by SF Edwards
I felt decidedly out of place as we faced off against the incoming ships. It turned out that the large ship was some kind of carrier. It had a strange design feature though, a forward bow like that of a naval vessel hung beneath the main hull, almost like it had been designed for water landings. The smaller corvettes were saucer shaped with a large set of guns on the dorsal and ventral surfaces, and a large mallet-shaped bridge jutting out from their bows. The cruisers were a mixed bag, half were saucer shaped, like the Mallard had been. The rest were sleek-hulled craft with massive engines and large exposed bridge towers that rose from the forward ends.
I leaned in close to Jemma as the ships closed to less than fifty light cents. “If they wanted to talk wouldn’t they have said something by now?”
She didn’t respond, just stared at the situation display.
I placed a hand on her arm. “I think this is about to turn ugly. Maybe you and I should leave.”
“No,” she replied, the orbs around her seeming agitated. “We’re entering range for real time communications without lag. Maybe they’ve been waiting for that.”
I admired her optimism, but hated to watch it get shattered.
“Torpedoes incoming,” the sensor officer called.
“Interceptors!” the captain hollered. “Noncombatants clear the bridge.”
Two big hands shoved me off the bridge into the captain’s ready room. A moment later Jemma and even the Admiral followed. The holographic windows along the walls still showed the view outside the ship and the first few flashes of the defensive batteries illuminated several panels. “We’re turning,” I pointed out as the starfield slid aside.
“I gave the order to deploy the crypt with the message pods before we left the bridge,” the Admiral commented.
Jemma collapsed into a chair, utterly defeated.
I walked over to comfort her but the Admiral beat me to it. “Don’t worry Jemma, we knew that this might be a possibility, you did fine.”
She looked up, tears welling up in her pleading eyes. “But why would they just attack?”
“Maybe the Pharad influence,” I offered.
“That would be my guess,” the Admiral replied. “For now we’ll just fall back and wait.”
A bright flash lit up the view wall and I turned to watch one of the corvettes take multiple volleys from the oncoming ships. Its shields strained under the assault before it failed in a brilliant cascade. Round after round tore at its hull as it sped away. I could only watch in horror. I wasn’t supposed to be in the middle of a battle. I’m just the carrion eater that picks through the wreckage. Several orbs began to orbit me, and I felt warm in response as they sent images of a peaceful glade into my mind.
Our ship rocked a moment later and it was all I could do not to fall. “What happened?”
The admiral checked a data pad on the conference table. “A torpedo made it past the defensive batteries. We are in full retreat.”
“And the crypt?” Jemma asked.
“Deployed, along with two dozen message pods. Let’s hope that’s enough.”
I turned back to the view wall to watch the corvettes duke it out while we retreated. Another one of ours took a hard hit that cleaved off its main turret before it turned to join us. I’m not sure when it happened, but as we retreated I found myself next to Jemma, her hand in mine. To my surprise, as the view walls went out in preparation for our jump into hyperspace, I found her in my arms. Our four hearts beat in an intense rhythm faster than I could ever remember my two ever beating before.
UCSB DATE: 782.063
Obline System, Treaty Station
Treaty Station was by no means a permanent installation. It was little more than a retired colony ship parked in a dead system on the edge of Confederation Space, out near the Consign Spur. It was the fastest thing the Confederation could deploy to serve as the official meeting site for face to face diplomatic first contact between the Confederation and the Galactic Federation. Our flotilla of ships went straight there after the Galactic Federation chased us back into hyperspace. Then we waited for some kind of response that they’d received our gift and invitation.
It wasn’t all bad. Treaty Station was well appointed and minimally crewed, with many automated systems. The lack of others aboard caused Jemma and I to seek each other out for companionship. We spent almost all of our meals together, and I even enticed her to watch my favorite holo shows with me. Once word arrived that the Galactic Federation had sent representatives things got busier, but she and I still spent our off time together. Last cycle we even had a quiet dinner together, and despite my lack of intentions, it started to get intimate. It was nothing serious, but some hand touching, then holding, and at her door a kiss that was more than friendly. I couldn’t believe how flushed I’d felt afterwards.
