by Trevor Wyatt
Ashley flashes me a cold look, which is kind of weird considering we just had sex.
My heart melts. I walk over to her and touch her lightly on her shoulders.
I look her in the eyes and say, “Don’t worry. I have this thing all figured out. Trust me. Okay?”
She doesn’t respond for what feels like one minute.
She finally heaves a sigh. “Okay. I trust you.”
I smile and walk out of her quarters. There are two security personnel waiting outside Ashley’s quarters. One is assigned to me, while the other is assigned to Ashley. Part of the armed guard that the Armada still insists Captains and Admirals should use on board its own starships.
I wonder if any other power in the universe mistrusts its own officers as much as we do.
They both salute me when I step out, and one follows me away from the room to the recreational center.
I certainly don’t have things figured out. I just really want all these to end. It is beginning to give me a migraine.
It’s not like I am trained as a diplomat. I am trained as an explorer and during the war as a warrior. But a diplomat? I don’t even like diplomats and bureaucrats and paper pushers. To me, they are all of the same stock.
It is just that after being the one to end the Earth-Sonali War, I became the de facto face of the Terran Union to the galactic powers. I was immediately commissioned by a unanimous vote of Armada Command to represent the Terran Union along with the Diplomatic Corps to the various powers of the galaxy and mandated to establish a Galactic Council—which over time I came to see the value in.
At first I thought no other race would even consider joining.
Well, at first I thought there’s no one who wouldn’t want peace. Now, it appears the Tyreesians were playing a game with us all along. I have no idea why. To keep us off balance? To distract us? A prelude to war? I know that this Tyreesian gambit can only lead to bad eventualities. I can’t do this on my own. I have to get the delegates in on this. Let them know that in the end it wasn’t a human fault that scuttled the talks that have taken three years of our lives. It was caused by the Tyreesians.
And if the strongest powers in the galaxy don’t have a place to resolve their differences peacefully, we’ll soon be in another war. I can tell. Although, maybe this time we will be united through war against a common enemy: the Tyreesians.
As my security personnel and I exit the elevator into the wide hallway that leads up to the double doors of the recreational center, I can hear a cacophony of voices and yells coming from within. Lining the hallway are armed guards. They nod at me as I pass, but I don’t pay them much heed. I am consumed with the problem before me.
The moment I walk into the recreational center, the delegates spot me and their noise increases. They are seated on chairs right in the middle of the center, their lead delegates taking up the front line of seats.
“There he is!” shouts one.
“You promised we would be safe!” shouts another.
“We were almost destroyed!” shouts yet another.
“What do you have to say for yourself?”
And then they were all talking all at once, yelling and accusing me.
I walk right in front of them and stand still, my hands folded right behind me. I look at each one of these aliens, yelling for a response from me. The leaders are the most agitated.
The guards have formed a loose circle around us in the recreational center, though they look outwards and pointed their guns in that direction.
I raise my hands to calm them, but they only get louder. I can feel their anger, I can feel their fear. I can feel their frustration. I know I would feel this way if I were in their shoes. So I don’t blame them. I only empathize with them.
Finally, I take a deep breath—and scream.
“Please calm the fuck down!” I roar above their noise.
Shocked, the faces of the delegates and their retinues are frozen. No one has ever probably addressed them as such. Ever.
Silence prevails in the center.
“Vice Admiral, why are we still aboard this ship?” asks one of the leaders. “You whisk us from the diplomatic compound in New Washington and then transport us without our consent to an unknown destination. You keep us locked in our rooms like rats. And you force us to live in jeopardy and fear of reprisal attack from you crew…”
“I am sorry, if I have caused you any harm,” I begin to say.
“You have!” roars the Sonali lead delegate. “You have and you know it. We have been unable to contact our respective governments. Every now and then some crewmate passes by our quarters screaming anti-alien obscenities that are too barbaric to be uttered by the cultured tongue. And you stand before us with a pretentious attitude?”
The Sonali lead delegate stops and the lead delegate of the Children of Norm continues, albeit in a more subdued and less condemning tone. “What exactly is happening, Vice Admiral?”
“Thank you, sir,” I say in gratitude, “for giving me the opportunity to explain what has been happening.”
“As you all well know the circumstances of event that led us to flee New Washington,” I start.
“Well it is those same circumstances that led us to the Omarias II star system in search of what exactly happened to Leader Greer of the Tyreesian Collective. I suppose if anything evil were to happen to any of you, god forbid, you would want the appropriate attention to be given to it.
“I don’t trust anyone else to investigate this but me. This is why we came here. Unfortunately, we were attacked by a Tyreesian warship, as most of you already probably know, and we had to defend ourselves, our crew, and our complement of diplomats, leading us to destroy the warship.”
“Greer never wanted this Council to happen,” the Sonali lead spouts with renewed acrimony. “Now he has paid for it with his life. The Tyreesians must have assassinated him, and I wouldn’t blame them. If I were them I would assassinate the Tyreesian fool too.”
