by Terry Mixon
He put the communicator away and smiled at Oliver. “Good news. It appears there isn’t a large loss of civilian life. I hope your fleet losses were light.”
“They won’t be,” the engineer said with a deep sigh. “They never are. I saw many of the interdiction stations blown apart. Thousands are dead. No doubt, the losses in the ships engaging the Pale Ones were also heavy. You escaped lightly with only two casualties, Lord Captain.
“Still, you’re right that we will celebrate. Once more, we have survived, and another attack will not come for a few years. We have time to repair the damage.”
Jared took a sip of his beer. “Are you certain they won’t come through again to surprise you?”
Oliver nodded. “We have many years of experience with them. They will lick their wounds and build their strength to try again. Why they only attack with everything at once isn’t known to us, but they do.”
“Perhaps we could provide the elements you lack to build flip drives. You could then attack them in their home.”
The engineer smiled. “That would be wonderful. Such a gesture would be a great boon. The King and his ministers would be willing to negotiate most heavily for such when you meet, I am sure.”
“I know we’ll talk about many things, but first we need to keep them from shooting at us. Will you tell your people we’re not Pale Ones? The very least thing I want to do is fight with your people.”
Oliver rose to his feet and bowed deeply. “It will be my greatest pleasure, Lord Captain.”
Chapter Twenty
Kelsey stood in the main cabin of the Pentagaran ship that they’d saved and tried not to think about the terror she smelled in the air. Not her own, but the stench of people expecting death or worse. Oliver stood beside her and two marines in full combat armor with the full panoply of war covered her from behind.
She’d once again tried to convince Jared to let her proceed without them and failed. He adamantly refused to allow her to meet the representatives from the Royal Fleet without them. That was after he’d tried to block her from being the primary contact at all. Her arguments that the presence of armed men risked a lethal misunderstanding didn’t deter him at all. The man was maddening.
If he could’ve had an armed pinnace with its weapons covering everything, she suspected he would have insisted. Thankfully, she’d negotiated an initial meeting without any armed ships. Three people from the Royal Fleet would come across in an unarmed cutter. Two of those people would be armed marines.
“Princess, the Royal Fleet cutter is about to dock,” Talbot said. “I have a vid feed inside the airlock. If anything looks off, I want you in the compartment behind us before the echo of my voice fades.”
At Engineer First Williams’ insistence, she’d agreed to the use of her honorific. She was surprised at how little she’d missed it.
Kelsey had played cards with the marines so many times she couldn’t count them anymore. Talbot’s normal easygoing nature was completely absent. She had absolutely no doubt he’d stuff her in the other compartment himself if she hesitated to run on his command. Her orders were to obey his instructions if there was any trouble, much to her annoyance.
“Yes, Senior Sergeant.” The tone sounded exactly liked she’d said ‘yes, Mother’.
The ship jolted a little as the cutter docked. Oliver smiled at her. “Do not worry. They will do exactly as they have agreed. I have the word of Commodore Sanders.”
“I’m sure they will,” she said.
“Three people have entered the ship,” the marine said. “Two heavily armed and one with only a pistol. That’s not according to protocol.”
“I never said he couldn’t be armed.”
“He hands his pistol over to one of the marines before he approaches your person or we’re done.” Talbot’s tone brooked no argument.
The hatch in front of them cycled open and the two marines came in. Apparently they deemed it safe for their officer to enter, because a young man wearing a bright red tunic trailed in behind them.
Kelsey held her empty hands out at her sides. “I greet you in the name of the Terran Empire. I am Princess Kelsey Bandar. My marine guard insists that you lay aside your pistol before you approach.”
The young man bowed slightly. “I am Lieutenant John Fredrick of His Majesty’s Royal Marines. We are not allowed to be unarmed during possible combat situations.”
“Then this meeting is over. Withdraw.”
She suspected this was some kind of test. Perhaps merely male posturing. The two occasionally looked very similar. From the tensing of the marines behind the officer, her Fleet marines had backed her up with some posturing of their own.
Oliver took one step forward and stood board straight. “Lieutenant, I am Engineer First Oliver Williams. I vouch for these people. I beg you not to allow a rule to come between our people on this important occasion.”
The officer looked at Oliver for one long moment and then bowed again. “I meant no offense, Your Highness. I crave your forgiveness.” He pulled his pistol from its holster slowly and set it on the deck, before kicking it to the wall behind him.
“On behalf of my King and Commodore Walter Sanders, I welcome you to Pentagar. I am instructed to ask what ransom you demand for the return of our people.”
“You misunderstand, Lieutenant,” Kelsey said. “Your people are not prisoners. You may take them with you as soon as you feel comfortable. Engineer First Williams may return with you now to make arrangements, if you wish. They can be transported here for you to pick up.”
He nodded. “Allowing the Engineer First to return to my ship is within the bounds of my instructions. I will accompany you in turn. Commodore Sanders wishes to have at least some examination of your ship before it is allowed deeper into our system.”
“That is also within my instructions. Once your marines are gone, I will allow you to take up your arms, as a show of trust in your honorable behavior.” She felt it was the right thing to do, no matter how much her marines might disagree.
