Luthra growled as the pounding increased, then transitioned to screaming metal. He turned in time to see the lift doors burst open. Several crew members climbed through the twisted doors. They’d rigged some heavy object at the top of the lift shaft by some cable and used it to bash open the doors.
“Why did you not use a cutting torch!” Admiral Luthra bellowed.
“Had we access to one, we would have used it, Admiral Luthra, Sir!” came the impertinent response from a woman whose insignia told the Admiral she was a Sergeant.
“Speak to me in that tone again and back down that shaft you go, lift or not! Take your stations, all of you! Status report! Now!”
The bodies climbing up the shaft turned into a bridge crew. Soon all stations were staffed.
“Consoles are not responding, Admiral,” the impertinent Sergeant said.
“Engineering!” Luthra called over open comm. No response. “Find out what is going on, somebody!” The Admiral grew more frantic as the seconds passed.
A familiar voice filled the room. The main display wall flashed to life. A holographic image of Colonel Artemis Blevins appeared.
“Dear Admiral Luthra,” the holographic recording said, “I regret to inform you that I am leaving the service of the BJP military effective immediately. Please accept my resignation and my regrets for the circumstances under which it is made. I feel duty bound to inform you of my reasons.
You see, I can no longer stomach the command of the grasping, selfish, honorless climber you have become. It is my considered opinion that you are not fit to prosecute this war, as you serve your own interests above those of the BJP worlds, the Trade Union itself, and the principles for which they both stand.
The common criminals and simple traders of the Resistance Alliance have more honor than you. I would rather serve under a criminal than take one more order from you. The Armada crews have displayed courage and a genuine desire to end this horrid war before more lives are lost. All I have seen from you is a pathological will to seize advantage. If the Armada will have me, I will serve it in any capacity in which I am able.
You were once a fine soldier. Please take the advice of the former General who once instructed you. Stay behind in the Medina system. Use your fleet to defend the trade routes between Medina and the BJP worlds. Make sure the Reptilian prisoners are well-treated and that they do not become a threat. You may yet find your honor again in this humble, yet crucial service.
Goodbye, Admiral Luthra.”
***
Laughter made his head hurt all over again, but Drexler did not bother to stop himself. Blevins ended his story by describing the message he left for Admiral Luthra.
“You said all that?”
“Possibly more,” Blevins replied. “Who can remember all of an impassioned speech once it is made? I set the recording to run automatically once the console recognized the Admiral.”
“We can definitely use a man like you,” Drexler said. “I imagine this fleet shakeout has left more than a few ships short of crews on both sides.”
“Yes,” Blevins said. “The last I heard, there are major command problems on both sides. Very few ships are entirely on one side or another.”
Drexler stopped laughing. “That’s not so funny. Dangerous.”
Blevins fixed his eyes to Drexler’s in agreement.
“I better get back to my bridge,” Drexler said and stood. He reached the cafeteria door and realized Blevins was not behind him. “Are you coming?” Drexler called back.
“Damn right I am,” the old man said, scrambling from his seat.
“Captain!” Nuva screeched.
“Sorry!” Drexler said, scurrying back to the table to retrieve his drink. “I have it now, Nuva!”
33
“What the hell is phase three?” Abhay asked.
“I don’t know. I got a text-based message in Tradespeak from an unknown source that simply read ‘prepare phase three.’” Sahar said. She and Margaret pored over display scrolls trying to figure out how the whole affair would play out.
It had been three hours since the two space fleets disintegrated into chaos. Someone jammed broadcast communications, allowing only ship-to-ship contact. Communication was slow and cumbersome and seemed heavily filtered. Messages with specific content found no answer in the fleet. As the breakdown in communication became more granular, Abhay realized this was all part of the plan.
He began to admire the plan’s elegance as it played out. The power struggle between the BJP Fleet and the Resistance Armada unfolded not in weapons fire, but in shipboard arguments. Because it was so difficult to coordinate a battle formation, no shots were fired between ships. This was a political struggle. But Abhay saw that window closing. Sooner or later, someone would figure out how to start fighting.
