The Ghost Fleet

by Trevor Wyatt

  “Eh?”

  “It’s just that it’s a little odd for me to see so many humans around, after spending so much of my time on Sonali Prime.”

  He grunted. “I see more aliens than humans, these days.”

  “Times have changed!” He drained his glass. “Got to go, sir; I have yet another meeting. It’s been good to see you.”

  They shook hands once more.

  “Come by any time,” Flynn told him.

  “Count on it.” He flashed that grin again, and then he was gone.

  Two years ago, it would’ve been difficult for Flynn to imagine that one day, he’d be looking at his window, feeling a sense of peace.

  But now I’m here, looking at this marvellous view, he thought. I can see the future.

  It looks bright.

  The Omarian Gambit

  Call of Command Book 2

  A Pax Aeterna Novel

  Copyright © 2017 by Pax Aeterna Press

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental. This work intended for adults only.

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  Jeryl

  I’m weary of New Washington. Simmering with discontent, I stalk along the elevated walkway over the main promenade, dodging aliens and hearing translations of their babble, courtesy of my Trask implant. I make the “delete feed” gesture so many times that I probably look like I’m trying to swat gnats. It’s almost enough to make me miss my days on Sonali Prime, when I had to use the translator unit all the time. Now I’d love to have the damn physically unobtrusive but mentally crazy-making in-ear implant removed, but there are occasions when I need it. Walking in public, however, is not one of them; but the device can’t be turned off; you can only cancel a conversation. Design flaw.

  There are vendors up here, too, mostly those hawking fresh foods of various types. My nostrils catch various odors as I pass their stalls—some enticing, some revolting. I’m used to this. I stop to purchase a mug of hot, thick deftol from a green-furred, monkey-like native of Vozel. Deftol is a bitter-tasting infusion for which I have developed a liking. It contains compounds that act as a mild stimulant, helpful on days like this when my spirits are a bit low. Sipping my mug as I wend my way through the crowds, I feel a bit better as the deftol’s energizing effect lifts my mood.

  I’m wearing a business suit, which is why my first reaction is outrage when a small form hurtles out of the crowd and slams into me, spilling my deftol all over my coat.

  I hear someone shouting, “Stop, you thief!”

  Without thinking, but not without cursing, I grab the little so-and-so who’s collided with me. It’s a young native of Irivani, a moon circling the planet Majriti, a jovian planet in the Upsilon Andromedae system. He (or so I assume; they have three sexes that I can’t tell apart, but the “males” are more aggressive) is grasping a haamed fruit in one of his four hands as he struggles in my grip, trying to free himself.

  “Lemme go, you stupid Terran pig!” he spits.

  I’m sure he doesn’t expect me to understand, but I’ve got this Trask implant.

  I shake the kid, and say in Irivani, “Respect your elders, you little goniff.” The thief is so astonished that he stops struggling for a moment, giving the victim, a portly Irivani, probably a female (all Irivanian vendors are female), time to bustle up to me, panting. Irivanians are used to a thicker atmosphere, and exertion here on New Washington quickly gets the older ones out of breath. The little creep who’s stolen the fruit must’ve been born here, so he’s acclimated.

  It’s a moment before she can voice her complaint. “Yngvi, you little louse! This is the second time this cycle I’ve caught you stealing my wares!” she cries, snatching him away from me and shaking him even harder than I did. “To the temple we go, where you can beg the forgiveness of Great Ved.”

  And she marches him off, paying no heed to his whining. Just as they vanish into the crowd, she turns her head completely around on her shoulders and flings a word of thanks to me.

  Well, it’s more than I expected. My mood, not to mention my coat, is ruined by this encounter despite the ameliorating effects of the deftol. I find the closest clothing shop, where I purchase a new outfit and duck into a fitting booth. I strip off my dripping clothing, toss it in a recycler, and emerge a few moments later to continue on my way to my meeting with Grand Admiral Howard Flynn.

  My lofty ideals, so firmly in place when I began the process of trying to set up the Galactic Council two years ago, have taken a beating over time. My intervention with the thief Yngvi exemplifies this. The aliens squabble endlessly among themselves and with others about minuscule points of protocol, down to the color of their seat cushions. I’m convinced a lot of these considerations are purely passive-aggressive nonsense, but that doesn’t make them any less of real concerns. Someone has to deal with them. That someone would be me.

  I am feeling even more discontented than before, and more pessimistic that the races will ever learn to get along with each other when they can’t even live harmoniously among themselves.

  For two years I’ve worked my ass off to get the Galactic Council off the drawing board. I’ve been so busy that I have seen the Grand Admiral only a handful of times in the past year. Even before I collared the fruit thief I was feeling the need to vent a little, which is one reason why I asked Flynn to fit me into his busy morning for just a few minutes. Plus, I want to get rid of the guilt I’ve been feeling at not having spoken with him other than slipstream.

  After all, The Council was partly his idea, though he is far too modest a man, for a general, to take any credit for it.

  Of course, the flip side of that coin is that when things go wrong he doesn’t have to accept any of the blame. All that sticks to me like the gooey deftol.

