The Deadly Pact

by Michael Freeport

  Patho walked into the engineering bay, sandwiched between the reactor and the manufacturing bay on the third deck of Gorgon. He saw that Chief Frumaker was on watch.

  “Hi, Chief. How did the installation go?”

  Frumaker stood up from where she was sitting, watching the bank of displays that allowed her to monitor the ship’s status. “Pretty good, sir. Everything went it just as designed.” Her voice was thick with fatigue. Apparently, she’d drawn the short straw when the choice was up to see who got the watch after the frantic installation of the new power distribution system.

  “Are you going to make it, Chief?” Patho asked.

  “Yes, sir,” The chief gave him a wan smile. “Lieutenant Uller is going to spell me in another couple of hours. We all pulled triple shifts to get the system in as quickly as possible.”

  “Understood. You can ask Lieutenant Guiles to take the watch down here if you need to rack out. He’s qualified to take the engineering watch for you.”

  Frumaker tilted her head to one side while she considered Patho’s words. “Thank you, sir. I will ask him to take over here.”

  Patho returned to the bridge and found Hilleman had sent Guiles to engineering. “Let’s get underway, Exec. Once Guiles has the engineering watch, plot our jumps back to Lashmere.”

  “Aye, sir. I’ll start my calculations now.” Hilleman vacated the command chair and went to the operations console to begin plotting their course.

  “What’s our fuel status?”

  “We’re at eighty percent now. Harpy tanked us up. They arrived with extra.”

  “We can go straight home if we want,” Patho observed.

  “We can, but we’d be below twenty percent when we got there. We should stop at least once to refuel on the way.”

  Patho nodded, He was eager to return home to find out what they had learned from the captured data, but he couldn’t ignore operational protocol just because he wanted to get home a few hours sooner. “Very well. Plot a single refueling stop as close to Lashmere as you can make it. If we’re going to stop, let’s bring as much fuel home as we can.”

  “Aye, sir,” Hilleman said. “May I ask you a question, sir?”

  “Of course, Exec. Patho peered at the commander curiously.

  “What was it like? The interrogation, I mean.” Hilleman’s voice held mingled horror and fascination.

  Patho smirked. “Have you ever gotten drunk?”

  “Certainly, sir. Beer and I have a complicated, but usually functional, relationship.” He waved his right hand in a drinking motion to emphasize his point.

  “It was like that, but it also kind of made you think the guy asking the questions was the most important being in existence.” Patho sighed. “I still had a part of me that knew something was wrong, but it was impossible to really understand why something was wrong. It was more like a fly buzzing around your ear. No matter how many times you swat at it, it only goes away when it wants to.”

  Hilleman nodded. “Sorry, sir. I guess you probably don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I don’t mind. I guess I feel like there wasn’t anything I could have done. Doc Ingram from Harpy told me the drug they used is actually really similar to alcohol.”

  “Well, thanks for telling me, sir. I have our course plotted.”

  “Very well. Station the underway watch and turn in. I want you up in time for normal second watch. I’ll let Guiles know he has third watch.”

  “Aye, sir.” Hilleman tapped out a series of commands at his console and then turned to leave the bridge. “See you in a few hours. Sir.”

  Patho nodded and waited as the helm, tactical operator, and navigation watchstanders arrived. The ship quickly cleared for point to point transit. A moment later, it vanished through its jump ring.

  The return trip and refueling proceeded without incident. Gorgon flashed back into the Lashmere system and broadcast her arrival on the instant comms network. A few minutes later, Gorgon received a hail.

  Patho was on watch, along with most of his crew being up and ready for their return to port. Patho said, “Put the message up, Mister Guiles.”

  Admiral Stokes face appeared on the main plot. His lips curved into one of his rare smiles. “Welcome home, Captain.”

  “Thank you, sir. I wish I could say it was a boring and tedious trip. Thank you for sending Fuchs after us.”

  “My pleasure, Captain. We have a briefing scheduled for later today. Once you’re docked and settled in, let me know, and we’ll meet up.”

  “Sir, may I ask, what’s the purpose of the briefing?”

  “Firstly, we’ll talk about what happened with the Aeternum; then I’m going to debrief you on the mission to Xalcek, and, lastly, we plan to talk about our next steps.”

  “Aye, sir. We’re scheduled to make space dock in nine hours. I’ll comm you once the ship is secure and the in port watch is set.”

  “Very good, Captain. See you in a few hours.” The main plot switched back to the system overview it had been displaying before Stokes had commed.

  Eleven hours later, Stokes was headed across one of the many plazas that dotted the Lashmere Naval Headquarters grounds. He saw a familiar face coming towards him.

  “Agent Cobb, what a surprise to see you here. Lashmere Intelligence is more than twenty kilometers away.”

  Cobb, who had obviously been lost in his own thoughts, stopped short when he saw Stokes. Stokes watched as a red flush spread across Cobb’s features, and his hands balled into clenched fists. “Admiral,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “I’m no longer an agent if you must know. I’m assigned to enforcement, here at the headquarters front gate.”