The BJP was slowly returning to readiness. Admiral Luthra was heard on comm channels an hour after the initial dust-up. It appeared he had big command authority issues of his own. The holographic resignation video of General Blevins took up a great deal of the data transmissions bouncing from vessel to vessel. Watching that video made Abhay respect his old General more than he thought possible. The man was demoted to Colonel and sounded proud to retire at that rank. He wished Blevins was on the Forest Child transport with him now. Abhay consoled himself with the fact he would get to see Blevins soon. They headed to Fleetfoot I after Ambassador Dhohal’s brief trip to New Detroit.
Abhay finally left the conference room and headed to the bridge. There, he saw the chaos first hand. Ships formed clusters with personnel transports relaying between them as crews divided their loyalties between the two fleets.
“I am grateful nobody is shooting,” Abhay said as he took a jump seat at the rear bridge bulkhead. It was one of the few seats designed for humans. Dhohal had it installed during their initial three-week trip.
The Forest Child Ambassador sat in another flight chair a few paces away. He swiveled the chair toward his human friend. “We have some reports of interpersonal violence on the ships themselves, mostly among the same species who disagree. Interspecies violence seems rare.”
“We have too much of that already,” Abhay replied.
“Indeed,” Dhohal said, letting his three-jointed arms relax and fall knuckles down to the deck. His massive chest rose and fell as he took relaxed breaths.
“You look surprisingly calm,” Abhay said.
“Sometimes storms calm me,” Dhohal replied.
Abhay nodded his head slowly as the transport threaded its way through space traffic without the benefit of broadcast flight control. Fleetfoot I emerged from the jumble. The transport headed for the keel, where the main shuttlebay door opened to accept the entire vessel.
Abhay headed to the rear airlock when the landing struts settled down on the deck. The transport lurched and swayed briefly. He found Margaret already at the door, luggage in hand. Two duffel bags lay at her feet, and a backpack made her look like a humanoid turtle. Abhay picked up one of her duffel bags and Margaret started down the ramp as soon as it hit the deck.
“Where are you going?” Abhay asked.
“To our quarters,” Margaret replied.
“We have quarters?” Abhay asked.
“If I know my brother, he’ll have my old quarters clear and ready.”
And he did. They took the lift to the top deck, where they walked along the dorsal corridor to a cabin at the end. The door opened for Margaret on its own. Then Abhay remembered Reggie.
“Welcome home, Margaret,” the ship AI said. “And welcome aboard, Mr. Nautiyal.”
“Hello, Reggie,” Abhay said, looking up at the ceiling for some reason he could not fathom.
“You won’t find me there,” Reggie said. “I reside in the ship itself, but I am not the ship.”
“How dharmic of you to say,” Abhay replied.
“Perhaps,” Reggie said. “I never thought of it that way.”
“Reggie, the fact that you can think at all no longer terrifies me,” Abh
ay replied.
“Well, I was not aware that it did, but it is good that it no longer does, I suppose,” Reggie said.
“Where is Drexler?” Margaret asked.
“On the bridge,” Reggie replied.
It was a long walk down the corridor to the bridge. They climbed down two flights of stairs to get to the bridge level and took one of the ladder tubes to the deck. Drexler turned toward the motion. His bridge was a busy place these last few hours. He woke up to an entirely new game that he struggled to play.
“Just in time,” Drexler said, cup in hand. He sipped dutifully from the nutritional drink as Nuva ordered.
“You look like crap,” Margaret said in Ancient English.
“Lovely to see you too, big sister,” Drexler answered. “Someone shot me with a tranq round, and Samuel pumped me up with some kind of wonder drug to wake me up.” Margaret shook her head and walked around the bridge.
“Hello Abhay,” Drexler said in Tradespeak. “There is someone here you may know.”