  It doesn’t generally bother me, because as someone else in authority used to say, “The buck stops here.” (A buck being an old-style unit of currency from the nation-state of the United States of America.) I wouldn’t have become a vice admiral without being able to accept responsibility. Truth be told, I enjoy problem solving. As a kid, I loved puzzles and games, and it gets better when things become more challenging.

  I never dreamed of trying to organize representatives of alien civilizations. When I started this effort, the idea was to get ten races (we humans being one of them) together to form the hub of a functioning legislative body, something that could mediate disputes, oversee trade, and monitor political activities in a member’s native star system as well as interactions with other council members.

  I swear this looked workable on paper.

  We started out simply, or so I thought, with only oxygen-nitrogen breathers who could tolerate a more or less Earth-normal temperature and pressure range with minimal implants—like the Sonali, for example, along with the Irivanians, the Vozelians, and several others. We contacted the chlorine breathers and some other exotremes, and some of them agreed to send emissaries, but only virtual ones, the climate on New Washington being lethal to them. They are represented in gatherings through a holographic projector.

  Of course, we had the example of the Sonali staring us right in the face: we fought a war with them because of misunderstandings.

  Sharing a preferred atmosphere doesn’t mean sharing a viewpoint. The Irivanians are solely concerned with the bottom line—what’s in it for them. They are master traders and merchants, and impatient for the Council to get down to business (no pun intended) so that they can start making a profit.

  At last, I arrive at Howard’s office and press a finger on the CALL pad. It analyzes my electrolytes, finds me in its database, and slides open. I’m in the outer office, where his secretary, another Vozellian, nods at me. “He’s
expecting you, Admiral,” she says. “Go right in.”

  “Thanks, Leekerchee. Looking good today, hon.”

  She simpers at me as I pass through the inner door.

  “Jeryl!” Howard exclaims, coming out from behind his desk to seize my hand. “Einstein on the beach! It’s good to see you.” He sniffs. “What’s that I smell? Is that deftol?”

  With a sigh, I take a seat and relate my little adventure on the upper level. Howard laughs, but not too hard. He’s has his share of close encounters.

  “It beats getting shot at by Sonali warships, though, eh?” he says, offering me a shot of bourbon.

  “Early for me,” I say, waving it off.

  “Me, too, but this place can drive a man to it,” Howard says. “I’m not fit to be a diplomat, Jeryl. A dipsomaniac, maybe, if we keep getting wrapped up in bureaucratic crap.”

  I nod ruefully. The truth is that although the Earth-Sonali War has ended, its resolution has brought a series of other conflicts to light. Some of them may be about to burst into the open, ensnaring Earth in an interstellar web of technological, mercantile and political interests.

  “Yeah,” I say, poker-faced. “Who knew that interspecies diplomacy would be so hard?”

  He gives me a hard look, then laughs.

  “I don’t see why we have to be the ones to try to resolve all this,” Howard says, turning to stare out his window. He’d got a much better view from his office than I have from mine.

  I shrug. “Someone needs to do it,” I say. “No one else has stepped up. Besides, it’ll give us a greater voice in the galaxy. Think of the power and influence humanity will get—”

  “Power and influence is for people who have forgotten how to value the small, important things in life,” Howard grumbles.

  “Like a good view from an office window?” I say, grinning.

  “Smartass,” he says, smiling before he gets serious. “The Terran Union made the mistake of reaching out to every civilization we’ve encountered. It isn’t our fault that many of them up until now have existed in a state of very little diplomatic contact with each other, like isolated kingdoms in the Dark Ages, or European or feudal societies.”

  “Yeah, they don’t want to be helped, some of them,” I say.

  “But you’re going to keep on trying.”

  “I am.”

  “Good man. We’ve got to get these first ten races on board, son. I don’t need to tell you how important it is that we humans become the unifying factor in the galaxy.”

  He’s right, of course. Under Council auspices, the stability of the galaxy will increase dramatically.

  We talk a bit longer, but I’ve got a full schedule and I know he does too.

  “Keep me apprised of your progress,” he says, shaking my hand.

  I take my leave, promising to stay in closer touch with him.

  Jeryl

  After leaving Admiral Flynn’s office suite, I take a drop-tube up to the roof. It’s been a long day and I’m looking forward to being home, and even more to seeing my wife. We’re not the most social people nowadays - she’s the Captain of The Seeker and away for stretches of time, so when we do find each other it’s usually just the two of us. Preferring each other’s company to the company of diplomats, politicians, or alien emissaries is the norm nowadays.

  Our quarters, an official diplomatic residence in New Washington’s Administrative District, is comfortable and snug if not luxurious, and we’ve spent many nights there listening to music and playing chess or cards. Not exciting, not the sort of life envisioned by people who read too many political thrillers set among New Washington’s style makers and embassies, but always a welcome relief for us; a place where we can shuck our official roles and enjoy our time together as husband and wife over a glass or two of wine while resting up from the endless bureaucratic headaches we cope with every day.

