by Saxon Andrew
“Yes.”
Jinks pressurized his suit and said, “Open up, Jester.”
“I don’t like this.”
“Neither do I, however, open it up.” The cockpit depressurized and lifted. Jinks climbed out and used his suit jets to move to the lifeboat’s bay. He moved inside and waited for it to pressurize. He heard his suit computer say, “Atmosphere is breathable.” He removed his helmet and saw six Johan move into the landing bay with hand disruptors drawn. He looked at them and waited. One of them took a step forward, “You don’t appear to be worried about our weapons.”
“Take a shot.”
“If I did that, I’ll probably be executed. The Great Leader ordered me to see what you had to say. Why didn’t you just send it over our communications?”
“Anything said electronically will be heard by your friends waiting for you to make a break for freedom.”
The Pilot looked at the others, “Put your weapons away.” They grudgingly holstered their disruptors. “What do you want?”
“We don’t like having your ships in our system.”
“We don’t like being here at the moment.”
“I’m going to give you something you can use to escape the Welken and Myot ships.” The Pilot stared at Jinks. Jinks smiled, “At this point you’re supposed to ask why we would do that.”
The Pilot jerked and said, “Why would you do that?”
“We know you’re dead if you leave and if we decided to remove you, you would also be dead. We don’t believe in killing just for killing’s sake. We have a substance you can spread on your ship’s hulls that will make them invisible to the Myot and Welken scanners.”
“That’s what you used during the battle when you disappeared from our scanners?”
“Yes.”
“There has to be another reason for doing this.”
“Let your leaders work on that issue. My question is do you want our help?”
“I can’t answer that question.”
“That’s why I’m here talking with you. If you want our assistance, you are going to have to agree to some conditions to make it happen.”
The pilot was obviously suspicious, “And they are?”
“You will move your surviving ships next to one of your derelicts to cover their hulls. You should keep the derelict between your ships and your friends waiting for your escape.”
“Go on.”
“You will not energize a disruptor on any ship. If you do, the deal is off and we will attack and destroy the rest of your fleet.”
“What’s to prevent you from doing that anyway?”
“Nothing. We could do it now and not run the risk of bringing your ships closer to my planet.”
“Point taken.”
“Once you’ve covered your ships in the substance we’re giving you, you will be free to leave.”
“But how are we going to do that? They’ll see our skip traces.”
Jinks looked at the Johan and shook his head. The Johan was pale white in color and was bipedal like humans. He was shorter, the tallest of the six was only a little over five feet tall. Their eyes were narrow slits with totally green pupils. It had five fingers and a thumb and appeared to be very well muscled. It was hard to tell inside their loose fitting white uniforms. “If they can’t see you on their scanners, all you need to do is find one of the skip traces they made coming here and overlap it. Stay on it until you find another skip trace they made going in a different direction.”
The Pilot thought about the idea and smiled, “That would only work if you’re invisible to their scanners.”
“Now you’re catching on.”
The Pilot looked at the other Johan and they were all looking at each other. They didn’t know what to think about the offer. The Pilot looked at Jinks, “How do we do this if we choose to use your assistance?”
“Send in one life boat from each ship. We will escort the ship down to the planet where we will load enough of the substance to cover the ship that sent them. Once they’re loaded, bring your fleet in and start the coating process.”
“What’s to prevent us just skipping back out to our fleet with the substance?”
Jinks sighed, “And put the coating on while the Myot and Welken watch your ships slowly disappear. What would you do if you were in their place?”
“Call in more ships and scatter them around the system watching for skip drives.”
“Very good.” Jinks paused, “You don’t have to do this. Just don’t send the lifeboats and we’ll know you’ve rejected it. And one more thing. It might be a good idea put a cap on your disruptors before you send the lifeboats. A mistake might be made and it wouldn’t be a good thing.”
Jinks lifted his helmet and the Pilot said, “Wait.”
“You have the offer and the conditions. You’re wasting time.” Jinks put on his helmet and the Pilot stared at him. After a moment, he nodded and left the landing bay with the other Johan. The bay depressurized and Jinks jumped out as the door went up and floated back to Jester. He crawled into the cabin and the two ships turned and hit their thrusters. The Pilot watched them disappear and stared at his display.
“We should go.”
The Pilot looked at his co-pilot and nodded. He turned the lifeboat and energized the skip drive. This species was different from any he had ever encountered. He didn’t want to like the being who had met with him but he did. He told the Fleet Leader as much.
• • •
Jinks landed with Stoney and went out to the beach. Lukas smiled, “How did it go?”
“We’ll see. On the way here, it dawned on me that we will be giving the Johan more than thirty thousand ships that will be invisible.” Lukas nodded. “Is that a good idea?”
“The Johan have not been conquers.”
“But only because they don’t have the ships to do it.”
“If they choose to use them aggressively, it should buy us more time.”
