Chutes & Ladders (Prosperous Book 1)

by A. Rhea King

  “Emperor, you know Oadagan will bond with their captain and are unwaveringly loyal. This one has been with this Captain Barenett’s family for two generations – we haven’t had one with a captain longer than a couple of years. Living that long with humans means it is accustomed to their beliefs of individualism and government practices. If it gets near any of our Oadagan, it could spread the weakness in human beings among our ships and make them believe we are wrong. I encourage you to order this Oadagan, and its captain killed instead.”

  Emperor Lixu thought for a moment and then shook his head. “I will destroy it only if I have to, but from this information, it may only be a fledgling and female. Our two females are getting old and producing less and less offspring. We need it to continue supplying our ships. I want you to present this information to our scientists and physicians, and find a way to capture it. And let all captains know that they must be careful not to allow their ships to communicate with this one, not even for a moment. We can’t risk her poisoning them with human ideals.”

  “Yes, Emperor. I know you don’t wish to reprimand Amidien, Emperor, but understand that he left the Eslin system before he was ordered. Officers reported that he was reluctant to carry out your orders. I’m concerned he may compromise your plans, sire.”

  “I’ve read the reports. His loyalty concerns me as well.” Amidien thought about the problem for a moment. “Send troops to pick up his family and have them brought to the palace. Tell that unruly wife of his that we have had death threats against the royal family.”

  “Gladly, Emperor.” Riliq bowed and left the room.

  Lixu looked back at the holo-pad. Amidien could be a problem, but he wouldn’t be the first child Lixu put to death for betraying him.

  Chapter 26

  DECEMBER 2660

  TRU AND AMANDA ENTERED THE CONFERENCE ROOM, FINDING JACKIE and the senior staff already assembled. Jackie called the meeting without speaking to him, but when she added the Paskian War Ship was translated, he decided he’d wait until after the meeting to remind her, again, how ranks worked.

  The staff sat around an octagon table in the center of the room. A double-sided monitor rose from the center of the table and had the left to right, bottom to top Terallian writing displayed on it. Tru and Amanda sat between Zalet and Ag. Tru looked at the senior officers sitting around him and realized it was the first time they had all been in the same room since they’d left Earth.

  “You uncovered something, Ipaton?” Tru asked the senior I.T. officer.

  “Yes,” Jackie and Ipaton answered.

  “Commander Ipaton hacked the passwords,” Jackie added, “but I’m the one that translated the data and found the information.”

  Amanda muttered something unintelligible, and Tru looked at her. She was glaring at Jackie, who was returning it with her own look of death.

  “Table it, ladies,” Tru said.

  Amanda looked away. Jackie’s eyes focused on him.

  “Why aren’t you presenting this, Commander Ipaton?”

  “He can’t translate Terallian,” Jackie answered.

  Tru held her eyes. Her combative ‘Joan’ behavior was about to get her in a lot of trouble.

  “Lieutenant?” Tru asked Ipaton.

  “Ensign Rhoades is correct; I can’t read the messages.”

  Tru nodded. “Was this a Terallian faction, Ensign?”

  “No,” Jackie replied. “We were attacked under orders from Emperor Lixu, and I believe this will continue until there’s a war, sir.

  The room became so silent that the distant hum of the engine could be heard. Tru sat back in his chair as his mind replayed the premonition of the Paskian ship changing into a Terallian Battle Raider, but that didn’t necessarily mean Jackie was right.

  Amanda smirked, shaking her head. “You’re expecting us to believe that the Terallians are involved in this? Including Emperor Lixu?”

  “Yes. There are several references to direct orders from the Terallian Battle Fleet Command, and these are orders signed by Emperor Lixu.”

  Amanda stood. “I’ve heard enough. Gracie, transfer Ensign Rhoades to the Brig for insubordination!”

  “Wrigley, sit down,” Tru quietly ordered, “and belay that order, Gracie.”

  “Captain—”

  “Allow her to defend her position. Sit down.”

  Amanda sat down but glared at Jackie.

  “Ensign Rhoades, what has led you to this belief?” Zalet asked.

