An image finally appeared, flickered slightly, and then solidified. The scene displayed an overhead view of a ship’s bridge larger than the Aurora’s. Four humans in various stages of working and adjusting controls sat at consoles. Beyond them, a uniformed man, seated casually on a much higher pedestal, was looking at readouts on a small tablet in his hand. Behind him, other technicians manned stations facing away from the Jeff’s main viewing screen.
“That’s Captain Kumeiga,” Drik confirmed. “But they don’t seem to be acknowledging our call.”
“That’s because I haven’t sent it yet,” Kalaya grinned. “I tapped directly into their bridge camera feed, but they are as yet unaware of it.”
Drik looked over at her and shook his head. “Has anyone ever told you that you are an incredibly dangerous woman?”
“Not in almost a thousand years, but I hope to change that soon,” she purred. “Here we go…one ringy dingy…two ringy dingy…”
Suddenly, one of the female crew members seated behind the Captain put a hand on her headset and swiveled abruptly to address the Captain. I looked at him curiously; he was a large barrel of a man, somewhat older than even Drik, slightly balding but with an impressive full black beard. Despite his appearance, his command demeanor was of extreme competence, and I noticed that none of the bridge crew seemed to be slacking in any way.
“Captain, we’re receiving a transmission!”
The Captain rolled his eyes. “And to what do we owe the honor of hearing from our ‘friends’ in the military this fine evening? Put them on the screen, Senpa.”
“Umm, Captain, it’s not coming from the fleet; at least, I don’t think so. The transmission is on a heavily encoded Pendacis corporate carrier frequency. It’s fairly strong, sir.”
“Impossible. We are too far out to receiving direct communications. The only way to reach corporate is by routing packet information through the fleet. Yet you say it isn’t from the military?” he quizzed, sitting up straighter in his chair.
“No, sir, it’s definitely not originating from the fleet, nor is it a packet. This is a real time, tight beam broadcast.”
“From where, Ensign?”
“Attempting to lock it down, sir. It’s coming from the general direction of Fleece, but the landing party had no transmitting equipment capable of anything like this.”
“Well, as much as I love a good mystery, put it on the screen, Ensign.”
“Why can’t they see us?” Laree whispered to Kalaya, confused at this one-sided conversation. The synthetic just smiled patiently and pointed at the screen.
“Ok, I think I have it locked down now, sir.” The ensign commented breathlessly. “Holy...!” she screamed and nearly fell out of her chair. Now we could see the transmission from the Aurora up on the main screen of the Jeff.
There was a very authoritative Kalaya sitting in the command chair, with Laree, Drik, and Max standing next to her, and me playing technician in the background.
“Hello, Captain Kumeiga,” Laree said before anyone else could speak. She punctuated her outburst with a shy wave. “How are you?” How are you? First contact with an alien species and she makes inane small talk? Some people just have to babble when they get nervous, I guess.
The Captain’s face clouded over, and I was pretty sure someone was going to get a talking to about procedure. But at the same time, I could see his eyes taking in every detail of our own bridge visible on their screen.
“Scientist Drik,” he rumbled, “your report on your mission is past due. And how exactly do you explain that you seem to be broadcasting from an unknown vessel. Not to mention, I seem to see at least two individuals I don’t recognize and who were never sent planet-side with you. I hope you have an explanation.”
Drik rubbed the back of his neck and swallowed hard. “Well, Captain, you see, we hit a bit of a snag in the mission.”
“You don’t say,” the communications ensign quipped, having regained her composure. Her outburst earned her another dark look from the man in the captain’s chair.
“Our initial survey was somewhat off. The native wildlife on Fleece is far more formidable than we planned for. The first day, our camp’s defenses were breached, destroyed actually, Zubkov was killed and the rest of us barely escaped on two scout rovers with almost no gear or supplies. We would have tried to contact you, but our communications equipment was smashed beyond repair in the attack.”
“Define these attackers,” the Captain interrupted gruffly.
“Gigantic armored wolves, very fast and very smart.” Kalaya must have sent an image of one of them because it was soon on the Jeff’s screen. “Yeah, those things,” continued Drik. “Trust me, sir, they are not to be trifled with.”
“Noted. Please continue.”
On screen, Kalaya suddenly appeared standing behind Captain Kumeiga doing the bunny ears gesture behind his head. Max nearly burst into full-out laughter and even Drik was snickering a bit, although Laree didn’t seem to find it funny. She stepped in front of Kalaya’s command chair and gave her a wide-eyed look of near panic. It wasn’t anything the crew of the Jeff could see, of course; to them, it probably just appeared as if she were being rude.
Kalaya’s facial expression, of course, was just as confused as anyone at Laree’s behavior. With a disgusted growl, Laree looked over at me and whispered urgently, “Could you do something about her? Please?”
“I couldn’t even begin to try,” I sighed in my best long-suffering voice.
“Yeah, I’ve heard it all before, I get it.” Laree gave me a venomous look and then pasted on a pretend smile, turning back to the screen to face her captain. “I’m sorry, sir, our new friends are a bit strange.” What? We’re strange?