“But what if they come back here?”
“Jinks, we didn’t use our scanners to attack them. We can see them.” Jinks thought about the battle and remembered that they had skipped out at the first sign of a skip emergence and that he targeted his disruptor screen from the visual being fed to it. “We also don’t use scanners to fire our disruptors. Coupled with the fact that we can see their force fields, I don’t see where it puts us at a disadvantage. Giving them coverage will lengthen the time we have to prepare.”
“You still think they’ll ultimately lose.”
“They don’t have the numbers. But they can use this advantage to keep the Myot and Welken off their backs for a while.”
“How?”
“They’ll visit a Welken or Myot planet and nuke one of their cities. They will then be in possession of that planet.”
Jinks started laughing. Stoney looked at him, “What do you find funny?”
Jinks stopped chuckling and said, “It’s like Lukas said; they won’t see them on their scanners but they will be able to visually see them. That means they’ll have to keep enough ships around their important planets to prevent an attack.”
Stoney shook his head and looked at Lukas, “Was this your plan from the start?”
“Actually, I just don’t believe in killing others if you’re not defending yourself.”
Amanda said, “Horse…uhhh…crap! Sorry, I almost said an expletive.” She looked at Lukas, “There are layers of things hidden in your decisions that all make up a whole. I don’t know how you do it, but I must confess that I am amazed. Yes, amazed I am.”
Salud burst out laughing and the rest of the group joined her. Lukas lifted a can or orange juice and said, “Here’s to horse crap.”
• • •
The Johan Supreme Leader looked at his Fleet Leader on his monitor, “Do you think that if you are allowed to move your surviving ships that close to the planet you could move in and take the surface?”
“Great Leader, I watched one of those small ship
s blast three battleships and escape unharmed. I think we have a ratio of three to one; it’s not enough by a long margin.”
“They could attack you when you move in with your disruptors offline.”
“They could do that now and win even if my disruptors were active.”
“Then why are they doing this?”
“It could be as simple as them not believing in unnecessary killing.”
“They had no problem killing your ships.”
“I suspect they have no issues with self-defense.” The Fleet Leader paused, “It could also be that they dislike the Myot and Welken as much as we do.”
“How would they know about them?”
“Someone landed on that planet prior to our invasion. I believe whoever it was is assisting them.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Their ships look very much like a Welken escape pod.”
“So do we do this?”
“Great Leader, if they do as they say and my ships can escape, we will be in possession of thirty thousand invisible ships.” The Great Leader’s eyes went wide. “Just think about what we could do with them?”
“Do this! Follow their instructions to the letter.”
The Fleet Leader smiled, “I will do as you command.” The display went dark and the Fleet Leader said to his Communications Operator, “Have each ship remove the disruptor from a lifeboat. Once they are done, send them to the edge of the gravity limit.” The operator began sending orders and the Fleet Leader sat back in his command chair. He looked forward to meeting the Myot and Welken. This time they would be the ones feeling fear.
• • •
Jinks watched the Johan crews working on their ships. Lukas had once more made an excellent suggestion. He had one of the medium converters produce a machine that would magnetically attach itself to the Johan’s ships hulls and spread the paraffin wax in a thin coat. Jinks realized after watching the magnitude of the surface they were going to have to cover. Without the machines, they could have been here a year covering the entire ship. He watched as more than two thousand Johan worked on one of the large battleships. They still had to cover the disruptors by hand and that was a time consuming exercise. “Admiral.”
“Yes, Julie.”
“Am I correct in assuming that more than two thousand Johan are on each of those monsters?”
“I believe you’re right. Why do you ask?”
“I was thinking that I killed more than twenty thousand intelligent beings during the last battle.”
“Does that bother you?”
“It does. Seeing them working on their ships, I can’t help but feel bad for what they went through.”
“Never lose that feeling, Julie. When you do you’ll need to turn your ship in. It’s that feeling that makes us different.”
“Thank you, Sir. I just never envisioned myself as a killer.”
“You aren’t. Killing someone trying to kill you is self-defense. It’s just their bad luck that they chose to send so many to do it.”
“How much longer do you think it’ll take them to finish?”
“The hard part is done. Getting all the items sticking out of the hull has taken the bulk of the time. The machines will make short work of covering the remainder of their hulls.”
“I could cover my Pod in less than an hour.”
Jinks chuckled, “Yeah Billy, but you’d take three times as long being the perfectionist you are.”
“I couldn’t leave a dirty mark on the Kid.”
Jinks listened to the Pod Pilots bantering with each other and felt at home. It was like this in the Seals. They would insult each other but they all knew they loved their comrades and would be willing to die to save them. These pilots were going to be the leaders of the massive fleets that were being built. They had their trial by fire and were ready. Now if they could just be given enough time to build the fleets. He looked at the Johan on his monitor again and hoped they would help make that happen. He thought about the meeting he had with the Johan Fleet Leader.
