The Silver Ships

by S. H. Jucha

  “And what do you believe was their point, Mr. President?” Renée enquired.

  “Simply this, Ser,” McMorris said. “If they wanted an elitist society, they were living on the wrong planet.”

  Renée wondered if the New Terrans would view the Confederation as elitist. The thought would never have crossed her mind before the attack. But since her revival, she had found herself asking many new questions, ones she’d never thought to ask before.

  “The view of your home world from the Rêveur is delightful. You have such a small footprint on the land, and yet you’ve already been in space for almost a century.”

  “It’s true we still have a small population, only 131 million, but our people never forgot why our ancestors left Earth. It shows in the type of representatives our people favor—individuals who believe it’s a government’s duty to protect our planet and ensure it doesn’t go the way of Old Terra. As you’ve learned, we constructed habitats on the next planet outward, Niomedes. However, I think our experiment is about to change drastically, courtesy of your people’s superior technology, if we can come to an agreement.”

  “That’s my wish also, Mr. President.”

  They continued the tour and their conversations until evening meal was called. As they walked to the dining hall, Alex felt Renée’s touch on his arm. She spoke softly, asking if New Terrans cultivated their protein. He was tempted to tell her that his people still enjoyed ripping meat from the bones, but the concerned look on her face gave him pause and he explained they had been cultivating protein for over three hundred years.

  Renée commed the twins with the news and they visibly relaxed. At the table, she ran a scanner over each dish to test for unsafe substances. Previously, Terese had tested the Rêveur’s visitors, scanning for any dangerous microbes that might await her people on the planet. She’d found nothing that their enhanced immune systems couldn’t handle.

  The Méridiens found the food pleasant if not a little bland. Alex felt the same way, which surprised him, since the President’s table offered some of the best food on the planet. It occurred to him that he had developed a preference for the more tantalizing fare of his new friends.

  * * *

  That night, Alex turned off his room’s vid display and was headed for bed when he heard a soft tap-tap on his door. He opened it to find Renée standing there. Without a word, he stepped aside to let her enter then quietly shut the door behind her.

  “Captain,” she said then changed her mind. “Alex, I would speak with you of your Assembly meeting tomorrow. I wish to know where you will stand.”

  “Where would you like me to stand?”

  Renée uttered something in her language that wasn’t translated, but he got the gist of it.

  “Try again,” he encouraged.

  She took his hands in hers. “These are your people, Alex. Tomorrow, I’ll stand in front of them as a representative of Méridien, a stranger to them. I don’t want your people to think less of you for standing beside me.”

  He gazed into her eyes, the soft swirl of colors in her pupils reminding him that she wasn’t New Terran. “When I was young, I learned that I was very different from my peers. For years, it hurt, until I stopped caring what strangers thought of me,” he told her. “Tomorrow, I’ll stand with you.”

  She let go of the breath she’d been holding. They owed their Captain so much, and they continued to need him. She would have let go of his hands, but he carefully held on. Despite his strength, he was always gentle with her and every Méridien.

  Renée waited for him to say what was on his mind. But without another word, he released her hands, opened the door, and bid her good night. She paused in the doorway to offer her thanks. But the words felt inadequate and they weren’t what she wanted to say. She blamed the inadequacy of the translation program, but she knew that wasn’t true.

  * * *

  At 10.75 hours, their entourage’s hover-cars settled on a ramp beside the Prima’s great Assembly Hall. TSF troopers, arranged on both sides of the walkway, held salutes as they exited their vehicles to walk a carpet of deep maroon, entwined with delicate, intricately-woven swirls of silver.

  Inside the Assembly Hall, Renée felt a moment of panic. Over five hundred august men and women filled the seats of the main floor and gallery rows. She felt Alex’s fingers slip into her hand and squeeze gently. She smiled at him in return and focused on the hall’s design rather than the assembled representatives, admiring the seats, built with ancient woods that shone with a soft luster. It was a venerable hall, a fitting place for their peoples to form an alliance.

  The President escorted them to the front of the hall and a broad raised dais. He led Renée past Assembly security stationed at the base of the steps. As Alex approached security, a hand reached out and gripped his arm, restraining him. Quicker than the eye could follow, the agent found his hand swiped away, Étienne suddenly standing between him and Alex.

  Amidst the ensuing commotion, the President’s firm command was heard, “Hold.” Security for each side froze with hands on side arms.

  “Étienne, is there a difficulty?” Renée enquired.

  “Ser, this man obstructed our Captain.”

  Before the agent could draw breath to explain, Renée challenged him. “Is this true, agent? Did you impede our Captain?” Without waiting for his answer, she turned to the President. “It’s a poor beginning for our peoples if simple courtesies are so easily ignored.”

  The President mentally kicked himself for not preparing Assembly security with the same careful instructions he’d given his own team. And Renée’s response cued him to an important sign he’d missed. He and the Negotiations Team had counted on Alex’s ties with the Méridiens to enable their agenda. It appeared they had underestimated what those ties meant to the Méridiens. “I must offer my apologies, Ser de Guirnon. It was our error due to customary procedures. No offense was intended.”

