The Chief was now a civilian, and ran a small interstellar shipping company that was slowly struggling into solvency after years of scraping along from shipment to shipment. Elian and Carolyn were quarter owners, Nastya and I held another quarter, and my family owned the final twenty five percent. The chief and the late admiral owned the ‘first’ quarter share.
We had managed to get in on the ground floor of the growing trade and aid between humanity and the incredibly distant X’leem colony, which is what it truly was, despite the fact that they were resettling their own planet. It had been a huge gamble on our part – we had to sink all our family resources into the design and construction of a new class of freighter that could make the nearly thousand light year crossings. We received invaluable help from a certain manufacturer on earth, which took a majority share in the ownership of the design. We now had four ships, and all four were contracted to the earth-X’Leem route.
Elian and I still served in uniform, and so our shares, along with that of my family’s were controlled by chief Kana. The chief liked to say that the only reason we didn’t retire was that we would then have to go to work and earn an honest living.
There were virtually no other people present to pay their final respects. In the days following that evening meal in the admiral’s quarters, he had taken his fleet back to earth and despite an immense outcry, had ultimately forced earth’s government to accept a peace treaty with the utterly alien species that had appeared so suddenly and violently in our corner of the universe.
Almost single handedly, Admiral Lee stalled and badgered the federal government, and called in every favor ever owed him to buy time while we worked feverishly to communicate with the X’Leem. The original orders sending Ambassador Leung to attempt negotiation with the fifth fleet were vague enough that they gave Admiral Lee the pretense he needed for the second attempt.
The X’Leem discovery that they had been deprived of what they considered a sacred mission almost drove them into insanity, and for a time Elian and I thought we would have to attempt the unthinkable, to destroy the last of an entire species of intelligent beings we had just begun to understand.
The fact that we didn’t was due to an extraordinary discovery by Ambassador Leung, who Admiral Lee had practically kidnapped and sent by courier to help us generate a treaty before our own government could decide we had to destroy the only other intelligent species we had yet encountered, assuming that our own was smarter than a petunia.
During the third week of tense negotiations, the X’Leem representative asked Ambassador Leung a question that our translator could not decipher. Sensing that he was missing something important, Ambassador Leung asked his counterpart to explain the context of his (or her, depending) question. It took nearly three hours of explanation followed by explanations of the explanation before Ambassador Leung suddenly rose to his feet. He turned to Elian and me and said, “They have asked me about God! These beings believe in God.”
Moments later, the chief X’Leem representative became highly agitated and via our translator he asked, “You believe in a Divine Creation? Please explain!”
Over the course of several nearly non-stop sessions, we came to learn that religion had been the root cause of the X’Leem conflict that led to the mutual destruction of their two planets. Their discovery that humanity had suffered through over three thousand years of conflict due to religion amazed them. They asked countless questions, and received translations of the Sermon on the Mount, and the Seven Valleys.
In turn, we received translations from their Holy Book. The similarities were just as astonishing as were the differences.
Elian and I immediately sent a courier back to earth. That information caused yet another bombshell, but for once, it was a good shock. Admiral Lee once again demonstrated his intelligence – he leaked it to the press.
Earth’s government was instantly inundated by the representatives of every organized religion on the planet, and some that were highly disorganized, demanding that instead of destroying this species, we do everything in our power to aid it, and by the way, how long would it take before they would be able to send missionaries?
Admiral Lee had singlehandedly held off an almost certain decision to attack ‘an implacable foe’ as the dominant right wing elements of the government had described the X’Leem. In doing so he clearly violated numerous Fleet regulations as well as a few civilian statutes. Despite the fact that his actions forestalled an epic war that would have led to the almost certain elimination of this species, Admiral Lee’s career was ruined.
Within six months after Admiral Lee brought our fleet back to Jupiter, he was forced to resign his commission. He lost all retirement benefits and found himself a civilian, and a pauper.
Admiral Tretiakov spent an afternoon with the now former admiral and his wife of many years, with the outcome that Mr. Lee and wife emigrated to Lubya and spent their remaining years as honored residents of the ever growing Tretiakov complex.
Admiral Lee helped bring our shipping company into existence, and was our first operations manager. A few years later, the chief, and the other chief, his wife, retired and joined our company.