The Captain stroked his long beard thoughtfully. “Scientist Laree, the only strange behavior I have seen thus far is coming from you, but I’m sure you’ve been under a lot of stress. Drik, please continue with your account.”
One of the other crewmen in the room, a tall, gangly fellow, walked up and stood next to the Captain’s chair. I took him for a senior officer or perhaps the second-in-command. He leaned down to whisper in Kumeiga’s ear. Of course, Kalaya countered by zooming in on his lips and amplifying the conversation only on the Aurora’s bridge.
“Captain, we have confirmed that there are no other Pendacis vessels anywhere near this transmission, nor does the configuration of the bridge on screen appear to be military or any other known ship design.” Kalaya zoomed back out when the officer finished delivering his message and returned to his post.
“Continue, please.”
“Right, in our attempt to escape from the pack of wolves, we were fortunate to stumble upon what we assumed was a cave entrance. Thankfully, the creatures seemed to be more afraid of entering the cave than they were desirous of eating our flesh, and we were safe for the moment. The cave turned out to be not a cave, but a hole in the hull of a crashed starship. A starship that turned out to be the home of these two.” Laree visibly cringed as if she were about to get punished for doing what was needed to survive.
“I see,” Kumeiga paused for perhaps ten heartbeats. “I expect all three of you to forward full reports to me directly so I may review them in greater detail later.” Drik nodded and unconsciously looked at Kalaya as if she needed to give permission to do so. Since all transmissions would have to go through her anyway, I suppose it made sense. The Captain, noting the glances, scowled slightly and then addressed Laree, “Perhaps this would be a good time for you, young lady, to introduce your friends.”
Laree stood up a little taller, trying to pull herself together. “Captain Kumeiga, this is Kalaya,” she said, gesturing at the command chair. She then swiveled to point me out in the back. “And that is Kodo. I’m sorry, I don’t know if they have last names or ranking, but they did save all our lives.”
The big bear of a captain turned his focus away and smiled at Kalaya. “Captain Kalaya, is it?” She nodded graciously and he continued,
“You have my thanks for taking care of my people. Might I ask the name of the ship you command and why you are out this far in space? I wasn’t informed there were any other company ships nearby, yet you are transmitting on a coded Pendacis frequency.”
Kalaya was about to say something, but Laree spoke first, “That’s the other thing, sir, the Aurora wasn’t exactly built or crewed by…um…humans.”
The other crew members on the Jeff’s bridge starting whispering to each other, but the Captain was still very collected, which was odd given the situation. “Explain.”
Laree drew herself up nervously. “Captain, this ship, the Aurora, is over a thousand years old. She is far more technologically advanced than any ship in the Terran fleet, and these people, our good friends, are not biologically human either.”
“Aliens…” he said absently as he stared off into space. After a brief moment, his expression changed from calm to determined. “Captain, based on what I am hearing, may I assume that the purpose of this transmission is to provide notice of your intent to return our people to us?”
“That is entirely correct, Captain Kumeiga.” Kalaya tilted her head with a slight smile. “However, we are currently not in a position to deliver them directly to you, nor would we wish to risk using a ship’s pinnace.
He nodded, and I believe he understood what we were saying and the reasoning behind it. Sending a ship’s boat or shuttle would be very risky on our part. Someone would have to fly it, and I couldn’t do that without putting myself and our technology at risk.
“I understand. We will double time our return to Fleece. Be there in the morning, your time, to collect our crew. Does that sound acceptable?”
“Indeed it does, Captain,” Kalaya said smoothly
“Very well. Laree, Drik, Maxwell, have your gear ready to depart in the morning. Include any environmental data you have gathered as well and be prepared for pickup. That will be all.” With that, he severed the connection, or at least what he thought was the connection. Our screen showed him sitting in his chair, deep in thought.
“Captain, wait!” Laree shouted, but the transmission had already been cut. “I didn’t even get a chance to explain anything. Why would he just cut me off like that?”
“It’s not really surprising,” Kalaya said calmly, dropping into her analysis persona. “He has not seen the things you have seen so he cannot come to a solid conclusion about us. He most likely clammed up there at the end because he has never been in a situation like this before and does not want to rush to an ill-informed decision. He will unquestionably want to go over your reports of the past few days first hand to know more about us. Once he digests that information, he will have a better insight on how to deal with this new situation. Honestly, it was a remarkably good decision on his part. He is obviously a man who doesn’t base his decisions on imagined stereotypes and half-baked dogma.”
“Whatever the outcome,” I added, “our goals have been met, and you will be returned safe and sound to your people tomorrow morning. Now, Kalaya and I have work to do so we will take you back to your quarters now.”
Drik and Max looked pleased, but the tremble in Laree’s lower lip told me she was anything but happy. I can only hope that someday they will realize we are doing this for their own good.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Laree
I lay back on the couch in my room. It was deep into the evening after a long day. Part of me suggested a trip down to the mess hall to conjure up some of that potent alcohol mix of Kodo’s, but I knew even that wouldn’t shake this feeling of dread. I didn’t want to go back to the Jeff; there was still so much left here to see, so much to learn from these two. At the same time, I almost didn’t want to know what was going to happen when our military showed up.