  A small, ugly flash of petty satisfaction burned through Stokes’ thoughts before he quickly squashed it. “I see.” Stokes nodded slightly, unsure of what to say. Stokes wasn’t about to rub the man’s face in what had happened to him. He started to walk by when Cobb spoke again.

  “I won’t forget what’s happened to me, Admiral. I will never forget how you and your pet Karn have turned my life into a shattered ruin.”

  Stokes’s struggled to make sense of Cobb’s words. “Mister Cobb, you’re treading on dangerous ground. I don’t take kindly to threats.”

  “Oh, it’s no threat, Admiral. It’s a promise.” Cobb strode off briskly from Stokes, towards the front gate.

  Stokes watched the man go. Reporting the conversation would do little good. Cobb would just deny having said anything out of line. Trying to put the incident out of his mind, Stokes went to the briefing.

  Stokes went to the briefing, where he met up with Captain Patho, Admiral Misato, Captain Fuchs and several other fleet captains.

  Misato looked around the nondescript room at the gathered officers. “Gentleman, please be seated.” The gathered men and women sat around the long, wooden table. “Our purpose here today is threefold. First, we will discuss our recent infiltration of the Alliance headquarters. Our intel section has decoded a vast amount of data from the downloaded information.

  “Several key pieces of information need to be disclosed. The first is regarding the Woduur.” A collective indrawing of breath could be heard around the table. “For those of you who are unaware, the Woduur are the original manufacturers of the Aeternum. Information gleaned from the Aeternum database gives us conclusive points in a timeline from the ship’s original manufacture and its departure from Lashmere. The ship was in the hands of several races over that time. One race, the KKTKL were obviously hostile to the Woduur. We haven’t located any information about where they may be, but we intend to try to locate them as potential allies.

  “We’ve also gathered some information about the interspecies relations between the Woduur, the Alliance, the Ulef, which is what the crabs are actually called and another group, called the Etyrni.

  “The Woduur, as a race, are particularly concerning. They are a race of cyborgs. Their race appears to have no understanding of morality as we understand it. They value onl
y a few things, as the Alliance tells it, at least. They are driven by making deals and defining Alliances in explicit terms. Races or groups they haven’t specifically agreed not to attack are fair game to them. They consider those races or groups to be ripe for exploitation. The Alliance maintains records of the Woduur operating slave camps and trading in sentient beings as though they are any other commodity.”

  Misato paused to take a drink of water before continuing. “The Woduur will trade anything they can produce, procure or capture if they feel the agreement is to their advantage. Their one redeeming trait, if you can call it that, appears to be that they honor all contracts they make to the letter. One more important thing we’ve learned is that the Woduur originally produced the Omega plague which nearly destroyed humanity.” Several officers gestured for attention. “Please hold all questions until the end of the briefing.

  “Next we will share important information on the Alliance. They are made up of five races. The Alliance was formed for the purpose of mutual aid and military protection from humans. Humans and the Alliance were in a state of war for more than fifty years. During that time, the Alliance met up with the Woduur and contracted them to create the omega plague. It was intended to destroy humanity utterly. The very fact that any of us still exist anywhere is something of a miracle.

  “The Alliance currently has a firm stance of non-aggression. Although they do get into frequent border clashes with the Ulef. They always take a defensive stance in those skirmishes. No offensive action has been taken by the Alliance in more than four thousand years. They did get into conflict with another race not long after the humans were defeated. That race, which has a name that’s unpronounceable, appearing only as a series of symbols, was also completely trounced. We think that these two incidents are the root of their current ideology of defense only in military matters.

  “We don’t know if the Woduur assisted the Alliance with this second aggressor, but it appears likely. Once the Alliance defeated humanity, they made several cryptic statements in the database about it being some sort of grand prize. Whether that simply means the prestige of capturing an enemy’s home planet or if Earth itself holds some secret, we don’t know. No other information about Earth was held in the Alliance database. As a result of these pieces of information, it has been decided that Admiral Stokes will take a large portion of the fleet and mount an expedition to Earth. He will speak to these plans when he has the floor.

  “The Ulef are sworn enemies of the Woduur. We don’t have information about the origins of their conflict, but the Alliance does note that they engage in frequent, and often vicious, battles against one another. The Ulef have no actual political structure. They operate in a kind of distributed intelligence. All Ulef are capable of independent action and thought, but, when grouped, they tend to sort themselves into cohesive groups that act in a highly efficient manner. There is no social strife or political wrangling by power hungry individuals in their society. When one Ulef is superior, the rest follow that individual.

  “Their infrastructure is a bit unconventional. Their ships and installations are grown from raw materials. The process is actually similar to the Woduur manufacturing technology in effect, but the process is quite different apparently. There were no imagers, and the description includes very little I haven’t mentioned here. For now, I think we’ll have to accept that they just use a process similar to what the Woduur technology uses.

  “We have also located a likely location for their home system. They are nomadic in the long term. They consume all usable resources in a system, and they spread slowly over many years, leaving behind barren and useless husks of planets behind them. Their fleet is many thousands of ships. Most of their ships are small, carrying fewer than twenty individuals. The overall makeup appears to be similar to what we faced a few weeks ago.