I wondered what I was still doing here before the meetings had begun. I was as uncomfortable as all get out with the political wrangling going on. Most of it went over my head, but even I could tell that things weren’t going well for us.
“What about the Dagonites? We lost contact with them decades ago, and they were within the Consign Spur,” said the Drashig Confed representative for what seemed like the fifth time from our side of the long conference table dominating the room. The table featured numerous holoprojectors which the occupants could activate as needed, which complimented the various holos on the walls. Those varied in appearance, most were of the homeworlds, but the most impressive was a large map of the galaxy, highlighting the Confederation’s holdings within the Atria-Stria Spiral.
While technically a member race, the Dagonites were the definition of reclusive. They didn’t even have official Confed representation. They’d been under a Pharad protectorate, but after the Pharad had trashed the buoy network a century ago we’d lost contact with them. What worried the Confederation most was that the Dagonite were reportedly serving as eternal prison guards to some long interred immortals out in the Consign Spur, hence the name of that spiral. I’d never believed that. Nothing is immortal, though some of the ancient races that had come before were much longer lived. Nothing I knew of lived on the order of eons or epochs.
“We’ve told you already. We lost contact with the Frogmen shortly after we’d met them. We have no idea what happened to them,” the Terran representative snapped back.
It still bugged me how much they looked like Anulians. However, from my vantage point I could tell that they weren’t. The smell was the biggest thing, especially their breath; it always smelt, rotten. I’d only met one other race with a different amino acid base before, and they had a similar smell to them. Then there was the way they carried themselves.
Treaty Station generated gravity by spinning. To make the Federation reps comfortable we had our meetings inspin where the gravity was Earth standard. All the Confed reps had to keep from bouncing as a result. It was eighty percent Confed standard. I knew that if we took them outspin to the higher gravity ring that they would slouch under Confed normal gravity.
The Lodran rep cringed at the word frogman. I explained to him what it meant after it had come up the first time. Used as a pejorative, it was none the less a relatively accurate description. Dagonites are amphibious hominids in form, but are more like a cross between a fish and a Terran frog.
The spirit orbs accompanying Jemma flared and twittered to her in response as well. I’d learned to read them well enough to know that that meant someone had lied. Jemma flashed me a quick, concerned look, and I smiled back. She looked exhausted. One of the orbs kept a lazy orbit around the room, monitoring everything. The Galactic Federation representatives, all of them human, took no notice of it. Can they even see the orbs?
“And quit calling it the Consign Spur, we refer to it as the Orion Arm,” the Federation representative added.
“My apologies. It is an old name, and no other race we have had dealings with there has ever objected,” the Drashig representative replied.
“And how many of them were m
embers of your grand Confederation again?” he asked, his tone accusatory.
Jemma returned her warmest smile. “The Pharad were the largest group, and they had client and protectorate races under them. Most of these races did not travel the stars.”
How many of them are now unlisted conscript races? I wondered.
“We lost contact with all of them after the Pharad rebelled and destroyed the navigation buoy network,” Jemma went on. “An aggressive threat to our borders and the rebuilding of the network have prevented us from reaching back out to them.”
“What relations did ya maintain wit the Sirian Empire?” a dark skinned human asked, his accent thick.
“Very little,” Jemma returned. “Their empire was on the decline when the Confederation was born. And again, the Pharad were our primary conduit for contact.”
“Speaking of the Pharad,” the Drashig representative interrupted. “How much of this have they told you already? They were a powerful part of the Confederation before their betrayal. They should have told you something about us.”
The lead Federation representative turned a contemptuous eye on the Drashig rep. “They told us a great deal. They told us how you punished their whole race for the actions of a few radicals, and how the Drashig led the charge,” he continued, leaning forward.
“We discovered what they were up to,” the Drashig rep responded, rising to his twin-thumbed feet. “And it was no small faction. It was their whole government going out and subverting and enslaving younger races. They misled other species and lied about our system of economics and government. They also hid the goings on within your space from the rest of the Confederation. After we outed them they made sure that we were the worst affected by their treachery. We still have colonies out there we haven’t been able to establish contact with.”