“You honor me. I give my word in turn that I will not take up arms against you this day, unless I believe my life or mission is threatened.”
“Accepted. And I in turn give you my word that you will be given access to all areas of the ship to examine and you will be allowed to return to your fleet unharmed as soon as you choose to do so.”
She turned to Oliver and held out her hand. “It has been my pleasure to meet you, Engineer First. I hope that we meet again soon.”
He bowed low over her hand and kissed it. “May that day come speedily, Your Highness. Until then I bid you a peaceful farewell.”
The Royal marines gave Oliver a thorough search and escorted him out of the compartment. Kelsey said nothing until Talbot spoke. “They’ve left the ship, Princess.”
“Please pick up your pistol, Lieutenant Fredrick. As soon as your cutter departs, ours will come for us. Tell me, what precisely are you looking for on Athena?”
Fredrick knelt to retrieve his pistol, stood up slowly and holstered it. “I’m just to see that nothing looks overtly dangerous to the fleet or the Kingdom. Once I have done so, I will return to the fleet and brief the senior officers. The next steps are up to them.”
“Well, it is a warship…and has missiles.”
The Royal marine smiled. “So I’ve heard. Any destroyer that can take two Pale Ones without suffering grievous damage has my deep respect. However, those are not the kinds of danger I’m to look for. Truly, I suspect my superiors only want to know more about you.”
Ten minutes later, they were on their way back to Athena and docked without incident. Jared and two marines stood waiting for them. While his guards were not wearing armor, they were armed.
Jared, too, was armed. She’d never seen him wear a pistol, though he now had one strapped on his hip. She wondered if that was to make a point of his own to the Royal officer. On the other hand, perhaps he was sending a message to her.
“Lieutenant Fre
drick, I am Commander Jared Mertz, Captain of the Imperial Fleet destroyer Athena. On behalf of the Terran Empire, I welcome you aboard.”
The Royal officer bowed, but not quite as deeply as he had for Kelsey. “And I in turn welcome you to Pentagar, Lord Captain. My orders are to examine your ship so that I may report fully to my commanders. Will you allow me free access to see all compartments and question your crew?”
Jared nodded. “I will, with the understanding that there may be some classified subjects about which they may not answer.”
“Of course. May I first see your bridge?”
They proceeded on a long tour of the ship. Kelsey sent the armored marines on their way and followed Jared and the Pentagaran officer. They visited the bridge, engineering, several weapons rooms that she’d never been in, and then the medical center.
Fredrick asked many questions of the people they encountered, some of a military nature, but mostly about Imperial society. He seemed to be looking for an understanding of their culture.
He spent a lot of time talking to Doctor Stone. He didn’t ask about Courageous. Kelsey couldn’t imagine how he’d know about it, but Doctor Stone was smooth. It didn’t seem like she was worried about the old Empire bodies they had aboard at all.
The Lieutenant asked to see the people they’d rescued. The number of them determined to tell him about their ordeal and rescue quickly overwhelmed him. They also wanted to know the fate of their loved ones.
He promised them a speedy repatriation and that he would personally convey the status of their families as soon as he knew himself. He seemed nonplussed that most of them didn’t seem to feel any rush to go back to his ships. Most seemed content to wait where they were until they could go home.
He smiled lopsidedly when he came back over to Kelsey and Jared. “I can think of no better marker of your character than the fact they seem so disinterested in leaving. Princess, Lord Captain, I am ready to be taken back to the intermediary ship. I will consult with my commanding officers and I feel confident they will feel more comfortable with your presence.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Kelsey said. “We look forward to speaking with them at length. Our peoples have much to say and many ways to help one another.”
They escorted him back to the cutter and he declared the marines were the only escort he needed going home. Jared agreed and they parted there.
Once he was gone, Kelsey turned to her half-brother. “Don’t yell at me about allowing him to keep his pistol.”
He smiled. “I think that was an appropriate gesture of trust. I saw the vid of the meeting. You showed a lot a spine telling him to go home when he showed up armed, but allowing him to regain his lost face. Well done.”
She relaxed a little. “Thanks. And you armed yourself because of him being armed?”
“It seemed like the right thing to do.” He headed back to the lift and instructed it to go to the conference room. “We need to decide what we can tell them and what matters we need to keep to ourselves. Courageous is off limits for now. So is the fact that we’re trapped. Our isolation might make them attempt to take undue advantage. We’re the only flip capable ship in the system.”
She sat down at the table. “We need to tell them before too long. It would be grossly unfair to let them think we might be able to help them directly with their war effort. Besides, they’ll figure it out soon enough. We are stuck here…in their territory.”
He nodded. “We might eventually tell them about Courageous, too. That would provide us a measure of leverage if we share some of the technology. I want to help them, but it has to be contingent on help from them.”
“Do we tell them about the Pale One body we recovered?”
“You heard Oliver. They’ve captured some live ones. They’ve seen much more that we have. The only bit of information we have that they don’t is the link to the old Fleet implants.”