  “Security, stand down,” he commanded. “Captain Racine, Étienne, and Alain, if you would please,” and he gestured for them to follow him up the steps. Étienne and the security agent exchanged a last look and Alex wondered if he’d rehearsed the twins a little too much. But the speed of Étienne’s execution was something he hadn’t seen before.

  The President gestured Renée toward a tall, ornate, wooden chair beside his own and Alex to a similar chair on his other side. When he shifted his attention to the twins, they had already taken up positions—Étienne standing behind Alex and Alain behind Renée.

  An Assembly Monitor rose from his desk below the dais and spoke in a deep, strong voice, “Let the Assembly gather and hear. The President of New Terra, the Honorable Arthur McMorris would speak.”

  The President rose and approached a transparent lectern that rose out of the floor. In his opening remarks, he greeted the Assembly and welcomed them. There was no need to go into great detail as each representative had received several briefs as the Rêveur made New Terran orbit.

  “It is with great pleasure,” the President announced, “on this unique and momentous occasion, that I introduce our first extra-solar visitor, Ser Renée de Guirnon, representative of House de Guirnon of Méridien, home world of the Confederation.”

  Amidst loud stomping, Renée approached the podium, smiling her thanks to the President. Alex had informed her of the Assembly’s custom of greeting a speaker with the tapping of their shoes. However, she suspected a mistranslation because the booming echoes sounded nothing like tapping.

  When their welcome died down, she said, “Distinguished representatives of New Terra, it’s an honor and a privilege to address you today. For more than 700 years, my people have had no contact with other humans. We rejoice to discover that you too survived your exodus of Earth to prosper on this beautiful planet. And we are saddened to discover that you had to struggle mightily to do so. Today, we celebrate the mutual discovery of our civilizations. But I’m afraid I must also mar this wonderful occasion with great and terrible
news. We aren’t alone and they didn’t come as friends, but as foes…to both of us.”

  “But before I continue, honor must be paid to one of your own, who risked his life to catch a derelict starship and become the savior of my people. Before this premier body of his people, I would pay honor to Captain Alexander Racine.”

  Renée turned toward Alex, crossed her arms to her shoulders and bowed her head. Étienne and Alain adopted the same pose. The Assembly broke out in a thunderous roar of stomping and whistles as Alex rose from his chair and inclined his head to her. Renée held her position as the noise of the Assembly slowly died away. When she finally raised her head, her eyes gleamed with unshed tears and she gave him a brilliant smile. She gave herself a moment before turning to face the audience again as Alex seated himself.

  The President glanced at Alex and reconsidered his status—not his diplomat—their champion. He looked across the rows of representatives. Assemblyman Downing sat with his conservative cronies who represented many of the wealthier districts. Their expressions were fixed in stone. Not so for the majority of the representatives. He could see it in their faces and body language. They liked this strange, young woman with her exotic features. She didn’t threaten them. In fact, she was winning them over by honoring one of their own.

  “I’ve come to offer a contract with you,” Renée continued, “and I would not expect this Assembly to enter into this agreement without proof of what we both face.”

  Alex rose from his seat with a small case. He took out the holo-vid projector and placed it on the lectern, attaching a slender cable to the device. He knelt on the floor and touched the other end to a power outlet, which morphed to fit the connector. He nodded to Renée and turned in time to catch the stunned expression of the President, who had witnessed the cable come alive. Alex offered the President a quick, lop-sided smile and a shrug before returning to his seat.

  “Representatives of New Terra,” Renée announced, “here is the record of our meeting with our first aliens.” Then she signaled the projector to start. New Terrans had holo-vids too, but they emanated from heavy, fixed bases, and produced small, three-dimensional images. The Méridiens had small, portable units that projected huge, three-dimensional images with startling clarity. Gasps emanated from the audience, and hands twitched as people instinctively sought to reach out and touch the images.

  Julien’s synthesized voice filled the Assembly as he introduced himself and narrated the encounter. The Assembly was mesmerized by the scenario played out by the three ships. Some of the best and brightest minds of New Terra were present, and they absorbed many of the details on display and in Julien’s commentary. They were awed by the massive length of the Méridien freighter, which dwarfed anything the New Terrans had. They took note too of the tremendous amount of space, light-years, that the Rêveur had crossed in a brief amount of time to answer the freighter’s emergency beacon. Méridien technology was evidently hundreds of years ahead of theirs, yet the powerful energy weapon of the alien craft pierced their ships with ease. The holo-vid sold Renée’s story as words never could.

  When the vid finished, Renée enumerated her points. Their people shared a common ancestry—that of Earth. They faced a common enemy, one who was powerful and offered no quarter. The attack on the Rêveur had taken place seventy-two New Terran years ago. So it was only a matter of time before a silver ship found its way to New Terra.

  She concluded by thanking the Assembly for their time and President McMorris for the opportunity to speak before their august body. Amidst another round of deafening whistles and stomping as the Assembly took to their feet, she returned to her chair.