“Computer,” I say, taping my comm. “Play the recording we obtained from Omarias II in the recreation center.”
“Working…” blasts the feminine voice in the hall.
A holographic feed erupts beside me and immediately captures the attention of all the delegates. The feed shows the Omarias space station on the planet’s surface and a freighter landing in the dock. It then cuts to the freight’s main doors opening and ten Tyreesians walking out.
The delegates must have recognized some of the Tyreesians as members of the Tyreesian party because they begin to murmur.
For effect, I say, “This recording was taken right after the incident at New Washington.”
The feed then shows two Tyreesians talking at the foot of the freighter. It is unclear who they are. One gives the other a handshake and returns into the vehicle, while the other walks in the direction the others went.
Before the Tyreesian walks out of the field of view of the camera, he comes close enough for us to see his face.
“Computer, freeze frame!”
The holographic projection freezes.
A gasps of murmur sweeps across the delegates. Everyone, including the leaders, are staring at the clear image of Leader Greer alive and well on Omarias II.
A definite silence follows.
“For some time, we have been working on a matter transportation technology,” I begin to say. “I don’t work with Armada Intelligence, but what little information I received or deduced from my briefings suggested that we were still quite a long way from developing it. It appears the Tyreesians have developed this technology.
“You see, matter and energy are interconvertible. Matter can be converted to energy and vice versa. The matter transport theory hinges on this interconvertibility to transport matter via energy from one point in space to another.
“I should probably not be telling you this because it’s classified information, but if we are going to form a galactic council, we’ll have to trust one another. We’ll have to sh
are with one another. We’ll have to work with one another.”
The delegates are now transfixed with what I have to say. The silence continues, and I must say I am enjoying it. It’s not every time you get to make one full sentence with a room filled with diplomats who all want what’s best for their people.
“Right from day one, Leader Greer has been driving us apart. I believe this is why. It allowed the Tyreesians get a jump on this technology, while for the past three years we’ve all been fighting amongst ourselves as they’ve been perfecting something that could give them a leg up on this quadrant of space. This has been their plans all along.”
Even though I’m done talking, the delegates remain dumbfounded. No one speaks or asks a question.
“The question isn’t me endangering you, delegates,” I say calmly. “It’s whether we’ve been played a fool by the Tyreesians for the last several years.”
Silence reigns.
I have nothing more to say.
So I walk out, leaving them to the frozen holographic image of Leader Greer of the Tyreesian Collective.
Jeryl
The security chief comes after me in the hallway.
“Vice Admiral!” I hear.
I’m already in the elevator, but I put my hand in the path of the sliding doors to keep them open.
“What is it, commander?”
“What do I do with them?” he asks, pointing towards the recreation center.
“Send them back to their quarters,” I reply. “They can also remain in the recreation center if they want to. But it’s either their quarters or the recreational center. Nowhere else.”
“Should we seal off the entire center?” she asks.
I think about it for a while. The crew need the center as much as the aliens. But from previous experience, some crew members may take it as an occasion to make trouble. While thankfully, no delegate has died, including Greer, I wouldn’t want that to start on this ship. I certainly wouldn’t want an Armada officer to be responsible.
There would be no returning from that.
“What do you think, chief?” I ask.
The security chief does a double take on that. She stares at me as though I haven’t really asked her opinion.
I smile, arching my eyebrow for a response.
She clears her throat. “Sir, I think we can let others into the recreational center. We will have guards in the center and around, so no one will get any ideas. Also, people need to be free to move around. Keeping them locked up or keeping them away from the RC will only make them grumpier—and grumpy people do foolish things.”
“I couldn’t have said it better, commander,” I say. “Do as you say.”
She nods and walks back to the RC. I ride the elevator to the first deck, where I connect with another elevator that takes me straight to the CNC.
Ashley is sitting in the captain’s chair. I see from the view screen that we’re already hurtling through space at FTL factor 4.
“How much time before we get to New Washington?” I ask, announcing my presence to the CNC crew. Ashley turns to see me.
“We are less than thirty minutes out, sir,” replies the navigations officer.
“How did it go?” Ashley asks the moment I am within range of her whispers.
“I showed them the feed.”
Her eyes widen.
“I told them what I know of Armada Intelligence’s plans to develop a matter transport technology,” I continue.
I see the disapproving look in Ashley’s eyes.
“You disapprove?”
“Of course, I disapprove,” she says, “I know how folks at Armada Intelligence think and operate. They’ll raise hell if they know you told them classified information.”
“And how will they find out?” I ask her. “Are you going to tell them?”
It is not my intention, but I can’t help the condemning tone with which I speak.
Ashley doesn’t reply. She looks away at her view screen.
I am about to head over to the workstation to the right, when she speaks again.
“I may not tell them” she says, “but that’s not to stop the delegates or their retinue from speaking to people they know. I bet you they already have.”