I stayed curled up on the couch for a few minutes, just resting my eyes. But I noticed more lights and commotion than normal outside my window. Normally, even with the curtains open like they are, I only got small glimpses of light from the factory floor far below. Now, it looked like a full-blown lightning storm down there. Kalaya was cooking with gas on some project.
I got up and looked out the window to see what it was all about. For the past few days, the factory had been building drones and those wyvern drills as parts for the ship. Now it seemed that they were building something much larger. I watched for a time trying to discern what was actually taking shape, but so far, I could only tell that the automatons were constructing four of whatever it was. Suddenly, a long panel in the far wall opened up to reveal a long cylinder sliding out on heat-proof caissons, still red hot from the forge or whatever made it. Some of the worker drones sprayed oil on the metal to cool it down while one of the larger crane arms moved into position to latch onto to it. It was a long hollow pipe, but the more I thought about it, the more it resembled a…
“A gun,” I said aloud.
“Yes,” Kalaya murmured from behind me, her voice low and filled with sadness. She walked up to stand beside me as we both watched the work progress below “I don’t want to have to resort to these for many reasons, but we don’t have many options. The Aurora has minimal weapons of its own, and without at least something to buy us time, we could easily be overrun before we complete repairs.”
“Will you really use these on our people?” I asked, in a half-dream state of denial. Part of me didn’t want to know what she would say, but I still needed to know.
She was quiet for a minute as we just watched the cannon being assembled. “Laree, don’t take this the wrong way, but I have no problem with having to kill.” She what? “Calm down and let me finish,” she said with a stern look. Convinced I wasn’t going to freak out or something, she looked again through the window and started talking in a much quieter voice. “Killing in this age has become so second hand and remote that it no longer has the effect that one might think it has. One can simply push a button and hundreds of people die without the inconvenience of knowing any of them personally. It’s like those vid games that Max is so obsessed with; none of it seems real because you never see the blood or the suffering. As you might guess, my world is not unlike a big vid game. I will never truly see the destruction that those great weapons that I am building create. Things like this are easy for me, I just make a conscious decision to either have or not have the emotional connection to my actions. Another perk of being a synthetic; I can just erase unwanted memories.”
“But what of the lofty ideals of behavior that your people defend so vehemently, according to Kodo.”
“Those rules were set in place to regulate the interaction between my people and the Quetanae. Self-regulation benefitted both parties and allowed our people to form a societal bond that lasted for millennia. But now it appears there is no more society to protect; just the two of us left, and we’re probably both borderline insane.”
“So what will happen?” I asked.
Her blue eyes took on a faraway look that was reflected in the glass of the window. “You, your brother, your friends, and the entire crew of the Jeff will be dragged into our fight. Undoubtedly, the military will want to interrogate the three of you, and the longer you are here, the more they will assume you know.”
“I think we will be fine, Kalaya. We’re talking about our own military here; they won’t harm us.”
I saw a frown cross her features. “Won’t they? This is not something you should take lightly, Laree. The first thing the military is going to do is find out everything they can about us. You three are the window into our world that they will covet. They will stop at nothing to find out why we didn’t attack you, why we helped you survive. What is so special about you three that we would even bother to save you?”
“Because you are good people!”
“Governments don’t take that kind of thing into consideration, Laree. People aren’t just born nice. There is always a reason behind people’s behavior. Even if something is free of cost, it is not inherently free; the giver always gets something out of
the deal.”
“That sounds amazingly cynical coming from the synthetic that I know as my friend. Kodo mentioned that you always have a reason for your actions.”
“Indeed, there are reasons for everything. Reasons for why we saved you, reasons for making you our friends, and reasons for sending you home, and sadly, reasons why I will not hesitate to use these weapons if I have to.”
“Kodo?” I asked. Kodo seemed to be her overriding reason for everything.
Still staring at the reflection of the glass, I saw her hurriedly wipe away a small trickle of moisture that threatened to run down her porcelain cheek. “Laree, I may be able to block the pain of necessary decisions, but he can’t. He has managed to last a very long time without having to resort to killing someone again. If your people attack and we have to fight for our lives, for the integrity of this ship, he will be forced to do the very thing he hates the most. It will destroy him and I cannot bear to see him go through that pain. I hope that these weapons are just intimidating enough to buy us some time. In the end, if we are forced to use them, then something has gone terribly wrong.” Without saying another word, she just vanished. Her disembodied voiced drifted down from the overhead speakers, “Have a good night, Laree.”
As I looked from the spot where my friend had disappeared back down to the production floor far below, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew exactly how things were going to go down and that sending us home was all part of her plan. But why?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kodo
“Burning the midnight oil, huh?” Kalaya commented as she walked into my room. “I could have sworn I told you to go to bed already.”
“All right.” I had been working for a lot longer than I thought, but I was almost done. She came over and peeked at what I was doing on my console, although she could have just asked and gotten better information.
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