“Sir, I have a single lifeboat moving toward the gravity limit.”
“Does it have a disruptor?”
“No, it does not. Sir, it stopped and is hanging in space fifty miles out.”
“Gunny.”
“Yeah, Jinks, I mean Admiral.”
Jinks smiled, “Follow me out and keep me covered.”
“Make sure you have your personal force field on.”
“I will.” Jinks moved out beside the lifeboat and saw the bay door open. “Open up, Jester.”
“Here we go again.”
Jinks smiled as his suit pressurized and the cockpit opened. He was right outside the bay and he didn’t need his suit jets to push off his pod into the bay. He moved across the small bay and stopped himself on the opposite wall. The door closed and the internal gravity came on as the bay pressurized. He removed his helmet when his suit gave an all clear. He saw the door to the lifeboat’s small bridge open and a Johan Officer step through. He knew it had to be an officer. His uniform had a formal appearance with numerous items pinned to it. He was in direct connection with Jester who helped with the translation, “Are you the one that met with my pilot?”
“I am.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I told your pilot my reasons.”
“There’s more to it than that.” Jinks remained silent and the Johan said, “I am the Commander of this fleet.”
Jinks smiled, “You’re taking a risk coming here.”
The Johan waved an arm, “You could have killed me if you chose. You didn’t, so this isn’t as much of a risk as you might think.” Jinks nodded. The Johan said, “I believe you are doing this to buy time to build more ships.” Jinks just stared at him without changing his expression. “You don’t have to confirm it. I don’t expect you would do that.”
“You are wise. Why did you come here?”
“I also believe that you’re doing this to delay the Myot and Welken managing to take possession of your planet.”
“That would not be a good thing.”
“No, it wouldn’t. There’s been discussion about my Ruler becoming an ally of them. We’ve also had numerous offers from other Fellowship Members to ally with us against them if we would allow them to use the resources of your planet.”
“It sounds like you’re very popular.”
The Fleet Leader actually smiled at that. He leaned against the wall and said, “I was sitting in my chair thinking about what allies we should join with and it dawned on me that the one that could help us the most hasn’t approached us.”
“Who would that be?”
“You.” Jinks’ eyebrows came together. The Fleet Leader smiled, “Ahhh, that surprised you.”
“Why would we do that?”
“As you said to my pilot. Let your leaders figure that out.”
“You should know that we will not allow our technology to be used to conquer others.”
“Really?”
“We don’t hold with imposing one’s will on another civilization.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, that’s all that’s going on outside your planet.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“Point taken, however, I’m sure we can discuss the details of what your restrictions mean. Would you allow your technology to remove a civilization that’s attacking you?”
“Of course.”
“Then we’re not that far apart.”
“We will not allow you to take our natural resources to build your ships.”
“Don’t need them. We can build our own ships. We need you to help us make them strong enough to hold off our enemies.”
Jinks stared at the Fleet Leader and said, “This is not something I can make a decision on.”
“I suspected as much. But I also believe you will have a large say in whatever you decide.”
“It’s a moot point if your ruler doesn’t buy in to this.”
“Just how do you know?”
“If he doesn’t, I’ll remove him and take his place.” Jinks’ eyes went wide. “My pilot told me he liked you. I can see why. We’re going to make an escape shortly and I need to know if you are willing to accept us as an ally.”
“How will I be able to tell you?”
The Johan reached in his pocket and handed Jinks a small clear device, “Use the frequency of this device to contact me. I’ll be attempting to persuade my Ruler to do this. I won’t take action unless he refuses. I won’t then unless you accept this offer.”
“Why would you do this?”
“You’re the first species I’ve run across that travels a different path than the Fellowship. I can see you can be trusted to keep your word and that is a really rare commodity from where I come from. Let me know what you decide.”
“I’m serious about not using our technology to impose your will on others.”
“I’m comfortable with that. I’d be happy just to be able to live in peace.”
Jinks nodded, “I’ll let you know either way.”
“No, just let me know if you decide to do it. Others will see a transmission come in and wonder who sent it. Only contact me if you’re willing to trust me to work with you.”
Jinks stared at the Fleet Leader and knew what his pilot felt. He liked this particular Johan. He put on his helmet and the Fleet Leader left the bay and depressurized it. Jinks pushed off the side of the lifeboat and grabbed Jester’s hull as he passed. He climbed back in the cockpit and it closed. It pressurized and Jinks took off his helmet, “I really hope you recorded that conversation.”
“Hey, I had to act as translator, of course I recorded it.”
“Connect me with Willow.”
“Yes Jinks.”
“I’m sending you a recording. Please give it to Lukas ASAP.”
“My, this is interesting.”
“What did Lukas say?”
“He says that the decision is entirely yours.”
“WHAT?”
“He says the decision…”
I heard you.”