Renegade Patriot

by Oscar Andrews

  Neffy turned his attention back to the holoviewer. “Commander, you are threatening a building that contains Federation negotiators. I suggest you stand down.”

  “What leverage do you really have out here?” asked the Commander. He knew that to get any kind of backup this far from T3 was just not realistic in the middle of a negotiation. This would all be over in a flurry of missiles, and any Federation investigation would be conducted only after the smoke had cleared.

  Neffy suppressed the urge to take a deep breath. “Commander, you need to think about what you’re doing here. So far, we’ve found little evidence to support your claims that these people have done any of the things you’re alleging. And while it seems as though you have little regard for your own life, and that of your crew, if you don’t stand down you will ignite an interplanetary crisis. New Atlantia will not only be forced to destroy your ship, but they will also need to go back to the source and take up this conflict with your colony, for the benefit of whom – I assume – you are putting yourself in this position in the first place. Your planet is at a particularly sensitive point in its development. It sounds like you are well aware of this and are invested in your people’s future.”

  He paused, giving Haafiz a chance to keep up with the logic.

  Neffy made his final appeal, “Please, Commander. Power down your weapons, and New Atlantia will also remove their lock on your craft while we resolve this.” He glanced at Xena to make sure that she would comply with this plan.

  Xena was still glaring at Neffy, as if she held him responsible for the exacerbated threat to her people. Neffy wasn’t sure from the distance of several paces away, and out of shot of the viewer, but he felt certain there was a tear in the woman’s eye. The glare continued. Neffy raised his eyebrows, asserting his dominance in this negotiation. A second later Xena reluctantly lowered her gaze and gave a stiff nod.

  Neffy looked back up at the holoviewer, awaiting a response from Haafiz. He nodded and waved his hand again. The low buzzing alert that had been filling the operations room stopped as the weapons lock was released.

  “Thank you,” Neffy acknowledged, looking first at Haafiz and then at Xena, “I’ll be in touch shortly.” He waved at the woman controlling the holo transmission and the viewer deactivated, leaving only the holographic projection of the dashboard.

  The operations team waited in stunned silence. All eyes were on either Neffy or Xena. They clearly had never seen their leader relent like that. Nor perhaps look so emotional in a high-stakes situation. Neffy suspected that Xena was normally quite locked down, but something about this was different. Sure, their analysis so far had shown she wasn’t lying about the facts, but there was clearly something else going on that they weren’t aware of.

  And then there was Haafiz.

  He was also emotional, especially for a commander of a five hundred-crew ship. First generation settlers were always a little more courageous, with a fighting spirit; but, again, this was different. He had seemed angry and almost paranoid. He mentally reviewed the man’s argument about the threat they posed to New Atlantia.

  He turned to Ally. “We need to find out what’s got him so worked up,” he muttered in a low voice, trying not to telegraph their conversation to anyone in the room, “He’s emotional about something, and we need to find out if it’s just him, or if his sentiment is shared by his crew and the Drewdonian command. With that level of anger I’d expect us to be stepping into a conflict with more history than we’ve been led to believe.”

  Ally was taking some notes on her personal holo as Neffy relayed their next steps.

  “And Xena and Haafiz…” Neffy started.

  Ally nodded curtly. “They know each other,” she finished.

  Neffy pursed his lips. “I’m thinking Federation training. Probably here on New Atlantia. I’d start there.” Then, turning to Xena, he spoke at normal volume, “We’re going to need access to your databanks. And those transmissions we talked about, please.”

  Xena nodded and signaled to one of her people to open up the access for them. “We’ve made a room available for your investigation,” she stated with a flat voice,“Follow me. I’ll take you there myself.”

  She seemed to have regained command of herself, the main threat having passed. Now she just seemed drained.

  Xena led the way out of the main operations room and back out into the corridor they’d come in through. Instead of heading all the way down to the carport, though, they took a left down a slightly smaller corridor

  Xena led them past several doors, finally stopping outside one and waving her palm in front of a panel.

  “Heat and motion activated,” she explained, “We’ve deactivated the security lock so you can use the room.”

  Neffy’s wrist holo buzzed as they stepped through into the room, alerting him to a new e-DNA message. He ignored it for the time being.

  The room had a similar feel to Xena’s boardroom just off from the main operations hall. The soft furnishing and flooring dampened any acoustic noise. The only sound was the gentle hum of the quantum-silicon hybrid computers which lined one of the walls. Cooling fluid flowed quietly around the machinery, negating the need for old-fashioned fans. There was no doubt that New Atlantia had taken their tech advantage and run with it in the last several decades. Under different circumstances, Neffy would have been fascinated to know what new developments they’d been making out here, but now wasn’t the time.

  Xena paused at the door. “Everything you’ll need to view through the holo is unlocked. If you need anything else, just contact me through the building’s holo system, callsign Xena. I’ll be in the operations room. I imagine you’ll need a few hours?”

  “Yes, to begin with,” agreed Neffy. Xena went to leave the room. “Thank you, Captain.”” Neffy nodded, making a conscious effort to maintain the rapport.

  “Of course,” smiled Xena. She turned and left, the meeting room door closing quietly behind her.

