And All The Stars A Grave.

by Greg Curtis

  Meanwhile the captain of course had his own worries. According to the records from the other expeditions, most Calderonian cities also had satellite space and air defences, which if they were still working, could place the Targ itself in danger. Daryl had been summoned several times to meetings just to discuss the possibility of hostile satellites, and how to deal with them. Just like the captain he suspected, he’d been more than a little disappointed by the way the scientists could so happily assure them it would have long since ceased to work assuming they’d even set one up on what was just a stopover world for them. It was he suspected, just another of their casual assumptions. A potentially deadly mistake. But one that the captain seemed to accept, sort of. At least he didn’t disagree with them too loudly.

  Yet if he’d been a betting man, Daryl would have wagered that the captain was putting a few interstellar credits each way. Preparing the Targ for combat just in case, using his own technicians to optimise the Targ’s weapons, who unlike the scientists, weren’t so complacent. He figured that that was why the guards who accompanied him to the lab suddenly seemed to include several of the Targ’s own engineers, and why, when he glanced at the logs of who had used the equipment between each of his tests, Force officer ranks kept showing up. He guessed they weren’t just watching him because of any trouble he might cause. They were interested in what he might find, and what they could use. Copying his research. The captain was no blind fool who the scientists could simply placate with a few vague theories.

  That pleased him more than a little. It was a comfort to know that the captain was no idiot easily led by the scientists, and a bigger one to understand that they were going to be very cautious in their approach to the dig. It was also surprisingly welcome to know that someone was paying him attention. Unofficially perhaps, and not the fellow scientists whose opinions he still valued, but he was still pleased to think that he was contributing to the expedition. That he was being useful. For a man alone on an alien ship, surrounded by people who constantly derided him about his primitive background, that was a joy. Especially one who had far too much time on his hands.

  “Are you ready?” Daryl looked up from his desk to see Halco standing there, already waiting to escort him to the meeting, and he realised that once more he’d lost himself in his thoughts and let time slip by. But that was a good thing.

  “Yes thanks Halco. A pleasant few hours of entertainment is just what the doctor ordered.” And it was. The meetings were almost like watching holo shows, filled with drama and intrigue, though mostly just untranslatable language that he was certain were insults. He got up quickly feeling suddenly eager.

  “Shall we go?”

  ********************

  The meeting was of course, stormy. They always were. But given that their destination was now only two weeks away, and everyone had their own ideas as to how to proceed, and time to prepare for them was critical, it was worse than normal. Far worse.

  Helos and Li, always bitter rivals, were at each other’s throats from the outset. Li wanted to take one of the two hundred man cruisers in the dock and land it directly on the planet, then set up a base and begin a long detailed study of the world and its base. He seemed to have no concept of the dangers that they would face, and even less of the potential loss of life if they missed a single trap. Nor, Daryl suspected, would he care if he did. The Regularan cared for facts not people.

  Helos’ plan was slightly more advanced, but only just. He wanted to send down a fleet of shuttles to explore the planet and base, which in itself wasn’t too bad an approach provided that the space and air defences were down. But once they’d determined the type and strength of the traps to be faced, he then wanted to deactivate them from orbit using the Targ, something Daryl wasn’t at all sure could be done, and then land the battleship itself. As he said, the battleship had all their labs, and it made sense to get them as close to the site as possible. Of course if they lost their only ship, even if they survived they’d be stranded for years on an alien world. Something he didn’t seem to have considered.

  Doctor Norn, one of the other Myran scientists had a different plan altogether. He wanted to attack the base from orbit, destroy its defences, and then study the remains. The others of course screamed him down, calling him a barbarian for even thinking such a thing. By the time a full space battle was over, assuming they survived, the loss of artefacts and information would be incalculable. Still Daryl figured it was the safest of the three plans, and the one he suspected the captain would go for if he had no other practical option.

  And so the arguments raged for at least two hours as the proponents of each theory raised their own arguments and then had them smashed down, only to smash down the others in turn even harder. It just went around and around in circles, with no one winning, no consensus being found and everyone getting angrier. And the more the tempers flared, the more Daryl saw how little tolerance the different races had for each other. They might present a united front to humanity and the other younger races, but among themselves prejudice and bigotry were the norm. In fact they flourished among the great races, and only the ever-present Force, and the calming influence of the Xetans seemed to stop them from coming to blows. For a group of top flight scientists from advanced races they were a major disappointment.

  Meanwhile Daryl, hemmed in by his two guards for the day, sat quietly and was for the most part ignored. Prison garb, as he’d expected, had not made him any more unacceptable than he already was. In fact, in the heat of the screaming match, he was pretty much the only one who wasn’t attacked. After all he was a nobody. Instead he just sat there quietly and let the tirade continue around him, wondering why he’d had to actually be dragged through the charade. After all they were always the same. A complete waste of time. And he’d actually been looking forward to it?