  “It is likely that the Ulef would make a useful ally against the Alliance if we can find a way to engage them in diplomatic talks. We think the Alliance was able to send their fleet to Lashmere by way of a combination of technologies. At the edge of the Xalcek system is a large structure that contains a series of gravitational generators like the ones used to create point to point jump rings. There is a high likelihood that the ships could have used part of their built-in faster than light system to lower the energy requirements to make the trip in a single jump. Our scientists are still analyzing the fragmentary data we retrieved from the structure.

  “The Ulef, when presented with unexpected developments, will typically pause and reconsider their options. If there are several dominant leaders within a single group, they can sometimes struggle for several days or even weeks while they come to a decision. Their decision-making process is one of efficiency and probability. The Alliance notes that the Ulef won’t make a move unless they believe it will result in a very high chance of success. We believe that this is why the Ulef fleet paused for so long once the ships had been sent away from the Xalcek system. They were, in all probability, trying to decide if they would send their ships back to Xalcek or wipe us out and then take their remaining fleet to attack Xalcek. We’re still not sure how the Xalcek got them through the jump ring to the fleet that was approaching Lashmere. They clearly did not expect us to put up such stiff resistance.” Chuckles sounded around the table, and grim smiles were on most of the officers’ faces.

  “That said, the Ulef are probably our most likely ally, given current attitudes where humans are concerned. The Alliance firmly believes we are an aggressive and dangerous race that has no regard for their peculiar brand of morality. Since the Alliance has a history of working closely with the Woduur, this strengthens our case with the Ulef. If possible, all captains are directed to engage in negotiations with the Ulef in an effort to gain a stance of mutual defense. Also, please make all of your crews aware that they are called Ulef, not crabs.

  “The last group outlined in this briefing is the Etyrni. They are a group of three races, all of whom are genetically compatible. The Alliance doesn’t know how three races evolved to be capable of interbreeding, but the Alliance appears to find the notion unsettling. The Etyrni are organized into loose groups of followers under regional leaders, sometimes over an entire sparsely settled planet or moon, and sometimes there will be several of these leaders in a single city. There appears to be no set rule for how they organize themselves.

  “The Etyrni Empire occupies most of the territory once held by the old Terran Empire. They occupy more than five hundred worlds and the Alliance estimates there are more than sixty-five trillion individuals in their empire.” There were low whistles from around the table. “Their fleet is similarly staggering in size. They have no formal organization, but they respond to external threats vigorously. If possible, I would like us to begin learning how to either peacefully interact with the Etyrni or, better still, enlist their aid. If we can begin peaceful trade and agreements to pass through their territory, that would be an ideal start.”

  Misato took another large swallow of his water. “I will now entertain questions and comments.”

  Patho raised his hand. After being acknowledged, he asked, “Sir, what plans do we have regarding Captain Hanlon, Admiral Drogue and any other survivors of the expeditionary force?”

  “We will send a stealth corvette to scout the planet the Alliance has determined is the current Ulef home system. If we can negotiate for the release of any humans, we will. If not, then we will take our people back.”

  “I volunteer for the mission, sir,” Patho interjected just as Misato stopped speaking.

  “Your zeal for the mission is appreciated, Captain. You will be in command of a trio of stealth corvettes detailed to scout and rescue any survivors. My staff will have a series of diplomatic objectives packaged for you, should you find yourself in a position to actually negotiate with the Ulef. Gorgon, Banshee, and Siren will be assigned to the mission. Captain Fuchs will stay in Lashmere, in command of the remaining stealth fleet while you’re away.

  Pat
ho nodded, feeling a grim satisfaction settle over him. “Excellent. I appreciate the opportunity, sir.”

  Misato gave him an encouraging look. “Your bravery and willingness to engage in these missions are of great credit to you, Captain.” Stokes smiled and nodded to Patho while Misato was speaking.

  Misato said, “Are there any other questions?”

  Fuchs spoke next. “Sirs, are we planning on sending a delegation to the Etyrni, perhaps to find out if we can open diplomatic relations with them?”

  “We would like to. The issue with the Etyrni, of course, is that there is no central government for us to contact. Each regional ‘ruler’ can negotiate a different deal. It would take hundreds of years to meet with them all, and the Alliance information suggests that they change leaders frequently. We plan to try to build a reputation with the Etyrni, rather than some kind of formal relations. If we can somehow let it be known that we are valuable and formidable allies to the Etyrni, rather than trying more formalized arrangements, then we will have a common basis to speak to all Etyrni as we meet them.”

  Captain Powell of the Lachesis said, “Do we plan to try to recover the Aeternum?”

  Misato sighed and said, “As of now, we don’t know where the ship went, and information gleaned from the long-range sensors indicate the ship was travelling more than ten times as fast as any Alliance ship we’ve seen when it departed Lashmere. We are considering building a new five-kilometer ring to replace Aeternum, rather than recovering the original. We estimate it went directly back to the Woduur as the recordings indicated and has probably already arrived in one of their systems.”

  Another captain said, “do we have plans to investigate Earth?”

  “We do,” Misato said. “Admiral Stokes, would you like to take the floor?”