“We are receiving a priority slipstream communication from Admiral Flynn,” says the communications officer. He turns to look at me. “It’s for you sir.”
“On my screen,” I say.
“Aye, sir,” the communications officer says.
On my screen I see a message. I open it and read its content. The Admiral is requesting I meet him the moment The Seeker enters orbit. He wants me to come alone.
I glance at Ashley to see her looking at me. I motion for her to come, which she does. She reads the message.
“Why does he want you to come alone?” she asks.
“I’ll have to find out,” I say.
Ashley says, “Have a shuttle and a pilot ready for the Vice Admiral,” Ashley says. “He leaves immediately we enter orbit.”
“Destination, ma’am?” asks the operations officer.
“Armada Command,” she says as she returns to her chair.
“Aye, ma’am,” the operations officer says. “A pilot will be standing by at Shuttle Bay 03.”
I head over to shuttle bay three. By the time I’m strapped in the shuttle and the Lieutenant is done with his preflight checklist, we are cleared for departure.
Ten minutes later we are landing on a landing pad at Armada Command. There is an officer waiting for me as I exit from the shuttle.
“Vice Admiral,” he says, “right this way.”
He leads me through a door into an elevator that descends three levels. We walk into a small lobby with a homely decor, the fresh smell of coffee, and a holographic screen tuned to the news. There is a small desk by a wide door, where a lady sits, looking at her computer.
“Hey,” I say to the Admiral’s secretary.
She waves at me, then returns her attention to her screen.
“This is where I leave you, sir,” says the officer, standing by the door. “The Admiral is waiting for you on the other side.”
The door opens and Admiral Flynn is in the doorway. “Come on in, Jeryl,” he says.
I walk into the Admiral’s office and the Admiral closes the door behind me. We both head over to the couch and sit down.
“I received your message,” Admiral Flynn begins. “You engaged a Tyreesian warship in the Omarias Nova Star System.”
It isn’t a question, even though it sounds like one. The Admiral is looking at me intently.
“Sir, with all due respect,” I say, “it’s time for you to come clean. I don’t think you invited me here to have my intelligence insulted. What’s really going on?”
The Admiral seems taken back by my response. At first, I see anger fleet cross his eyes, before it is subdued by reason.
“Did you know about Greer?” I ask, point blank.
The Admiral sighs and reclines his back on the couch.
“Armada intelligence began to suspect Greer of nefarious purposes the first time he set foot on New Washington three years back,” he says. “We were particularly suspicious that the Tyreesians were on the verge of cracking the matter transportation technology that we have been trying to develop for quite a number of years now. Our suspicion was confirmed when we noticed that during your negotiations with the delegates, the Tyreesians were strategically blocking certain transfers of key technologies that would have helped us achieve this matter transport technology.
“You see, the Tyreesians aren’t that more advanced than us. In some ways they are behind, in other ways they are ahead. As strong as their weapons are, it’s barely one generation ahead. Everything they hit you with or even their shields—we’ve probably got on our drawing boards or labs. They got a jumpstart on developing this matter transport technology and it served their interest to keep the delegates fighting.”
“That much I figured,” I reply.
“Their shields are way advanced than ours. Their weaponry however are not so advanced. They were able to incapacitate us because they had the jump on us and targeted specific systems.”
The Admiral nods as he muses over what I’ve just said.
“You may not have figured this though,” he says. “The person in charge of the Tyreesian science team charged with developing the matter transport technology is none other than Leader Greer. And the first time he uses his technology in an open environment was for a diplomatic sleight of hand.
“That son of a bitch.” I remark, though indecorously.
“Armada Intelligence could not confirm this at first,” Admiral Flynn continues, “so they decided to keep it close to their vests until hey had enough information. But you’ve basically spilled the beans on this one, so they decided to tell us what they know.”
I sigh, shaking my head more from exhaustion than from annoyance.
“What now?” I say.
“We need to catch up with the Tyreesians,” Admiral Flynn says, teeth on teeth. “Those bastards are getting bold, attacking an Armada vessel in Terran space. We need to even the odds to stave off another war less than five years after the last one.”
Admiral Flynn looks at me, his eyes void of emotions.
“The Terran Union is depending on you, Jeryl,” he says. “The Galactic Council is a good idea and if it is enshrined, then all governments will have to work together. Your proposal has the full support of the Terran Union now.”
I can’t help but feel disgust shoot up my throat.
“We only got the full support of the Union now our backs are against the wall and we want something,” I blurt, revulsion spilling into my words in overlapping waves.
Admiral Flynn shrugs.
“We all have to do what we all have to do,” he says. “Though that is the reason of their full cooperation now, maybe in the future situations it will be more ideal.”
Admiral Flynn’s comm link chirps. He raises his device on his hand and taps it and listens to the auditory play in his ears. I don’t hear what is being said, but I watch as Admiral Flynn’s face turns white as though he has seen a ghost.