Over the succeeding twenty plus years, Elian and I both became admirals, in charge of the X’Leem rescue operations that continued up to this very day.
Over the years we canvassed for support, held quiet suppers and did everything in our power to redeem and restore the reputation, rights and benefits that had been stripped from a man we admired so deeply.
His sudden collapse and subsequent hospitalization finally brought him back into the public eye. Some of the very people and organizations that had conspired to force him from the Fleet now led the effort to reinstate his honors. He died within hours of learning that his former rank had been reinstated. More importantly, his grandson was present at his bedside, as were large numbers of our family – his family in our hearts and minds.
Now, as Nastya, Elian, Carolyn, the chief and our extensive and still growing family congregated around his grave, we looked up as one of the X’Leem made a coughing sound, indicating that he wished to speak.
It stepped up to precisely six meters away from the grave and performed a graceful maneuver with its upper appendages that could not be accomplished by a bipedal species, but equated to a bow of deep respect.
Elian looked at me out of the corner of his eye and wiggled his fingers, a course of action I had long ago become acquainted with. I stepped forward a pace and bowed. I said, “I welcome you, Speaker for the Unborn and Ambassador for the X’Leem to the people of earth.” I spoke in English, but the being standing in front of me had learned our language, much better than I had learned hers. His.
He said, “I did not wish to intrude on your grief, yet our people have given into my hands a grave responsibility that I can accomplish in no other way. Will you forgive me this intrusion?”
I bowed again and answered in the affirmative. He twisted his body nearly backwards and reached out to another X’Leem who held an ornately carved case nearly two meters long.
He took it in two of his appendages and turned back to me. He said, “I wish to present to you, the honored friend of our Great Friend, Admiral Shin Ho Lee, a symbol of our love and respect. It gives to him no honor that he has not already earned many times over, yet it is all that we are able to do. Additionally, it carries other meanings and portents.”
He held out the case and I took it in my hands. It was heavier than I expected. I looked at Elian and he stepped over and unlatched two hand wrought silver bands. He opened it and inside we saw, nestled in a form fitted enclosure, an amazing sword. Its blade shimmered in the wan light, reminding me strongly of a Japanese Katana. It was double edged and thicker than a Katana and the handle was nearly a half meter in length, and after a moment I realized that it was meant to be held by two appendages. I had a momentary vision of that sword in the ‘hands’ of an X’Leem, and shivered.
The X’Leem watched us
for a moment then spoke, “This is an ancient weapon, what you call a hand sword, made on our home world many, many of your centuries ago. It has been handed down from generation to generation, given in to the hands of the X’Do, the individual who we anointed as our Holy One, the one who led us in peace and in war. Now, we wish that it be held by the Lesser Friend, by you, Admiral Robert David Padilla. We ask only that after you are no more, it be handed down to the one who follows in your path as the Lesser Friend to the X’Leem. There can only be one Great Friend, and he it is who you have come to honor.”
In over twenty years I had never heard any representative of the X’Leem speak either this long or in this fashion, at least to me. I began to dimly understand that I was not merely being given an artifact, I was being handed a heavy responsibility. I groaned inwardly, thinking of the chaos this was going to cause my government and the grief and additional paper work I was now inheriting.
He had paused, politely, and now resumed speaking, “Over the centuries, our species has engaged in nearly constant warfare, and that sword was wielded many, many times in the execution of those conflicts, and of our people as well. Eventually, the X’Do called for a holy war against our own colony world, and over the course of nearly sixty of your years, it resulted in the death of our peoples, and our worlds. Admiral Robert David Padilla, in your hands you hold the symbol of a great shame, but it is our hope that now, it can become cleansed of its blood, can become the symbol instead of hope for our people, and for yours as well.”
I held the heavy case in my hands and looked first at this being who had become a friend. From him, I looked to my left, past Elian to the mound of dirt that covered the man who would no longer hold my children on his lap, no longer teach me of duty and honor, the man who saved one race from extinction and another race from perpetual shame and the loss of its very soul.
I sighed, and said in formal acceptance, speaking in the tongue of the X’Leem, “This is good.”
Elian said quietly, his lips barely moving, “Better you than me, idjit.”
Hawk Seven (Flight of the Hawk) Page 81