Kelsey considered that for a few moments. “Agreed. Has there been any new news on that front?”
“A little. The science team figured out how to hot-wire a headset to a standalone computer. They’ve pulled quite a lot of data off the implants, but they really don’t know what it means. They have no frame of reference. I’m told it looks like programming code, but they don’t know the language.”
“Will anything on Courageous help with that? Getting her computer back online, perhaps?”
“It’s possible, but I’m not sure. It’ll probably be more code we don’t understand. We might not even be able to access it without implants of our own.”
She shuddered. “That sounds horrible. I can’t imagine how they could put things like that in their brains. Much less what the marines did. They’d have to be cut open like a fish.”
“I agree that it seems horrific. Especially considering what the Pale One had done to him. There has to be a link between them and the old Empire Fleet, I just can’t imagine what it is. Perhaps some equipment was left on and still running after all this time?”
“That’s set up to kidnap people and does this? There’s something more to the story. I’m more interested in why these obviously savage people are compelled to fly here and attack. What guides them? How can the implants even make it possible?”
“More questions without an answer. We’ll send those people back over to their fleet as soon as we can and flip back to Courageous’ system. It won’t hurt to let the Royal Fleet know we have people there. It’s almost like an insurance policy. We can get a download of data and more scientists. If we’re going deeper into the system I want to have our best people with us.”
Jared’s communicator chirped. Graves responded when he answered. “Captain, the Royal Fleet commander wants to speak to you.”
“On my way.”
He stood. “Time to cement our introduction.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The next few days went by quickly. The Royal Fleet arranged to take their people off Athena and Jared sent a probe back with a message to have a number of scientists brought to the flip point. They made the flip back the next day to pick them up and ended up spending an unplanned few hours offloading the large cargo shuttle that they’d packed with equipment.
He’d told them to bring only the essentials, but their definition of that word differed from his. He should’ve known that would happen.
Commodore Sanders, the Royal Fleet commanding officer, invited him over shortly after they returned. Though somewhat concerned about isolating himself, Jared agreed. These people hadn’t given him any indication they were likely to behave treacherously, so he’d make the first big step in building trust.
Kelsey wanted to go, but he refused. Trust didn’t need to be an act of stupidity. They could take him prisoner if they chose. That wouldn’t force Athena to do anything. He considered himself expendable, if need be. The Emperor’s daughter was not, no matter how she styled herself.
So he boarded one of his cutters with two unarmored marines. All three wore side arms, but brought no heavy weapons. They approached the Royal flagship a short time later. It looked big in vid feed. Much larger than the biggest cruiser the Empire boasted.
Of course, the Terran Empire wasn’t at war. If that changed, the Imperial shipyards would commence building larger vessels. They’d done the design work, but there was little need to incur the expense with no threats on their borders. With the dangerous universe he’d discovered, that might change.
They didn’t need a special docking collar this time. The Royal flagship had a bay large enough for his cutter. The pilot deftly brought the cutter into the massive ship’s bay and the large hatch slid closed behind them.
Jared rose to his feet and checked his uniform one last time. He started to open the lock when it turned green, but the pilot told him their hosts wanted him to wait a few minutes while they prepared to greet him.
When they indicated they were ready, Jared cycled the lock and stepped out onto the shuttle’s ramp. Two short rows of men in red tunics flanke
d the ramp, rifles held upright in front of them. Two men stood at the other end of the impromptu corridor. One of them was Lieutenant Fredrick. The older man with three times the ribbons on his gold tunic was probably the Commodore.
Jared walked up to the two officers and saluted, right fist to his chest. “Greetings, Commodore Sanders. I am Commander Jared Mertz, commanding officer of the Imperial Fleet destroyer Athena. Thank you for inviting me over.”
The older man brought his stiff hand to his forehead in a salute with which Jared wasn’t familiar. He then extended his hand. “It is my pleasure, Lord Captain. You already know the good Lieutenant and, as you so astutely surmised, I am Commodore Walter Sanders, commanding officer of this task force. On behalf of my King, allow me to thank you once more for acting in defense of His subjects in their hour of need.”
Jared shook the man’s hand and smiled. “It was the right thing to do.”
“And yet you took a leap of faith in your decision. My understanding is that you arrived while the attack was in progress. In your position, I might well have decided to proceed more cautiously until I established the lay of the land.”
“I considered the data we had at our disposal and the wise counsel of our Ambassador. She immediately knew the right course of action. Honorable beings do not attack innocent civilians. Character is important.”
“Quite so. I’m disappointed that she couldn’t come, but I understand your caution. I hope to set your mind at ease today because our peoples have much to offer one another. Technology, culture, and much that I’m certain I haven’t considered. Come, I insist on giving you the same tour you gave my officer. Mace is an old battleship, but I’m proud of her.”
The Royal marine guards didn’t follow them so Jared made a decision. “Perhaps my marines could spend some time with yours. That might foster more understanding between our people.”
The Commodore laughed. “Knowing marines as I do, I shudder to anticipate what trouble they will find together. You can summon them when you’re ready to depart.”