Battlecruiser Alamo: Ghost Ship

by Richard Tongue

   “You wanted to go for a walk?” she asked.

   He looked up, shook his head, and said, “Actually, I was hoping for conversation, though I’m perfectly happy to do this on the move.”

   “My orders are to accompany you when you visit other unrestricted areas of the ship, Commandant. I’m not here to be your friend.”

   A smile beamed across his face, and he said, “If I’ve been inspiring good honest hatred such as this, I consider that I have done a good job. I am surprised, though. I would have thought that you would want to analyze my every word for whatever intelligence you could gather.”

   “If that’s what you want, I’ll summon our Intelligence Officer. I’m sure that he could improvise some sort of interrogation chamber for you. He’s very good at making something out of nothing.”

   “Ah, the redoubtable Sub-Lieutenant Tyler. I did encounter him, briefly. He seems rather young for the job, but I am certain that he will grow into it. I was more interested about our detour. It is my understanding that we are taking a different route home than we had originally planned.”

   “Do we have your permission?” she said with a sarcastic sneer. “I’m off duty, Commandant, and not obliged to spar with you any longer.”

   “I’m sorry about your father,” he said. “I only became aware of his presence on Jefferson when you arrived. Would it make any difference if I told you that had I known he was on my world, I would have arranged for his repatriation?”

   Turning back to him, she said, “Why should I believe you for a second?”

   “You have no reason to do so at all, but it happens to be the truth.”

   “The Hercules…”

   “Was an extremely high-profile case, which attracted the attention of the Admirals. There are ways of dealing with a single individual, found stranded on an isolated planet.”

   “Don’t try to tell me that you are some sort of revolutionary.”

   His smile returned, and he replied, “I would not claim such a description as that, Lieutenant. However, I do see the need for amicable relations between our two governments. There are dangerous things out in the dark, and we should not be fighting among ourselves. Unlike certain members of my government, I fail to see how dealing with a prolonged resistance movement will promote stability.”

   “You seem confident of victory.”

   He shrugged, and said, “The scenario I speak of would apply equally to whomever won the war, Lieutenant. That is something I am extremely confident of.”

   “And this relates to our current situation in what way?”

   Gesturing for her to enter his quarters, he sat down at a chair by the currently shaded viewscreen. After a few minutes, she reluctantly followed, perching on the bed with her back to the door, ready to leave the room in an instant.

   “We are transiting a route of Brown Dwarves, correct? Our experience has been that these routes were used extensively by the earliest settlers of our part of space, by the Neander during their wars.” He smiled, then said, “Of course, some of us know of them.”

   “Then why…”

   “Some of us would not like being ordered to engage in racial extermination, Lieutenant. I dare say some would even refuse such an order. Others, I fear, are only interested in the loss of a useful servile workforce. Either way, the end result is the same. All details on the ancient history of our worlds are highly classified.”

   “You didn’t know of this route, though?”

   “No, but we operate along several. Only out of necessity, and rarely. Ships transiting such space have a distressing tendency to disappear.”

   “Disappear?”

   “The prevailing theory is active weapons left over from the war, or perhaps xenophobic populations that would resist any contact with the outside universe. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, Lieutenant, and I am reluctant to ask such questions when lives are at stake. Especially my own.”

   “Is that what this all boils down to? Saving your skin?”

   His tone hardened as he replied, “Lieutenant, my orders are to attempt to create a state of non-aggression between our two governments, in order to prevent a war that neither of us wants. My survival is not the key issue here – and do you think that I would have volunteered for such an assignment if I was only interested in myself?”

   She paused before replying, “I’d considered you thought the Confederation was the safest place for you to be. After all, you failed to stop us escaping.”

   “Something you accomplished in spectacular fashion. Alamo accomplished its part beautifully.”

   She smiled at that, shook her head, and replied, “Is this the part where you hint that you started us on this mission, knowing what we would do? I don’t believe it. If you had wanted to try something like that, you’d have found a way to do it that didn’t lead to the death of thousands of your spacemen.”

   “Your people will be an easy sell compared to the infighting we have experienced. The Cabal were the ones who truly needed to be convinced of the need for peace, not the Confederation.”

   “And just what are you planning to offer?”

   “Rather less than before you took a lot of my bargaining chips off the table, but I think we can agree to a mutual trade and non-aggression pact.”

   “Like the one Nazi Germany signed with the Soviet Union?”

   “I see you know your history well. I was thinking more of the European Union, or the Entente, but I also know that I will never convince you.”

   She stood up, and said, “I’ll support anything that stops a war. That doesn’t mean I have to trust you, and it certainly doesn’t mean I have to like you.”

   “I would ask for neither.”

   “I have more important things to do,” she said, heading for the door.

   “One moment,” he said. “I was quite sincere when I warned of the dangers of this area of space. You can chalk it up to my well-developed instinct for self-preservation if you wish, but I urge you to be cautious.”

   Turning at the threshold, she said, “We’re always cautious, Commandant.”

