by S. H. Jucha
“Couldn’t agree with you more, Captain,” said Sanders, offering his friend a cheeky smile before going back to join the crew.
Sanders sent to the crew, and the men and women breathed a sigh of relief. Their mission was dangerous enough without having a captain who was itching for a fight.
Darius ordered Sanders and the crew into environment suits as he donned one of his own, and the entire group strapped in as their traveler closed in on the moon’s Earth-side face. As Darius decelerated the traveler, it finally attracted attention and several patrol ships accelerated to intercede, but at the UE’s ships relatively slow velocities, compared to the traveler, they would be late to the fête, providing the crew was able to launch and activate the probe in time.
“We will have 0.12 hours to drop the probe, Captain,” Sanders said.
“Should be enough time,” Darius replied. “Too bad we can’t just kick it out the airlock.”
Sanders glanced at his friend, who had made the first joke of the entire trip, since, to accommodate the probe, the traveler’s small emergency airlock was removed, but Darius was concentrating on his telemetry as he sought to locate an open area to land on what was turning out to be a very crowded moonscape. That’s a good start, Darius, Sanders thought.
“For an inhospitable place with no air, there are more domes here than I’ve seen on any rock in the Confederation,” Darius commented. “The Earthers must really love their moon or maybe it’s the view of Earth.”
“It’s a spectacular view,” remarked Sanders, who took a moment to increase his helmet’s telemetry view of the planet. Little could he know that the blue, green, and white marble below him had centuries ago been colored in much more browns and grays than he would have believed, its population in those dark times about to descend down a path of near extermination.
Implants synced to the countdown and hands fingered their seat restraints, ready to jump on the last tick. Their captain hit his mark, and the crew leapt from their seats. A woman crew member signaled the hatch open and jumped through it, forgetting this moon’s lack of gravity. Safety concerns had caused the crew to tie themselves together and anchor the end of the line to the inside of the hatch, which enabled a crewman to pull the woman back from her flight meters away from the ship.
Two other crew members activated the grav-sled on the probe and worked it through the hatch. Implants sent views to one another to guide the sled, which was forced to squeeze through the hatch opening. Once on the ground, the senior crewman signaled the probe, but it failed to respond. They lost precious time diagnosing the problem before they managed to activate the probe. Immediately, four legs unfolded from the probe’s body and while the crew held it in place, bolts were fired deep into the moon’s rock to anchor it. The crew scrambled back into the traveler, while the probe finished deploying, including activating a self-destruct program if the Earthers thought to tamper with it.
Darius signaled Julien and received an immediate affirmation. With no more time for conversation, the crew closed the hatch and strapped back into their seats, signaling their readiness.
“How we looking, Sanders?” Darius asked as he launched the traveler.
“We lost that nice comfortable window, Captain. The patrol ships have us bracketed, and the word from the admiral is they are armed with an assortment of small missiles.”
“Best way out?” Darius asked as he concentrated on a spiral pattern to build up velocity.
“Keep heading the way you’re going, Captain. I don’t think these craft are optimized for an atmospheric entry.” Sanders was rewarded with a grin on his friend’s face, who acknowledged the suggestion with a nod of his head.
Darius kept the traveler in an ever-faster spiral as he headed toward Earth. The patrol ships shifted vectors to intercept him, and both pilots tracked the launch of several objects from the planet.
“Ships?” Darius asked.
“Negative, Captain. Missiles, multiple launches … make that tens of launches,” Sanders replied calmly.
Darius signaled his controller and assigned priority evasion to the missiles, and secondary priority to the patrol craft behind them, notating his final destination — Idona Station. Then he sat back in his seat and tightened his webbing. “Now we’re in the hands of the SADEs,” Darius said.
“As good a place to be as any,” Sanders acknowledged. It was a true Haraken sentiment.
The traveler’s evasion programs activated and sought a way through the numerous obstacles in its path. Humans might have thought to seek an opening between the patrol ships behind them rather than face the dangerous missiles clawing free of Earth’s gravity well to reach them. But controllers aren’t human, and they were built by the SADEs.
In several ticks, the controller ran several hundred options through its kernel seeking an optimum outcome for its occupants, its highest priority. Option selected, it dove the traveler at max acceleration toward the planet, Earth’s gravity well lending the fighter enormous charging power for its drives.
Pinned in his pilot’s chair, Sanders sent,
The controller utilized its tremendous velocity to shoot past the missiles before they could change vector to intercept it — step one accomplished. Now it sought to ease the fighter out of its earthward plunge without damaging its occupants. Algorithms calculated that the ship’s inertia compensation system was 6 percent over maximum limits, and the controller would need to push that by an additional 3 percent.
Fortune was with the crew. Had they been over Earth’s Rocky Mountains, Alps, or Himalayas, the traveler couldn’t have pulled out of its dive quickly enough without harming its passengers. As it was, it skimmed across the Pacific Ocean, sending a giant wave of water spreading out from either side of its path.
A quick check of telemetry told the pilots that they had evaded the ground-based missiles and patrol ships, as their traveler shot out of Earth’s atmosphere into the cold, safe embrace of vacuum.