  These headaches are not getting less stressful, either. After years in the military I thought I’ve seen every type of pigheadedness, spite, and turf fighting a species could devise. Sure—maybe one species. But now I’m wrangling ten, trying to get them all to agree on the charter of the Galactic Council.

  It would be easier to wrestle a dozen octopuses, I tell myself, enjoying the brief solitude of the drop-tube capsule. In the case of one race, the members of the Drupadi Regime, the comparison is apt because Drupadians, though air breathers, are descendants of an ancestor that looked a great deal like a Terran octopus.

  When I get to the roof, there are no cabs in the taxi stand. I stand and wait for one to come, looking out over the city, reflecting on the task before me.

  The Circle of Ten, as they’ve come to be called, aren’t the only alien species lurking in the corridors of the Promenade, down there. There are plenty of others, attracted here by commercial possibilities, or the chances of fleeing repressive governments and seeking educational opportunities. The Vozellian monkey-folk, like my favorite deftol vendor, is just one example.

  Eventually we’ll get them all under the Council’s umbrella, but for now we’re trying to gather in the more influential races: The Sonali Combine, The Kurta Colonies, The Irivani Empire, The Tyreesian Collective, The Children of Zorm, The Drupadi Regime, The Vozelian Nation, The Terran Union, The Gadha peoples, and The Hastinapuran Hegemony. The Terrans, who would, one might think, be an easy sell, are anything but because of the factions. The Outer Colonies are oriented far more toward the bottom line than the politicos here on New Washington, and the Earth-based contingent has its own agenda.

  Earth still thinks they’re the boss of us. Despite lip-service paid to it, they’ve never really accepted the fact that the center of human affairs is now located firmly on New Washington, and are always expecting concessions and tax advantages. Their ship has sailed, and they have yet to admit it. Sure, the Academy and Armada Command are on Earth. The President still has his offices there. But the galaxy is coming together, and the most interaction is happening here, in New Washington.

  I see my ship is just arriving. A cab passes over the top of the building, comes around in a sweeping arc, and settles to a gentle landing on its service pad a hundred feet away. I’m halfway across the roof by the time its gullwing door swings up, allowing a pair of business-suited human females to exit. Their conversation doesn’t miss a beat and they don’t spare me as much as a glance as I pass by. They are speaking French, a language I don’t know, but my Trask implants translate their discussion and I grin as it translates their conversation; they’re debating the relative merits of Blue Stilton versus Roquefort cheese.

  I’m still grinning as I climb into the waiting cab. I prefer cheddar, myself.

  I give the machine my address, let it scan the invisible ID tattoo on my wrist, and settle back as the cab mutters mechanically to itself for a moment before lifting off into the clear sky.

  Peace is a good thing. As I settle into the cab’s cushioned seat, I allow myself to reflect a bit on this. Perhaps it’s just the added perspective I have while I’m aloft here above the most important city in human history. Peace allows women to argue about cheese. Peace between the species we’ve contacted will lead to increased opportunities in education, technology, and even social evolution. Best of all, to my way of thinking, it’s a two-way street. We may not have a lot in common with the Drupadi when it comes to living space and preferred food, but we both value peace. I’ve come to understand that intelligent beings are more or less the same everywhere: people just want to be left alone to go about their lives. When you think about it, that’s not a lot to ask.

  Sure, there are disenfranchised minorities on almost every planet. The great fallacy of human society has been an inability to visualize aliens as having civilizations as complex as ours. Earth—and human culture—isn’t a monolithic, homogenous mass like an ant colony. There are still a few hunter-gatherer cultures left on Earth as well as some nomadic people who resist the pressure to settle in cities. They have no use for the Galactic Council.


  It’s the same on other worlds. There are downtrodden castes, unevolved cultures, or uncivilized backwater regions on every planet we have contacted. Sure, we’d like to bring them all into the current century; but the truth is, they don’t want to join the party, for whatever reason. And it isn’t our business to force them.

  Like I said, it took us a long time to get to this point, and the realization has proven to be a fragile thing. There are still plenty of people who believe that they “know better” than others, and that their way of life is the only acceptable way.

  The Terran Union conducted an informal census a few years ago, and the numbers show that there are roughly 2 million nonhuman Union members on a variety of worlds, with most of them concentrated here on New Washington and on planet Earth. Many of these individuals are government employees, of course, and they represent billions of their citizens. Keeping them all happy— or trying to keep them all happy, I should say—has been a full-time job.

  My job.

  Some days are better than others. This day, I see as the cab’s spiraling in for a landing on the roof of my building, isn’t over yet. I crane my neck to get a better look. There are hundreds of protestors down there, waving signs and shaking their fists at the blank glass façade.

  I groan. I know who these people are. They are Terran Nationalists, protesting here outside the official residence of the human diplomatic corps.

  Protesting to me—among others.

  I settle back into the seat, resisting an impulse to tell the cab to take me back to Flynn’s office. I grip the hand rests. I won’t let these fools ruin my day. With that in mind, as well as an unbidden image of a plate of sliced cheddar and a cold bottle of white wine, I compose myself as best I can. I’m going to have to talk to them, try to get them to disperse.