the skipper now in command of the Minnow.

  He had already sent her a welcoming message and a detailed briefing pack, but this was the first moment he’d had free to meet her in person.

  ‘Skipper Walensa…’ he had invited her to meet him on the Heron, and got up to greet her as she was shown into his daycabin.

  ‘Sir.’ As they shook hands and evaluated one another, both of them smiled. Milli Walensa was, at thirty six, five years older than the captain. She was a neat woman with short hair dyed fair with fresh lemony highlights. Her features were rather on the heavy side, but her smile was attractive and her brown eyes had a deep chocolate warmth.

  ‘Alex,’ the captain said, bringing her into the small group entitled to address him by his first name.

  ‘Milli,’ she responded, and took the seat Alex indicated, laughing as the door opened behind her and a big, burly crewman whisked in with a tray. ‘Mr Triesse, I presume.’

  ‘Ma’am,’ Banno Triesse confirmed, flashing her a grin as he popped the tray onto the desk and was gone again, living up to his reputation as the fastest steward in the Fleet. Seeing that he had brought her exactly the kind of coffee she liked, Milli made no comment, but settled to the meeting with an air of easy contentment.

  Alex gave her a look of wholehearted approval. He had known Milli Walensa for several years by reputation, and they had met briefly at a couple of social events on Telathor, but it was the report he’d just received from Buzz Burroughs that had really put that happy smile on his face. Buzz had been chatting with a couple of the officers on the Minnow, finding out how things had been going. It had been an entirely open, official and on-record enquiry, as it was perfectly usual to evaluate shakedown after a new skipper had taken command. In this case, there had been no concerns amongst the officers, only the highest respect and admiration. Skipper Walensa, her officers said, was amazing. She’d come aboard the corvette already fully up to speed on all of their systems, even those still in development. She was equally at home with Fourth’s policies and procedures, slipping into the command so naturally that within a couple of days it had felt like she’d been there for months. She had even known who everyone was, greeting every member of the crew by name and needing no introductions. At first, they’d suspected that she was using some kind of eye-piece to project information about anyone and any piece of tech she was looking at, but they’d soon realised that she wasn’t cheating; she really did know her stuff.

  That was all the more remarkable, as the Minnow’s exec had observed, because Milli Walensa did not have any of the advantages of other high-flyers. She had not even been to the elite Academy on Chartsey, let alone graduated top cadet of her year. In fact she’d graduated ninth out of a class of fourteen at an unimpressive backwater Academy. She had no natural advantages of remarkable intelligence, eidetic memory or any other super-ability.

  What she had was a talent for hard work. She had worked her way up to a place in command school by securing the shipboard postings she needed and excelling in them. She had achieved shipmaster rank and become a watch commander on the Anubis, the carrier which provided homeworld defence for Telathor. The next step in her career was command of a corvette – a difficult step, given that there were three times as many skippers qualified as there were opportunities for small ship command.

  To step into this as her first command, therefore, and escort a squadron along a route so hazardous, was a tremendous challenge. The fact that she had not only accomplished it but made it look so easy gave Alex a good deal of confidence in her. The fact that she had managed Harry Alington’s officers and crew so that they were happy with her command gave him even more admiration for her. Many of the Minnow’s company were Harry’s own choice, so she would inevitably have had to cope with a great deal of resistance to even the smallest changes she might want to introduce.

  ‘So – welcome to the Fourth,’ Alex said, and asked conversationally, ‘How are you finding things?’

  ‘I’m enjoying it very much,’ she told him, with just a trace of reserve. ‘And you’re not, I hope, too disappointed with my posting – I know you turned me down at Telathor, so I understand, of course, that you’re not going to be happy about it.’ Her smile was slightly rueful, with that. ‘All I can say is that I will do my best.’

  ‘Oh.’ Alex gave her a wry look in return. ‘Sorry, Milli – actually, that isn’t, uh…’

  He floundered for a moment, which was unusual for him, but realised that since she had been so frank herself, she deserved no less honesty in return.

  ‘Truth?’ he said, and indicated between the two of them that what he said was to be regarded as confidential. At her nod and alert, questioning look, he gave a rather embarrassed grin. ‘Truth to tell,’ he admitted, ‘if I’d been given a free choice between you and Harry back when the Minnow was assigned to us, there wouldn’t have been any question about it, it would have been yours.’ He chuckled at her astounded expression. ‘I’ve been following your career with interest for some years,’ he told her. ‘And would always have been delighted if you were being assigned to us. But I didn’t have a choice, no say in the matter at all. Things were complicated – politics, you know.’

  There was just a moment’s silence before he added ‘No disrespect to Harry whatsoever, of course. He has worked extremely hard and been a great asset to us in many ways. I’ve even come to appreciate his questioning and challenging me on pretty much every aspect of everything I do, as it does have the benefit of making me consider things in greater detail than I might otherwise. But it was always complicated, always political, and it was those considerations, besides the principle of standing by any of my officers, which led me to reject the initial attempt to transfer him to groundside duties at Telathor. And I did say, too, that I didn’t think it possible or fair to expect anyone to step into the Minnow’s command and be plunged into this mission without any of the training and preparation we’d all been working on for months.’ He gave her a frank grin at that. ‘Which you’ve proven me wrong about, well done. But it was never meant as a rejection of you, and you are, I do assure you, very welcome indeed.’

  ‘Oh.’ She tried not to look embarrassed, but her grin was relieved. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’ve certainly come into it very well prepared,’ Alex commented, and indicating the file that he had open on a desk screen, ‘You did the Fourth’s transfer course last year, I see.’

  ‘Yes, we’ve all done that,’ she said, and seeing his surprise, explained, ‘Everyone with an interest in what you’re doing, everyone who hopes they might have the opportunity to serve with you one day, everyone hoping to pick up tips to improve their own practice… I’d say about half the Fleet’s officers have done that course by now.’

&nbs
p; Alex stared at her for a moment and then picked up his coffee, making no comment at all. He shouldn’t even be surprised any more, he realised, that something the Fourth considered routine was sweeping out as a major event. The Fourth’s transfer course had been produced by a team of their own officers for the benefit of people transferring to join them on secondment. It combined reading, simulations and tests which were intended to take about fifty hours. It was a required pre-joining training for any officer assigned to the Fourth, but from what Milli said it was apparent that the Admiralty had also made it available as a self-study course for any officer who wanted to undertake it in their own time.

  ‘I was particularly interested in the work you’re doing in rehab,’ Milli told him. ‘I’m familiar with your philosophy, of course, that crew underperforming and acting out is always the fault of the officers responsible for them, and that’s been something I’ve always considered when working with failing personnel, as you suggest, looking to see how they are being let down and putting that right. It’s been very helpful to me and has turned several otherwise failing crew around, so thank you. As for the technical side, Froggy gave me clearance for the specs when he came out here, me and a few others, just in case you might need replacement personnel in a hurry.’

  She used the port admiral’s nickname with an ease which made it clear that they were friends, and that she knew that he and Alex were, too.

  ‘I see,’ Alex should have realised that too, he recognised. Froggy was one of the Admiralty’s high powered troubleshooters, assigned to wherever a cheerful, determined intelligence was needed to resolve sticky problems. He would not have bothered Alex with information about what he himself was doing at Telathor, but he would certainly have made quiet, efficient arrangements to meet every conceivable contingency. Alex certainly couldn’t fault his choice as a replacement for Harry Alington, and smiled at the skipper as he picked up his coffee. They were, he knew, going to get along just fine.