  Oddly enough he was seated next to the captain who had chosen to join the meeting. It made sense he supposed though the captain had never chosen to attend one of these meetings before. But after all it was his ship being placed in the firing line.

  It surprised him each time how little he enjoyed these meetings. He wanted to. After so much down time, he was starved for entertainment, and a free for all meeting should have been perfect. It just wasn’t though. He had at least enjoyed the first few minutes. It was just that after a while the entertainment value wore off, and what was left was a boxing match without the punching. Maybe it would have been more fun if his translator could have worked out half of what the combatants were screaming at one another. The stars only knew how little there was to interest a scientist after the novelty had worn off. Still he dutifully sat through it, patiently waiting for the end and vaguely wondering if it would ever come.

  Then in one glorious moment, the meeting was finally ended. Daryl only knew it because Helos threw up his hands in disgust, uttered something untranslatable by any of the machines, and began to walk out. It was the usual signal that the formalities were over, and the other scientists also began to rise.

  But they were all too hasty. Daryl too, as he felt firm hands on his shoulder holding him down in his seat even as he readied himself to get up. He looked up, surprised, but he didn’t resist Halco. If nothing else he knew he simply didn’t have the physical strength.

  Two guards, until then casually lounging against the wall, suddenly straightened and immediately took up positions in front of the door. Even to Daryl’s inexperienced eyes, they looked serious. The closer scientists seeing them there, hands folded across chests, or what passed for hands and chests, suddenly stopped, uncertain. And those behind them had no choice but to stop as they found the scientists blocking their path.

  “What are you doing?” Helos, at the far end of the room screamed it at the guards, though from the lengthy gaps in his translator’s words, Daryl guessed he’d said a lot more than that. The guards of course said nothing and slowly all eyes turned back to the captain who waited patiently for their attention like a teacher in a classroom
waiting for the children to remember who ruled the classroom. Silence finally returned and he didn’t even have to clear his throat.

  “Good. Now that I have your attention, would you all please return to your places.” It was an order, and well over a hundred scientists suddenly remembered that they weren’t in their nice comfortable universities lording it over their students. They were on board a Force vessel, and it had a captain not a professor. Discipline wouldn’t be a chat with a superior, it would be military, and assuming they were very bad, he could perhaps even flush them out the nearest air lock. A fate Daryl could have wished on any number of them.

  There was a slight shuffling of feet and other appendages as they did as the captain ordered, and some quiet grumbling which the translator couldn’t pick up. Daryl suspected that they were starting to feel like small children being told off by their teacher for fighting. He certainly hoped so. It was long overdue. Either way they quickly returned to their places, and for once silence reigned.

  “Thank you.” The captain was always polite, at least through his translator, which had constantly surprised Daryl. Perhaps it was part of his role. Yet if it was merely part of being a captain, he carried it to extremes. Daryl had the feeling that the captain could remain calm and respectful while sitting on an erupting volcano with lava licking at his toes. But just then, dealing with the scientists, Daryl wondered whether such restraint was warranted. A good kick up their collective hindquarters seemed far more appropriate.

  “Now that we’ve discussed and rejected all three of your plans, I suggest we move on to developing one that is acceptable. One that doesn’t risk my ship, my crew or the artefacts.” He added the last rather more forcefully, and Daryl knew he was making a point. That they were his priorities, in that order, and that he was in charge.

  “Prisoner Daryl.” The captain turned to face him and Daryl cringed. Not that he minded the captain particularly. In fact he was one of the most civil aliens he’d met, and quite frankly, being locked up by him, while not what he would have wanted, was actually also perfectly reasonable given what he’d done. Daryl had worried that his punishment might be far worse. What bothered him was simply that he suddenly understood he was being put in the spotlight for the others to shoot down again, and they would shoot to kill.

  “Yes Captain?”

  “As the only one here who has actually investigated a Calderonian city, what do you suggest we do?” The temperature rose a thousand degrees in a split second and Daryl felt the sweat start to pepper his brow as he realised he was being put squarely in the firing line. But fortunately he knew the answer. He’d been working on it for weeks. And the captain obviously knew that too. That was why he’d been given so much latitude in his research. His people had been carefully studying him as he’d suspected.

  “The same way I did on Calderon Six of course. From behind and beneath. You don’t attack a fortress from the front. You find its weakest point and break through there, then take out the defensive systems from behind. The Calderonian city I investigated was an ancient fortress. As were the ones your ancestors probed. It had once had massive land, sea, air and space defences, but less in the way of subterranean defences. They never really expected to be assaulted from underneath.”

  “When we arrive in orbit, and assuming there’s no reception committee waiting for the Targ, or that if there is we can overcome it, I can modify the Sparrow according to the local geological data, to drill a tunnel effectively through the substrata, land, and take the bug the rest of the way in. Traps can be overcome one by one, until we reach the city itself. Once inside we can deactivate the remaining air and land defences making sure the city is safe. That way only one life is at risk, mine, one ship, the Sparrow, and we have the best chance of entering the city without destroying it.”