   “Past experience suggests that you are bending the truth a little with that statement.”

   “Caution does not mean cowardice.”

   “As long as it means survival, Lieutenant. That’s what I’m concerned with today.”

   She walked out of the room, then paused in the corridor outside, weighing up what he had said. After a moment’s thought, she reached down for her communicator again, tapping a control.

   “Bridge aye,” Kibaki said.

   “Where’s the Captain?” she asked. “I think I need to have a word with him.”

  Chapter 8

   Logan stepped into the shuttle, Harper already inside, then paused at the airlock as he heard footsteps approaching. Looking back into the corridor, he saw the tall figure of Colonel Singh heading towards them.

   “Come to see us off?” he asked.

   “I wish to accompany you to the station,” Singh replied. “It would be of value to us both.”

   “Why should I permit a UN observer to follow us around over there?”

   With a thin smile, he replied, “You acceded to my request to accompany you for your own reasons, Captain, not mine. Let neither of us pretend otherwise. Whatever your motivation, you have indulged an old man’s curiosity this far. Permit me to follow it further.” Raising a hand, he said, “I pledge not to report to the UN anything I see.”

   “Can we trust that?” Harper said, leaning out of her chair. “Isn’t that treason?”

   “I doubt anyone is reading my reports in any case. My erstwhile superior has doubtless blamed me for the debacle at your station. Some of my few remaining friends suggested that I remain in Triplanetary territory for my safety.”

   Shaking his head, Logan said, “I’m increasingly surprised that it took us as long as it d
id to beat you.”

   “Defeat – even in the manner it was accomplished – took something from us. Left us a shell of our former selves. We could have rearmed, built new fleets and armies, unleashed them against you at any time. Have you asked yourselves why we didn’t?”

   “It wasn’t economic.”

   With a smile, Singh replied, “That was merely an excuse, and not a particularly credible one. Our reasons were far baser than that. Defeat broke us, Captain, and has turned us inward. Should the interstellar colonies start to put up a serious fight, I venture we will allow them to secede as well. Perhaps we no longer have the expansionist spirit.”

   “And you?”

   “I’ve seen a lot of war, a lot of death, and I have no hunger for more. I still believe in the ideals I signed up to defend, though perhaps I no longer find them represented by the uniform I wear.”

   “We’d better get going, boss,” Harper said.

   “All of us?” Singh asked.

   Shrugging, Logan said, “Why not. I’ll just introduce you as Mr. Singh, no nationalities, and they’ll probably just assume you are part of the crew.”

   “Which is, in fact, the truth,” he said, stepping into the passenger seat and sliding on the restraints. “I will say nothing. My goal is to watch and listen.”

   Shaking his head, Logan stepped into the pilot’s seat, locked down the hatch, and activated the release. No luxuries like elevator airlocks on this ship; two commands and they were on their way. This time, the computer was doing all of the piloting, the station providing them with both a course to follow and a warning about what would happen if they decided to ignore the directions.

   Freed of the burden of flying his ship, Logan kept half an eye on the instruments and warning lights, and focused the rest of his attention on the station they were flying towards. It was a mish-mash, that much was obvious. A central structure with its own power array, a reactor module towed at a safe distance, dwarfed by the additional elements bolted on. Some of them looked as if they had been there for decades, others brand new. They hadn’t the luxury of retiring obsolete components, that much was obvious.

   The ships he saw told the same story. All the same basic design, half a dozen modules around a central torus, looking similar to the earliest interplanetary spacecraft, but some of them were obviously more modern than others, a few seasoned veterans on close patrol. He doubted that any ships were simply decommissioned, only relegated to less critical duty.

   “Hey, we’re getting an incoming approach vector. Request for automatic control,” Harper said.

   “How?”

   “Best guess, the Dumont left them a few components behind.”

   “Can you find out what?” he asked.

   With a smirk, she replied, “With their security precautions? I’ll have a list on your datapad by the time we dock. Want me to let them in?”

   “Doesn’t matter to me whose computers guide us. As long as nobody starts firing missiles, I’ll be a happy man.”

   Logan glanced down at the controls, nodded to himself, and returned to looking at the view. The planet below was unlike anything he had ever seen, black and gold, a strange tinge to the oceans, and the black huge jungles of vegetation basking in the infrared radiating from the central star. He’d read about worlds like this as theoretical possibilities, but this was the first time he’d ever seen one for himself.

   Glancing down at the sensors readouts, he shook his head. He could step out onto the surface of that planet with a respirator; the pressure and temperature were fine, if a little excessive for his taste. A better prospect for settlement than Mars had been, back in the early days.

   “Over there,” Harper said, pointing. “Is that what I think it is?”

   Following her hand, he saw one of the spherical ships at station-keeping, one of the older modular vessels hanging close by, as if guarding it. Understandable enough after a war such as this that they would have managed to capture an enemy vessel at some point; getting a look on board suddenly became one of his top priorities.