“Don’t think the president has to comm the Supreme Tribunal,” Darius quipped. “I think we just made the announcement for him that the Harakens are here.”
Sanders looked at his friend and let loose a belly laugh. “Good one, Captain,” he said, slapping him on the shoulder. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”
-4-
Earth’s Supreme Tribunal met in its private chambers located in a quiet mountain retreat in North America’s Rocky Mountains, in an area once called Colorado. It was a secret location known only to a few select people. The critical and only subject of the meeting was the extensive media coverage from the previous day — a mysterious ship appeared and deposited a device on the Moon, missiles were launched from the planet but the ship evaded them, and then there was the infamous footage caught by a freighter crew. The strange ship was recorded shooting across the surface of the Pacific Ocean with the tremendous wakes created by its passing, and the images were sold to a major media broadcast company.
“The images of the unknown ship match those recorded by the Reunion,” Kwan Woo stated, laying her tablet on the antique, wood table around which the Tribunal was seated. Woo was elected by the space and militia leadership to sit on the Tribunal and, previously, had held the position of rear admiral.
“We should send for Captain Lumley,” said Giuseppe Lucchesi, “I have questions for him.”
“Now, you have questions for him,” Woo said and chuckled. “It was you who insisted the captain and his c
rew be held incommunicado and the announcement of their discovery kept quiet.”
“That last part is moot,” said Ian Brennan, whose chair on the Tribunal was filled by a vote of the corporate giants of the new UE order. “The entire system’s population is probably guessing, and rightly so, that these are the aliens that they’ve been worrying about, and that we’ve known about them all along.”
Giuseppe Lucchesi leaned back in his chair. He carefully adjusted a button on his black robe to buy him time to consider his response, but refrained from running his finger under the ever-tightening and chafing upright collar. Lucchesi was dressed as the other two tribunes were, but he required his tailor fabricate a new robe every few months to conceal his growing bulk.
“What’s done is done,” Lucchesi finally said. “We must consider our options under the present circumstances.”
Brennan and Woo shared a quick glance. They were the pair who kept Lucchesi’s ilk in check. His position was filled from among the UE high judges, and every one of them was a true believer in the UE’s strict principles of absolute control. To them, the world was black and white, innocent or guilty, and a person was either a UE believer or a rebel.
“I don’t think we have any options, at this point, Tribune Lucchesi,” Woo said. “All we know is a fighter matching the description of those seen by the Reunion’s crew entered deep into our system, evaded our best efforts to capture or destroy it, and … oh, stopped to drop us a present on our Moon, which we know nothing about, and it did this without firing a shot.”
“Fear is racing through our people, and we haven’t a plausible story to sell to put a better twist on the situation,” Brennan added. He was tired of arguing with Lucchesi. The man had a one-track mind and was as far removed from reality as Brennan could imagine. The days of the fundamentalist United Earth were long over. To a degree, there was stability; at least, there were no more wars. Now, it needed commercial growth, and the kind that wouldn’t endanger the progress made recovering the Earth’s environmental health.
“We tell the people what they need to hear,” Lucchesi stated smugly, adjusting his bulk on the too firm chair. He hated the fit and slender physiques of the other two tribunes.
“And what do you suggest that is?” Woo asked.
“That we are investigating the phenomenon,” Lucchesi replied. When he found himself the butt of his compatriots’ laughter, his face flushed a deep red.
“The phenomenon … as in a singular and unique occurrence? Maybe it doesn’t occur to you because you didn’t bother reading my original report,” Woo said, leaning forward on the table. “Captain Lumley stated that the Haraken fighters were launched from a carrier. The vessel seen in yesterday’s media reports is too small to have made the light-years’ trip that our explorer ship crossed to return home. My concern is that the appearance of that ship means we might soon be facing a fleet of these strangers’ carriers and their fighters.”
* * *
A day later and long into the night, Brennan and Woo sat in a private room, discussing the newly released reports, summarizing the UE’s growing problems, which were now compounded by the arrival of the strangers.
“How bad is it?” Woo asked.
“It’s bad, and it’s going to get worse. Figures for global public works and UE factories indicate another 3 percent drop this year.”
“Same problems,” Woo asked.
“Same problems, Kwan,” Brennan acknowledged. “Our conscripted labor force is aging, and the number of new recruits drops every year.”
“You mean the convicted,” Woo corrected. “Call them what they are.”
“Fewer rebels arrested; fewer criminals caught. It amounts to the same thing. Our giant socialist and judicial experiments are running out of credits.”
“How much time do we have?”
“If we do nothing, the projections are that we have fifteen to twenty years.”
“That’s all?” Woo exclaimed, sitting up quickly to prevent choking on her drink.
Brennan shrugged his shoulders. The corporations had elected him to the Tribunal to watch the numbers and keep the UE financially healthy, and he had been trying to tell this story for years. Brennan hadn’t gotten either of the tribunes to listen until he pulled Woo aside and sat her down for an entire day and showed her the numbers.
“It can be extended for decades if we slowly cut down on public projects, shift people to the factories, and keep their output up,” Brennan said.