  Neffy pulled up his e-DNA reader and Ally settled down at a console with a tall stool in front of it.

  “Suppose I’ll get to it then,” Ally said, gently mocking him for getting distracted so quickly.

  Neffy read the e-DNA message. It was Trent. “You know,” he mused out loud, “something has just occurred to me.”

  Ally looked up at him curiously.

  “I’ve just realized what was nagging at me since we arrived,” Neffy spoke quietly, mulling the implications of what he was about to share.

  “What’s that?” asked Ally, suddenly curious.

  “This entire operation is run by the women. Everywhere we’ve been there have been officials of some of the highest ranks possible on a colony, and yet…no men. Apart from one, out in the operations hall. He would have been of average height and build on T3, but here, it seems as though all the women were several inches taller than average, dwarfing him.”

  Ally replayed in her mind their time out there and realized what Neffy was saying was true. Watching the replay, she could see that the lone man carried himself with deference, and was calm and responsive amidst the activity of the operation. She observed how the officials interacted with him, barely looking at him as they gave orders. He had taken a holo document from one sergeant and then scurried to a console a little closer to where Ally and Neffy had been waiting.

  “What do you think it means?” asked Ally, clearly a little bewildered, and somewhat embarrassed that she hadn’t clocked it.

  “I’m thinking that New Atlantia is a female-led culture. A matriarchy, no less!” Neffy got that gleam in his eye that he would get when they discovered something anthropologically fascinating.

  “Incredible,” he mused, “they have only been settled about 300 years, so what was that…eight or nine generations removed from T3? And for this kind of imbalance to have occurred so quickly… Incredible.”

  Neffy started replaying in his own minds-eye what he could remember about the women since they had arrived. There was und
oubtedly a tribal element to their mannerisms, and a kind of paramilitary feel to what was going on. Sure, they were under attack, but when Neffy imagined what life would be like if women were ever in the position that men were in back in the 21st century on T3, he would never have guessed that it would be a straight gender swap. He always imagined that women would operate differently…collaboratively. Inclusively. He wondered what had occurred to force them out of their normal social behaviors and to adopt such a Yang-oriented, directive stance. It reminded him once again of the legends of the Amazons, who had probably lived on the Scythian steppes. Had the harsh plains of New Atlantia produced similar conditions early in the colony’s history, leading to this unusual society?

  Ally was somewhat amused, but clearly a little uncomfortable. Accustomed to the gender equality of T3, it seemed barbaric to her that one subgroup – any subgroup – could so completely dominate another. But then, they hadn’t seen much. And this was only one man. Which led her immediately to wonder where the rest of the men were.

  “Anyway, it may not be relevant to resolving this conflict…” Neffy mumbled, shaking the thought from his head and going back to reading the e-DNA message from Trent.

  TRENT: Had one of my people in Drewdonian HQ investigate the claims of the prototype and kidnapping. Can’t find origin of the claims on the system. Looks like they were first input by Cmd Haafiz in a memo to the commander-in-chief’s office. Memo stated prototype from Project CASIMIR had gone missing. CASIMIR is apparently “off-books” so contact cannot find any evidence. Be advised: suspect report is a fabrication by Haafiz. T.

  “Looks like Trent’s people are thinking that this is a rogue mission instigated by Haafiz,” Neffy said, sharing the new intel with Ally.

  “Hmm,” Ally was immersed in the records she was accessing, “it also looks like Haafiz and Lady Warrior did know each other. They were in the same class at the Federation Academy out here but get this…their mothers also knew each other. Both were diplomats, and I’m seeing lots of communication between them over the years. About two years ago, all communication between the two families, and between Haafiz and Xena, just stops. I’m looking for their last few transmissions to see if that tells us why.”

  “It’s looking more and more like Haafiz has got a personal ax to grind,” thought Neffy out loud. Still, something in his gut said this wasn’t the whole story.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Neffy and Ally had managed to find the transmission transcripts and were sifting through them, lounging at the table, pulling up sections of what they were reading on the holoprojector so they could view the same thing at the same time. This was really where their friendship shined – rather than going out and getting drunk off-duty, or even talking at length about whatever was going on in their lives, they always felt closest when hard at work. Like two gears turning smoothly in unison. On the other hand, Neffy did feel like he was starting to drag a little. He was ready for a macca, but having inspected the various panels and consoles around the room he hadn’t seen anything that looked remotely like a replicator.

  Ally had assured him that it probably wasn’t the best move to interrupt operations in the main hall to ask Xena to play host. They’d been at this for hours, and needed a new tack.

  “Reading between the lines, then, what assumptions are the Drewdonians making?” Neffy asked, taking a new approach now that they’d been through the entire communication thread several times.

  Ally was processing. When she did this, Neffy noticed it was like her consciousness went offline and she almost disappeared from behind her synthetic eyes. The little lights just under the surface of her skin on her temple were also a giveaway. Neffy compared it to when humans processed information, and quietly wished they had as many “tells” when they were just thinking.