   “We’re coming up on docking,” he said. “Let me do the talking, but neither of you be afraid to sing out if you see anything important. We keep together, whatever they say, and don’t tell them anything about home other than the basic, bare facts. My guess is that’s all we’re going to get from them.”

   “So we reciprocate paranoia, and learn far less than we might with a free and frank exchange,” Singh said with a sigh.

   “They’re developing the hendecaspace drive, Colonel. That makes them a potential threat.”

   “One that a battlecruiser could deal with easily.”

   “Even a battlecruiser can only be in one place at once. Capabilities, Colonel, not intentions.”

   “I had no idea you took your profession so closely to heart, Captain.”

   The shuttle drifted up to an airlock, and Logan saw a hastily-fitted adapter clamped onto it, breathing a brief sigh of relief; he’d feared that they’d have to get on board in spacesuits. Superficially, everything seemed similar enough to the designs he knew back home, but the devil was in the details. Everything from the shape of antenna to the fittings for emergency oxygen were different. Engineering design was God, as always; where practicality was most important, they shared concepts, but where the design was irrelevant, they were very different.

   A series of hard, familiar slams saw the shuttle lock down, and he unstrapped his restraints, floating gently away from his couch. Artificial gravity was something they had also decided not to trouble themselves with, it seemed; though with voyages of only a few days, they likely didn’t see it as essential.

   The hatch opened, and the trio drifted out. Logan’s expectations about their welcoming party were met; a pair of guards with what were obviously pistols pointed at them greeted them at the door, gesturing behind them.

   “We all going, boss?”

   “Lock the systems down, Harper. Tight as a drum. I don’t want anyone to be able to get at them while we’re here.”

   “Already done,” she said.

   The three of them moved out into the module, and Logan took the opportunity to look around. It was far more open than he had expected; the whole space was filled with people, people who looked completely at home in zero-gravity. Mesh nets covered each wall, securing components and tools, and the staff were working in the air on various tasks, while a low, discordant music played all around them.

   “Got to introduce them to neo-disco,” Harper said. “Bet they’d go wild with that oldie stuff.”

   The guard babbled at them for a minute in a string of incoherent syllables, before shaking his head with a smile, then gesturing at a hatch at the far side of the module. Singh gestured towards a symbol painted on the wall, a ship drifting through space, stylized to the point that it took Logan a moment to recognize it. As they watched, one of the technicians drifted past the symbol, making a quick hand gestured as he did so.

   “Some sort of icon, perhaps,” Singh suggested.

   “Eyes and ears open,” Logan said. The guard gestured again, and he continued, “Hopefully he’s taking us to someone who speaks English.”

   One guard took a position in front of them, the other at the rear, placing their pistols back in their worn holsters. Almost everything seemed well-used, though there was a leavening of obviously new equipment; they were keeping everything going as long as possible, then replacing it only when needed. Sensible.

   Drifting through the lock, the next module was similar in design philosophy to the first; this was a huge barracks, dozens of sleeping bags hanging from the air like a forest of the somnolent, and they carefully wove their way through. Nothing like this would ever be considered back home, except in the direst emergencies, but they seemed happy enough with it.

   The third module was evidently their destination, a smaller control section, with people swarming about fr
om console to console. Each wall was a huge, partitioned viewscreen, different sections reserved for each consoles, the displays changing size and moving around as they watched. Logan shook his head; it was an interesting idea, but it would be hell to get used to in practice, and he certainly wouldn’t want to try.

   At the heart of the room was Tolxac, gesturing at one of the displays and talking in the same babble as the rest of them. On the off-chance that it could be translated at some point, Logan’s datapad was quietly recording everything around it. After a moment, Tolxac pushed off, down towards the trio, a smile on his face.

   “Welcome to Guardian Station. I apologize for not meeting you at the airlock, but the aftermath of the battle has stolen my attention.” He tapped a gaudy purple armband, and said, “Anyone wearing this can speak your language. I’m afraid there are far too few of them at the moment.” Looking at the others, he said, “You brought some of your crew?”

   Nodding, Logan replied, “Kristin Harper, one of my technology experts, and Vikram Singh, diplomatic advisor.” He didn’t feel that Tolxac needed to know their ranks at the moment.

   “A pleasure.” With a sigh, he said, “I begin to believe that two hundred years of war will soon be over.”

   Singh looked at Logan, who said, “Two hundred years?”

   “A little more, now. The Enemy arrived in our system in your year of 1932.” He looked at them, then smiled, continuing, “I sense that this surprises you. The crew of the Dumont were similarly disconcerted. Perhaps I should give you a little history first.”

   “In 1932, Earth didn’t even have spaceflight, still less starflight and interstellar colonization ability. How could you have been here for so long?”

   “Our ancestors settled this planet two thousand years ago. By slower-than-light techniques, in what I believe you would term a genetic ark. Though we are as human as you are; I am happy to provide samples of blood and tissue to confirm this point.”

   Shaking his head, Logan said, “Now you have me completely confused.”