“What about the forces?” Woo asked. Part of her job was to ensure the resupply of the naval and militia forces, including the costly replacement of aging ships.
“You’re going to have to tell the admirals and generals to make do with fewer ships and smaller forces, unless they want to start seeing their people’s accounts shorted.”
Woo hung her head in her hands. “I’d rather eat a stun dart, Ian, than deliver that message. Same timeline?”
“About the same,” Brennan replied. “The sooner you start; the smaller cuts you can make. Keep them gradual, and you can hide them longer.”
“So do our new visitors have any effect on these disastrous numbers?” Woo asked.
“That one’s easy. If these people start a prolonged war, we will run out of missiles and rail slugs long before we can possibly win,” Brennan said, toasting Woo with his glass and slugging down a healthy swallow of aged cognac.
* * *
The Tribunal convened again days later. This time the members sat in their high-backed seats in a forbidding chamber, their ornate bench positioned high above the chamber’s floor. Captain Francis Lumley occupied an old-fashioned, three-quarter, circular witness stand, forced to stand much as an accused would be required to face judgment.
“Captain, review the footage cued up on the tablet in front of you,” Lucchesi demanded. It was his privilege to prosecute those facing the tribunal, but, over the years, Brennan and Woo had sought to erode much of the man’s pompous interrogation methods.
Lumley scanned the crewman’s footage taken from a Pacific freighter. The familiar fighter’s hull of blues, greens, and whites gleamed in the bright morning sun. “This was inevitable,” Lumley said, a smile spreading over his face.
“Remember where you are, Captain,” Lucchesi reminded him, but he was disappointed that his warning didn’t wipe the smile from the captain’s face.
“Why was it inevitable, Captain?” Woo asked, noticing Lucchesi’s knuckles whiten as he gripped his tablet, angry over the usurpation of his interrogation.
“We’ve became complacent,” Lumley replied. “We defeated the rebels … to a large extent … so we thought we were invincible. Turns out we’re not. We met our match at Méridien and angered some very powerful people. Looks like they didn’t bother to wait until we returned to their worlds, they came here first instead. I thought they might.”
“Why did you think they might?” Woo asked, intrigued by the captain’s line of thought.
“First, Speaker García, and then High Judge Bunaldi, treated those people with the same lack of grace they’ve always demonstrated to our people. They pushed and prodded, and, when they didn’t get their way, they resorted to cheating in a life-and-death contest. When that didn’t work, they tried brute force, and that cost them dearly. I think our visitors, if these are the Harakens, believe in personal honor and a deep commitment to the well-being of one another, and they perceive us as disreputable. They’re here, Tribunes, taking away your initiative. And, at this point, you can believe you’ll have to prove any goodwill intended on the UE’s part, because the Harakens, if it is them, certainly won’t believe you can be trusted in diplomatic negotiations.”
“We’ve received a report from Captain Shimada. Her destroyer, the Conquest, is based at Idona Station. Check your tablet for her file. It’s under her name. I would be interested in your speculations,” Brennan said.
Captain Lumley found the file and opened it, reviewing the text report and the visual tele
metry. It occurred to him that the tone of this Tribunal meeting was different from his first, which had been a condemnation without an opportunity to defend himself. This meeting was different — an interrogation, yes, but an earnest desire to hear his answers.
“Your records indicate you faced ships like these seen in Captain Shimada’s report,” Brennan pressed.
“Yes, I see three ships here,” Lumley replied. “We met the largest one in the Hellébore system. It dumped 256 fighters into space like some sort of automation system — very eerie. The next smaller ship seems to be made in the same design. I would estimate it would hold at least 128 fighters … we never saw this one.”
“So you don’t know what ship or ships defeated the Hand of Justice?” Woo asked, hoping to glean a piece of valuable intel.
“May I ask what actions were taken, if any, against the fighter that you showed me earlier?” Lumley asked.
“We ask the questions, Captain,” Lucchesi stated officiously.
“Patrol craft tried to intercept it and chased it from the Moon toward Earth,” Woo explained, ignoring Lucchesi. “Missiles were launched to bring it down, but it evaded all our efforts, dived into our atmosphere, and raced across the Pacific at an incredible speed before making for space again. Telemetry tracked its velocity past Venus’s orbit —”
“At 0.91c,” Lumley finished for the tribune. The number delivered to him by the Reunion’s guide had shocked him. “Incredible technology,” he finished absent-mindedly.
“What are your thoughts, Captain?” Brennan pressed.
“My thoughts are that those ships at Idona are definitely the Harakens, who have brought 350 to 400 of these incredible fighters to our system. Probably not enough to win a protracted war, but enough to make certain we listen to what they have to say. I certainly wouldn’t want to face their fighters with anything less than a very powerful fleet, and then you should be prepared to lose most of it, even if you do win,” Lumley replied.
“And just how are we supposed to have a discussion with these people, Captain? They have stopped at Idona Station,” Lucchesi asked with a sneer, happy to find a hole in the captain’s logic. But his enjoyment was short-lived.