Blevins poked his white-haired head above the flight chair in which he reclined while he studied a display scroll. Abhay strode toward him with a twitching face. He stood before the former General and gave a crisp salute, then stood at attention. Blevins returned the salute with obvious reluctance. Drexler supposed he was unsure of his place in the military scheme of things. Abhay stood awkwardly for a few moments. His hands fidgeted, and his face continued to contort until he grunted and gave the old man a bracing hug and several slaps on the back. Both men came away red-faced but beaming.
“Two emotional sophisticates,” Margaret said, observing the scene as she sidled up to her little brother.
“Yeah, that was pretty painful to watch. Not everyone can be so free and open with their human emotions like you and me,” Drexler replied.
“Ha!” Margaret said, and punched Drexler hard in the shoulder.
“Case in point,” Drexler said, rubbing out the bruise.
The main bridge lift opened. The car was impossibly crowded with Mumlo, Darzi and her four soldiers, Huey, Dewey and the Broodmother herself.
“I did not know that lift could hold so many bodies,” Drexler said.
Panting human breath came from one of the ladder tubes, and Gajrup appeared on deck, winded and flushed. “What’s going on?” He asked with a measure of urgency Drexler began to notice from the other arrivals as well.
“This is what I want to know,” Mumlo grumbled.
A moment later, Boljak swung through the opening of a ladder tube by a thread and landed on two of his lower limbs. “I got here as soon as I could,” He said. “What is the emergency?”
“I don’t know,” Darzi said. “Reggie signaled us to come to the bridge immediately.” She avoided Drexler’s eyes when he looked her way. Margaret registered shock, and her head bounced from Darzi to her brother and back.
“Leave it alone,” Drexler cautioned her as his cheeks turned splotchy red.
“This ought to be interesting. I’ll get your report later,” Margaret said and walked over to Mumlo, who folded his stubby legs and sat to lean on one of his elbows. Margaret leaned against him as she had from childhood.
“What is going on, Reggie?” Drexler asked.
Reggie answered over the open bridge comm. “Phase three,” Reggie replied.
“This plan was yours?” Abhay asked, mouth gaping.
“Only partially. I helped a bit, but I can claim phase three entirely. It was our intrepid Darzi who came up with phases one and two, with the help of certain friends of Abhay on New Detroit. Many people took part in this operation.”
“Hello, Lieutenant Darzi,” Abhay said, crossing the room to shake her hand.
“I never thought I’d see you again, Senator Colonel,” Darzi said. She released his hand and gave him a proper military salute.
Abhay returned the gesture and said, “I am no longer a Colonel or a Senator, so I am afraid that will be our last salute.”
“Nor am I a Lieutenant,” Darzi said. “I’m not sure what I am.”
Darzi stole a quick glance at Drexler, who caught her eyes, as he could not stop glancing her way. The tiny hint of a smile electrified his spine. He cleared his throat and shifted uneasily on his feet. If Abhay noticed the exchange, he did not show it. Margaret, however, was another matter. She was a keen observer of human actions. Drexler warned her with a pointed finger and raised eyebrows.
The Feline Midge was back on comm duty, and she announced a call. “Broadcast channels are open. I have a general hail from Luthra.”
“Thank you, Midge,” Drexler said. “Let’s not abandon courtesy entirely just because Admiral Luthra happens to be an opponent.”
“Understood,” Midge said. “Admiral Luthra is calling.”
“Let everyone hear what he has to say,” Drexler said.
Midge piped his signal into the bridge. “…all ships of the former Armada are to proceed to the designated coordinates for muster. Anyone obeying the orders of the criminal Captain Fleetfoot will be considered in mutiny against this fleet. To all BJP craft: return to formation immediately!”
Drexler restrained laughter, but the smirk on his face could not be restrained. He did not want to gloat but found it difficult to do otherwise.
“Darl,” Drexler called to his Simian Operations officer. “What is the status out there?“
“It looks like seventy-five ships are still in the Resistance Armada. The BJP fleet is slowly returning to formation,” Darl reported.
“Well,” Drexler replied. “It looks like we lost more than half of our force.”
“You will not need so many ships,” Reggie replied.
Drexler cocked his head and asked, “Why is that, Reggie?”