  The President brought the session to a close. He promised the Assembly that the Negotiations Team would soon formalize an agreement with the Méridiens for their ratification. Lauded by another round of Assembly appreciation, the President and his entourage exited the Assembly for the return to Government House.

  * * *

  But Alex and the Méridiens soon discovered there was one more hurdle to clear before they attained the solitude of Government House—the media.

  When word leaked of the Thirst Quencher rendezvousing with two stranded ships, telescopes throughout the planet searched for them. The larger telescopes were the first to resolve the images of the damaged, alien craft held in traction by an explorer-tug. The story resulted in tens of millions of flashes to subscribers that clogged the comm networks. Later, when the explorer-tug was identified as the Outward Bound, news media producers knew they’d found the story of a lifetime.

  Flashes focused on the young, handsome Captain Racine, who was the first man to solve the intricacies of passive asteroid delivery and now the first man to capture an alien ship.

  When word leaked that there were entities alive aboard the derelict ship, the media became increasingly desperate to gather information on the aliens. News drones followed government officials in the hopes of capturing footage of the visitors’ arrival. An enterprising young woman, posing as a terminal employee, gained access to a runway’s service apron and managed to snag a vid of the government representatives boarding a shuttle that was tracked to the ships in orbit. The sale of that vid paid for a year of the aspiring journalist’s university tuition and brought her to the attention of a prestigious news editor.

  Uniformed TSF troopers assembled outside the Hall, forming a protective barrier for the planet’s first alien guests. While the enthusiasm of the media was commonplace on New Terra, it was overwhelming to the Méridiens. Reporters jostled one another as they awaited the President’s promised statements. Press badges pinned to their shoulders projected small holo-images announcing their media affiliation. Nearly sixty hover-cam drones jockeyed for position above their heads, their operating crews stationed nearby.

  As her escort, Alain moved closer to Renée. Instinctively, she had slid behind Alex’s shoulder then chastised herself for her fears and eased out beside him.

  The President stepped up to a portable lectern. The vid drones focused on him before rising up for better angles of Alex and the Méridiens. News media had been warned, in no uncertain terms, to maintain a five-meter distance from the visitors at all times. Any violations would be dealt with severely.

  Unfortunately, once vid crews had their establishing shots, they zoomed in for tighter shots of the Méridiens. The producers, viewing the close-ups of the striking faces, forgot all about the warnings and harangued their drone operators to get closer. Even a prominent women’s fashion magazine reporter, who had wondered how she’d spin a story about aliens for her readers, was nearly fainting at the sight of the twins. She realized it would hardly matter what words she attached to their images.

  The President’s message was short and sweet. He summarized the Assembly event and emphasized the momentous occasion for all New Terrans. He promised daily press releases from his office as new information came to light, but emphasized that negotiations were still ongoing. Per both parties’ agreement, no mention was made of the silver ship.

  Despite the advisement to refrain from asking questions, reporters couldn’t contain themselves. Good vids were news and the Méridiens offered the best vid in decades. Reporters shouted questions, and the Méridiens responded as they had been coached. Standing on the Assembly steps, Renée, Étienne, and Alain smiled, waved, and tried to appear as non-threatening as possible.

  When the President ended his comments, General Gonzalez made a call on her tactical comm to a subordinate, Major Tatia Tachenko. The Major’s reputation in TSF had a curious duality. To the new recruits, who saw her only from a distance, she was a blue-eyed, blonde, buxom beauty—prime fodder for nighttime fantasies. To the veterans, she was ‘that hard-ass you better not cross.’

  On the Major’s order, Terran Security Forces jumped to form a corridor from the waiting hover-cars to the President and his guests, firmly guiding the news media out of their path. When the corridor was formed, the President led the way, Alex and the Méridiens
following close behind.

  As they walked between the rows of troops, a group of attractive young women hoisted a colorful banner on air-floats, yelling out to Alex. “We love you, Captain Racine!” Their banner displayed the same words, but with huge, red lips behind the text.

  Renée leaned close to Alex and whispered, “It appears you have admirers, Captain,” and smiled to herself as a blush crept up his neck.

  -16-

  After their return to Government House, the President announced, “My team will join us for lunch shortly. Afterwards, we’ll have a conference before you depart this afternoon.” He escorted them upstairs. An attendant opened the double doors of a suite, and the President waved them inside.

  As Alex and Renée walked through the expansive doorway, a young woman squealed Alex’s name and rushed at him from across the room, jumping into his arms and wrapping her legs around his waist. Alex held her close, burying his face in the waves of her thick brown hair.

  Renée recognized Christie from Alex’s family vids. She suffered a moment’s pang for her own family—wondering what had become of them.

  Duggan and Katie joined their son and daughter. As Alex set his sister down, his mother took his face in both her hands, studying him for a moment before pulling him into a long, tight hug, acting as if he’d been miraculously found after being lost for years. Duggan greeted his son last, delivering a hug and a few hardy back slaps that had the Méridiens cringing.