  Jackie tapped the controls, pulling up a document on the dual monitors. “Gracie, translate this, so they don’t think I’m lying about it.”

  Confidential memo. Attention all Battle Fleet captains and supervising officers. Orders are as stands. All dismembering and disemboweling videos of Merchant Raitor captains and first and second officers are to be compiled. Terallian Raptors will be waiting at the convergence coordinates. Expect orders from Fleet Command to move into Merchant Raitor space and proceed. Emperor Lixu has ordered that any Terallian failing to comply will result in the immediate execution of your first spouse and all bairn conceived with her. All officers are to report any failures to comply immediately.

  “So, XO, should we stop the next Terallian ship we meet and ask if they quarter or fillet First Executive Officers?” Jackie taunted.

  Amanda rushed out of the room. Tru knew going after her would help her calm down, but the gravity of the meeting was more important.

  “How much of the database and communiqu‚s have you translated, Jackie?” Tru asked.

  “There are thousands, but I’ve only translated the ones sent to a Captain Amidien. His sir name is Lixu, so I think he’s one of the Emperor’s sons.”

  “Do they all make similar references?”

  “Most of them.”

  “We’ll be within range of a COM buoy in four days. I need the entire database—”

  Tru looked back when the door opened. Amanda walked in with a cloth and spray bottle in hand. She pushed between Zalet and Q’al, spritzed the tabletop, and started wiping. Jackie giggled. Tru shot her a dark glare that silenced her.

  He got up and slowly approached Amanda, finishing his order, “I need the entire database translated by then, so have Gracie help you.”

  Tru grabbed Amanda’s wrists, pulling her back.

  “I have to clean the table!” Amanda protested, trying to pull away.

  Tru held her, continuing, “Ensign Rhoades, I need to speak with the senior staff, and you two have work to do. You are excused.”

  Jackie remained seated, holding his stare when he looked at her. Tru looked away to Amanda. He had to calm Amanda down first.

  “Wrigley, what are you doing?” he asked.

  “I have to clean the table.”

  “Tell me what upset you.”

  “The table. It’s filthy!”

  Tru pulled the cleaning supplies from her hands, setting them on the table. He grabbed her wrists before she could grab for them. She started crying and almost hopping.

  “Where’s the rock, Wrigley?”

  She locked eyes with him.

  “Where is your rock, XO?”

  “My quarters.”

  “You keep it on you at all times from now on, okay? Let’s have Gracie transport you to your quarters to get it, and you can come back when this table isn’t so dirty.”

  Amanda looked at the cleaning supplies, starting to shake.

  “Q’al, why don’t you help her find her rock?”

  She looked into Tru’s eyes. He smiled, and her trembling stopped. Tru gently gave her wrists a squeeze, an unspoken word of reassurance. Q’al walked up, and Tru handed one of her wrists to him. Q’al slid his hand into hers, making her look down at their hands.

  “Let’s go look for it, Amanda,” Q’al quietly said.

  She nodded, and Gracie transported them out of the room.

  Tru turned to Jackie. “Perhaps you didn’t hear my order, Ensign. You have work to do, and I need to speak with my senior s
taff.”

  “Someone has to be here for the COM officers.”

  “No. They don’t. Leave, or I’ll have you removed.”

  “I discovered this first! I have a right to stay!”

  “This has nothing to do with who discovered what or when. You have thousands of documents that must be translated, and quickly. We have to know what the Terallians are planning.”

  “Sir, I have a right to—”

  “There’s always a week in Brig stasis if you’re having trouble understanding your orders, Ensign.”

  She clamped her mouth shut for a moment.

  “FINE!” she yelled and stormed out of the room.

  Tru hesitated. Maybe Joan was Jackie’s response to this horrific news. She was there to protect the two by absorbing the shock caused by this news. He sat down and scrubbed his fingers across his forehead a couple times. A headache was incoming.

  Tru looked at each of his senior officers.