  “That’s absurd.” Helos actually beat Li for once in condemning the human barbarian, which surprised Daryl. Usually the first words out of anybody’s mouth were some form of depreciating comment about him from Li. Presumably the annoying little Regularan had been struck speechless by the thought that the human might even be allowed to speak in the meeting let alone enter the city.

  “To let this savage even think of entering the city is unacceptable. Think of the damage he could do. His tunnelling could collapse the city. And his method is farcical. It would take weeks if not months with the primitive equipment he has. If it worked at all. We do it the way our ancestors did hundreds of years ago. We simply overwhelm its defences one by one, until there’s no more resistance, and then take the prize. There may be a few casualties, but that’s the price of such important research.”

  “A few casualties! Are you serious! Have you actually read those reports Helos!” Daryl was sure he must have, but he couldn’t help himself. Not only was he shocked by the Alers’s casual indifference, he’d waited for ages to have something, anything to strike back with at his chief assailants, and now that it was finally at hand, he felt like giving as good as he’d received for so long. Besides, the comment of ‘a few casualties’, was simply unbelievable.

  “Did you look at the field notes? The dedications? The memorials?” Of course he hadn’t Daryl realised. Helos cared nothing for such things, only the glory of putting his name beside a new discovery.

  “There were a few deaths but -”

  “A few? Like there are a few stars in the galaxy!” He only wished the translator could relay his outraged shock.

  “Antrenchant, if that’s how you say it, killed one hundred and thirty two scientists. That’s four fifths of the people in this room. And they died horribly.” He had the distinct feeling that half the room was staring in shock at the other half, as he told them the grim details. The other half was probably still wondering why the jumped up little monkey was speaking.

  “Most of them fell prey to the shock wave traps, as they kept discovering that no matter how far away they were, it simply wasn’t far enough in the open air. They died of massive internal injuries as their bodies were literally blasted into a pulp. But the dead were probably luckier than many of the hundreds of survivors, who eked out the last years of their lives in hospitals for the decades that followed, unable to walk or even breathe without mechanical aid. Hundreds more lived with serious concussive injuries for the rest of their lives.”

  “At Customarche, over two hundred died breaking in. That’s everyone in this room and a few more besides. Seven hundred others were seriously injured, limbs amputated almost randomly. The modified laser traps cut fifty of them in flaming pieces in one day alone. A really nasty way to die when you don’t even know that you’ve been hit until bits and pieces of you start falling to the ground.” There were quite a number of shudders and odd noises made as he said that, though nothing his translator could interpret. Perhaps a few of the scientists would start reading those reports after the meeting.

  “And at Leschant, which, might I point out, was the third and final city any of your ancestors investigated, the one when they should have had the most experience to help them, nearly a thousand perished, as the bolos and air defences took them out. Their shuttles were blown out of the air before they could land. The people, those who survived the crash, were hunted down and lasered into small pieces on the ground by the bolos. And they had all that previous knowledge to work with.” He noticed that a lot of eyes had turned to him, and he suspected many of those present were starting to rethink their positions.

  “This city I expect to be tougher still. After all it’s newer than the other cities and it should have the most modern versions of all their favourite traps. It may even have a working satellite defence despite your casual assertions that it’ll be dust, which could place the Targ itself at risk long before we even reach the world.”

  “You may want to die. You may want to kill all of your colleagues and the crew as well in some sort of scientific lunacy. But I have no such desire.”

  “How dare you, you -” After that the translator burst into random screech
ing as it attempted to translate whatever insults the Aler was screaming at him, and failed. At a guess Daryl probably didn’t have a lot of the anatomical equipment necessary for the curses to even be possible.

  His rant was however, cut off in mid-stream, as the captain nodded to one of his officers, and some sort of field sprang up around the Aler. Whatever it was, and it looked like nothing more than a few sparkles in the air around him, it was effective Daryl noticed. Not only did it stop the Aler’s voice from carrying outside of it, it actually prevented him from leaving, and the entire room watched the scientist bounce off its edge as he pummelled it with his fists and then tried to escape it, presumably to carry on screaming at Daryl. That didn’t stop him trying though, and Daryl could see him continuing to pummel the sparkling wall for some considerable time.

  “I have read the reports. Closely. Prisoner Daryl is correct. And his plan is the only reasonable one given the circumstances.” Daryl had expected there to be an outburst about then, but instead silence reigned once more. Not because they agreed with him though. Most eyes or other sense organs were still staring at Helos screaming his head off, and the scientists were finally realising they might have gone too far. Realising perhaps for the first time that they weren’t at home in their cosy little labs, ruling their students with iron tentacles. They were on a Force vessel and they weren’t in charge. They simply didn’t want to end up in a force field.