  Ally resurfaced behind her eyes. “There’s a lot of back and forth between the negotiators, it looks like some of the conversational context is missing but you can pick it up by reading between the lines. The Drewdonians seem to be saying that their chief engineer was kidnapped by a small group of New Atlantian women, and they keep insisting he didn’t run off with the women of his own free will. But none of the New Atlantian messages say anything about that. It’s like the Drewdonians are denying an accusation that was never made – at least not in the surviving messages.”

  Neffy ran a hand through his hair to straighten it. “That’s a little curious. Were the New Atlantians originally saying he had gone with them voluntarily – because he fell in love with one of their women, perhaps?”

  “It does kind of read like that, but it feels like some of the pieces are missing. Like someone went through and scrubbed the message logs.”

  That gave Neffy an idea. “Was Xena in on any of these conversations?”

  Ally closed her eyes for a few seconds, then opened them again. “Not the ones that seem to have pieces missing.”

  Neffy thought for a moment. “So we basically have three versions here. One where the New Atlantians stole the device and kidnapped the engineer – that’s Haafiz’s version. One where the New Atlantians are totally innocent – that’s Xena’s version. And one where the engineer ran away of his own volition with some New Atlantians. Whoever was trying to sell that version of the story is covering their tracks, so that’s probably the person who knows what really happened.”

  “That sounds about right.”

  “Okay, so how do we track down the origins of that version?” asked Neffy.

  “Well, we need more intel. And the easiest intel to get would be evidence that this engineer was trying to contact the New Atlantians to come and get him. We could also see if he was in communication with anyone else here on New Atlantia. If he was planning to come here, he would have wanted to establish a new social group.” Ally’s mind was whirring, looking for easy ways to isolate that communication. She needed a name, and started flicking through the transmissions again to find one.

  Neffy thought about her approach for a minute, then nodded thoughtfully. “Yes. Or we could follow the trail of technological insight. Are there any references to new scientific or technological projects on New Atlantia? Anything that might have been started in the last two months? If we can cross-reference that with the projects the Drewdonians are working on, we might be able to establish that the New Atlantians are piggybacking on Drewdonian tech…”

  Neffy and Ally continued sifting.

  Really, anyone could have reviewed this information; it was available to anyone who had the proper clearance. But most people did not have the training. Most people, unlike Neffy and Ally, did not know what red flags to look for. They did not know how to connect the proverbial dots. That was where Federation negotiators truly held the advantage over most would-be investigators.

  Twenty minutes went by, and Neffy leaned back from his holo, took a deep breath, and scanned the room again for a replicator that wasn’t there. He really wanted a cup of macca at this point.

  Ally looked up at him, realizing that they weren’t having much luck.

  “Still nothing on the tech that supposedly came out of Drewdonia,” she started. “I’m beginning to think that maybe it’s a bust, and they are indeed making it up. But there is something that started about two months ago. I’m seeing references to an unusual cluster of violent incidents on Drewdonia. Mostly around the main city, but last week there was one farther out, in the new terraforming dome.”

  Neffy’s attention perked up. Ally continued, “To sum up a lot of stupid little incidents, it all comes down to men getting into arguments with each other and then throwing fists – really backwards stuff, like something out of the history books. They’re running an ongoing investigation, but I can’t see the details of any of the reports. It’s unusual for things to get this charged on any world with access to vipassanators. And there is no data that would suggest the living conditions are cramped, or that the temperatures are particularly high. We’ve got data that would give us the obvious variables from th
e other colonies. Conditions look fine.”

  “That is strange,” Neffy agreed, “I wonder what the trigger is. If it’s not environmental, maybe we’re looking at something social. A new pressure they’re under.”

  He paused, thinking for a moment.

  “We’re not going to be able to access the details of their investigation from here, though. We’ll need to tap into their local e-DNA strands, that kind of data won’t be networked with anything off-planet other than their own ships. We need to either get to Drewdonia or get to one of their consoles.” Neffy was already closing down screens and getting ready to leave.

  “Their ship, then?” asked Ally, doing the same.

  “You’ve got it. Looks like it’s time to pay Commander Haafiz a visit.” Neffy closed the last holo screen with a wave of his hand, before getting up and stretching.

  Back in the boardroom of the operations hall, Neffy and Ally had arranged for a more private communication with Commander Haafiz. Xena was no doubt streaming the transmission on a console elsewhere, but at least not having her and her warrior women in the same room gave the proceedings some semblance of a conversation, rather than an interrogation.

  Haafiz was on screen, still agitated. His crew were buzzing around, apparently not paying any close attention to what was occurring on his holoscreen.

  Good, Neffy thought. Better that he doesn’t feel like he’s got anything to prove, or a crew to perform for. Especially given what he needed to ask the man.

  “Thank you for talking with us privately, Commander,” Neffy began.

  “It’s a pleasure. I’m sure the Federation would like to see this wrapped up as quickly as possible, too.” He had switched into diplomat mode. Neffy already recognized the negotiation script Haafiz was going to try to run with during this conversation. Time to disrupt his pattern.

  “I’m going to be brutally frank with you, Commander. Federation protocol would have us dancing around information and demands at this point, but I can see that the prototype is of key importance to you. I think that’s where we should focus this conversation.”