  “So we have deduced that Terallians, under the Emperor’s orders, are after Merchant Raitor captains as well as First and Second Executive Officers, but we don’t know why with any certainty. They may not know we have copies of their transmissions, but we have to get this information to Merchant Raitor as quickly as possible so they can warn other ships of eminent attacks. That makes our first objective is to get to the nearest communication buoy. Which is…” Tru heaved a tired sigh. “It is stationed at the edge of a giant black hole and is four days away. Once we transmit this information, we’ll likely get the attention of the Terallians, and they’ll know where we’re at. We can make Righel in one reposition, but only after we’ve gotten around the black hole, far enough from its gravitational pull, and on the other side of the Awedon Nebula.”

  “Which means,” Tru continued, “that we will have to rely on sub-light speed, and if they send a squadron of Terallian Attackers, we can’t outrun them. I’m open to suggestions on how we’re going to keep this crew alive until then.”

  “Can’t we transmit the database and then hide for a few days until we’re sure it’s safe to get to the other side of the nebula to reposition?” Reuben asked.

  “Where would you propose?” Tru asked back. “Two weeks ago we entered dead space. There are no ports. The Eslin system was a Terallian trap. The only other things out here are the Gatluin systems, which has three barren planets, a brown dwarf and an asteroid field.”

  “What about in the nebula? Couldn’t we hide in it?”

  Senior Helmsman, Jason Partini shook his head. “The nebula is 99% hydrogen, which will blind our sensors. The Terallians, however, will be able to see us. If they want us dead, they’ll just have to shoot enough burst torpedoes into the nebula to blow it, and us, to pieces. If they don’t blow us up, we’d be trapped because we couldn’t see them and they could blow us to pieces the minute we left the nebula.”

  Reuben scowled. “You could have just said it’s the worst place in the universe to hide, so no we can’t hide there.”

  “But what if we had to hide in the nebula? Tru asked Partini. “If there was a way to see while inside it, we could hide there and be really, really careful?”

  He nodded, but he could tell it wasn’t an option he liked. “And hope they don’t blow us up, yeah, I guess so. It wouldn’t damage anything but—”

  Reuben turned to Tru. “Does this mean we’re going to war? It’s really starting to sound more like we’re talking about a war here, not…” He trailed off.

  Tru shrugged. “I don’t know, Reuben. I just know that we couldn’t be in a worse place in the universe for this to be happening right now. We are isolated and have little in the way of defense.”

  “Couldn’t you get a premonition or something and tell us?” Ag asked.

  Tru glanced at Zalet, wondering the same thing about him. “It doesn’t work that way, Ag,” Tru told him. “If it did, we wouldn’t even be in this situation. For this, we’re going to have to rely on our instincts, training, and each other.”

  “We need to figure out what to do if they board us,” Equ’Haglef said. “They’ll kill everyone on sight.”

  “Should we arm the crew?” Tru asked Zalet.

  “No,” Zalet replied. “The crew has been working on their defense training, they can initially defend themselves as they have been taught. I believe if we arm them it could make them nervous. However, I do think we should consider spreading arms across the ship. If we are boarded, it would be harder for Terallians to stop us if we don’t keep the weapons in one area.”

  “Make it happen.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We might also want to think about doing system checks on all the life boats,” Ag said. “Just in case.”

  Tru nodded. “We need to tell all of the crew about what we’ve found but in a tactful way. Taking into consideration how many different temperaments we have to deal with, I am open to suggestions on how to tell them all, at the same time.”

  The staff fell silent as the realization of what was ahead set in. Tru waited because even though he was a psychiatrist, he had never had to tell someone that they may die. He found himself desperately wishing for a premonition that told him what the right thing to do was.

  “Are you fighting for vengeance or survival?

  Vengeance will kill you too. Survival will only kill your enemy.”

  —Captain Vardee, Jit rebel leader

  Chapter 27

  “ALL HANDS TO STATIONS!” JACKIE SCREAMED ACROSS THE SHIP INTERCOM, ripping Tru out of sleep.

  He was thrown out of bed by a torpedo exploding against the hull. He scrambled to pull on the clothes from the day before.

  “Gracie, trans—” She transported him before he could finish.