The answer came through a lurching bridge deck. The ship trembled with a deafening rumble. Alarm klaxons blared
“Ops! Status!” Drexler bellowed.
“Power spikes all over the ship! The outer hull is breaking apart! We are losing hull plates!”
Drexler ran over to the transparent bulkhead. Large chunks of the outer hull drifted off into space. “Reggie!” He shouted, “What’s going on!” Reggie did not reply. Most of the ships in view were of the same model as Reggie. They also cast off large sections of their outer hull. The exposed bulk beneath glowed bright white. Particle emitters peeled away from the superstructure after the hull plates disappeared.
“This is it,” Abhay said, looking around the trembling bridge with an expression of wonder. He was the only person who did not appear utterly terrified.
“Have you bumped your head?” Drexler asked. “The ship is falling apart!”
“Compute stack is spiking!” Gajrup shouted. “The quantum core is overheating. We are losing the AI!”
“Can you stop it?” Drexler asked.
“No!” Abhay shouted. “This is the final protocol! The ships are waking up! Reggie is the seed ship.”
“The seed ship!” Darzi shouted.
“Oh, not that seed ship business again!” Drexler replied. “Can’t we forget that foolishness?”
“I’m afraid it is not foolishness, Drexler,” Reggie said.
“Finally!” Drexler replied. “What is going on with you?” The ship continued to lurch and rumble.
“Take a look at the other ships like me. That is the general idea.”
Drexler returned to the viewing bulkhead. The ships had transformed. Some cast off their cargo holds as their bodies expanded. They grew new sections like living organisms. Structures appeared in the form of long, sweeping arms, bulky blocks and reaching towers as humble freighters turned into battleships.
“Darl,” Drexler said. “Launch a maintenance probe. Show me an exterior of my ship.”
The operations officer complied and in seconds, a distant view of the Fleetfoot I emerged.
“There is a lot more bulk here,” Drexler said. The slight arc of the ship’s spine was more pronounced. All the particle emitters were gone, and the hull sh
one a dull red in some places, burnt orange in others. Several large, triangular structures projected out a few dozen meters from the hull. From the ends of those triangles, long, cylindrical booms grew. “Weapons beam projectors,” Drexler whispered, “they must be.”
“Yes,” Reggie said. “But they have other uses.”
“You are much longer,” Drexler remarked.
“Now a full Kilometer,” Reggie replied.
“Where did all the extra mass come from?” Drexler asked.
Gajrup had the answer. “Remember that material Benny and I showed you?”
“The stuff in the suits?” Drexler asked.
“Yes,” Gajrup replied. “It exists somewhere between matter and energy.”
“Reggie, what are you?” Drexler asked as he watched the ship engine sections grow.
“I am an instrument, a servant, and a guide,” Reggie replied with no hint of sarcasm or mockery.
The rumbling faded into slight vibrations in Drexler’s boots. Nobody found a word to say, and Drexler scanned faces that displayed everything from wonder, to confusion, to terror.
“Abhay,” a now-familiar voice came across the comms. “Abhay, please respond,” Admiral Luthra called.
Margaret speared Abhay with a gaze from across the bridge, “Play nice,” she said. “We have the advantage.”
“This is Abhay, Malik. What do you want?”
“I want to end this peacefully,” the Admiral replied. "I know when I am defeated. The seed ships do not respond to my commands."
Abhay reddened and clenched his fists. “You are calling the wrong person,” he replied.
“Admiral Luthra,” Drexler replied. “My friend and colleague is correct. I represent the Resistance Armada. I have the authority to conduct negotiations on behalf of this independent body.” Drexler put emphasis on the word ‘negotiation,’ then made a slicing motion across his throat. Midge muted the channel. “Can he hear me?” Drexler asked.
“Muted,” Midge replied.
“Is that right?” Drexler asked, scanning the bridge. “I mean, do I still command the Armada?”
“Now, he loses confidence,” Margaret said, throwing up her hands.
Rogue Messiah: Fleetfoot Interstellar Series, Book 2 Page 35