  He arrived at the Control with his shirt unbuttoned, fly open, and no socks or shoes. The three graveyard crew and Jackie were on the Control. Tru made a mental note to later ask her why she was at her post so early.

  “Jackie, get Reuben and Aris up here, and then hail our attackers! Gracie, scan them.”

  Jackie obeyed her orders.

  A Paskian planet to planet shuttle dropped from dimensional space nearly on top of us, Gracie reported. A Paskian Gunner with augmented shielding and Terallian Raptor followed it in.

  Tru looked at the view screen. He only saw two ships. “Are the Paskian’s having a ship sale we’re not aware of? Where is the shuttle?”

  The Paskian shuttle went into the Awedon Nebula.

  “Neither the Terallians or Paskian Gunner are responding, Captain,” Jackie reported.

  Aris and Reuben transported onto the Control. Aris ran up to helm and threw the helmsman out of the chair. The officer in the TAC just moved as Reuben slid in.

  “Report to your posts,” Tru told the relieved TAC and helmsman. The two ran to the lift.

  Okay, Gracie said.

  “Aris, we need to make a dimensional reposition.”

  “We’re in a negative position between the black hole and nebula, Captain,” Aris replied. “We have no clear reposition path.”

  “What about between them? Can we reposition straight ahead?” Tru looked at the view monitor. He didn’t see anything but an attacking ship.

  “Two hundred kilometers ahead is an asteroid field, and we’d pass through the edge of the black hole gravity pull. It’d tear us apart. We need another hundred kilometers in any direction until we’re safely clear of the black hole gravitational pull.”

  “As you pointed out earlier, sir, we have nowhere to hide,” Reuben reminded him, “and to make our lives more interesting, long range sensors are picking up two more ships between dimensions. They’ll be here in three minutes. Gracie is reporting a hull fracture along deck E and another above our aft torpedo tube.”

  “Head for the nebula, Aris,” Tru ordered.

  Aris looked back at him. “We’ll lose all sensors, sir. We—”

  “Go!”

  Aris swung Prosperous to aft and headed into the nebula.

  “Switch
sensors to sonar and radar,” Tru ordered.

  “I’ve… Never heard of those.”

  Tru walked to helm, leaning over the helm controls. With quick fingers, he turned on the sonar and radar. Aris’ screens showed two lit circles on a grid. Bars swung around the circles and blips appeared and disappeared as they passed some areas. Two blips became four. They moved slightly each time the bar swung around but stayed at the same distance.

  “It looks like an old type of sensor, sir,” Aris commented. “Are you sure it’s working right?”

  Tru smiled. “It’s working fine. My father believed in keeping old things around to get him out of scrapes like this.”

  Aris smiled. “Smart human.”

  “Gracie, can repair droids handle the fractures in the nebula?” Tru asked.

  Yes.

  “How long?”

  An hour or less.

  “As soon as we halt, dispatch them.” Tru stood. “Aris head for that Paskian shuttle and see if they need assistance. Then we’ll anchor near the center until we can finish repairs and can figure out how to get out of this mess.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Tru walked to the captain’s chair, sitting on the edge.

  “We’re six hundred meters from the Paskian shuttle and closing,” Aris informed him.

  “Hail them, Jackie.”

  Tru heard the transporter activate. Amanda appeared on the Control, and he was surprised to see her in civilian clothes and no makeup. Her hair was out of its tight bun and hung in a sloppy braid to her waist. Amanda stopped beside him, staring at the view screen.

  “Who’s shooting at us this time, sir?” she asked.

  “We got in the Terallian’s way again,” he answered.

  Very quietly she told him, “Perhaps you should consider not doing that anymore, sir.”

  Tru looked back at her, surprised to see a faint smile on her lips. He nodded once and looked away.

  “Perhaps I should, XO.”

  “The shuttle isn’t responding, sir,” Jackie told him.

  “It’s heading deeper into the nebula,” Aris informed Tru. “But their path is erratic. They’re probably blind in here. Guess they don’t have…” Aris hesitated then waved her hand at the sonar and radar screens. “That. What is it called again?”