“So you say, but that does not give you the right to attack and destroy one of our ships.”
The Anulian Admiral heading up the Confederation delegates stood, clearing his throat. “Gentleman, ladies, please. The destruction of the GFS Mallard was unfortunate, but was by no means unprovoked.” He motioned to me, and I stood. “This is one of our Forensic Engineers, he headed up the team that reconstructed what happened. Jard?”
I let out a nervous cough and activated the holographic projector. A rough polygonal reconstruction of the Mallard appeared, sitting beside a spherical jump point in the Smegrish System. “On Confed Date 781.374 at twenty-one sixty-three standard time, um, Earth Date 2374.115, zero-eight thirty-five Federation Time, the GFS Mallard dropped out of hyperspace in the Smegrish System. Their transit was detected by a Confederation fighter patrol which moved in to investigate.”
A flight of three fighters appeared on the hologram; the space-use-only fighters were blocky affairs, covered with thrusters and a pair of small cannons. “Flight leader Ledrin Zoga,” a 2-D image of his Lodran countenance appeared, “ordered his flight group to keep a respectful distance and hailed the ship. He received no response and held position, sending a communication back to base over tight band tach comm. His base scrambled a diplomatic corps shuttle with escorts and ordered Zoga to remain on station and report any changes or movement of the craft. The Contact team had a two hect, um one hour thirty-six-minute transit time ahead of them.
“At, twenty-two forty-eight hours Commander Zoga detected the Mallard powering up its weapons. Fearing that the Mallard might be misinterpreting the incoming first contact team, he hailed the ship again across all available frequencies. He tried to inform them that it was a diplomatic shuttle incoming and not an assault.”
The GF reps all remained stoic. I’m not the best when it comes to reading people, but even I could tell they didn’t like what I had to say.
“Commander Zoga then ordered his flight group to move away and disperse just in case. As he was backing away, the Mallard opened fire with one of its cannons. His shields were overwhelmed and his armor shredded before he had a chance to respond.” Zoga’s fighter just disappeared from the hologram as multiple lines struck it. I made sure to tell my team not to animate the explosion or cannon fire before I left six cycles earlier.
“That’s a lie,” one of the Federation Ambassadors called out. “The telemetry we received in the Mallard’s emergency beacon showed that it fired a warning shot when it detected the incoming assault craft. The Confederation craft advanced into it on a suicide run to incite more violence.”
“Gentlemen, there is obviously some discrepancy then,” the lead Confed representative stated. “It is entirely possible that Commander Zoga might have mistakenly flown into what was intended as a warning shot. Never the less, the Mallard never responded to hails, nor did they make any move to halt aggressions after the loss of life. Jard, continue please.”
I hated being put on the spot like that, but a reassuring nod from Jemma spurred me on. “Commander Zoga’s wingmen reported back to base what had happened. While coming under continued fire themselves, they attacked the Mallard. They targeted weapons emplacements and engines only in an attempt to take the ship intact. The shuttle escorts then left it behind and rushed ahead to join the assault.”
The hologram shifted and focused on one of the incoming fighters. “Fighter KC-012 was equipped with two Jale Heavy Rockets, standard anti-pirate loadout for a scramble-ready fighter. When the additional fighters arrived at twenty-three fifteen, they came under fire as well. The two fighters of Zoga’s wing had already greatly weakened the Mallard’s shields and defensive batteries by that point.
“KC-012 made an attack run on the engines and fired off both of his rockets. The weapons pierced the shields, penetrated the ship’s hull and heavily damaged the Mallard’s Fusion Containment Core.” I crossed my toes as best I could, hoping that my team hadn’t animated the next part. They had a bad habit of making it far too graphic. “This resulted in a runaway fusion reaction that initiated a core burst and plasma fountain.” To my relief, the small animation just showed a red burst from the core and purple tendrils of the plasma fountain breaching the hull and interior bulkheads. “Plasma fires then raced through the ship, effectively destroying it. The hull remained largely intact, though with the exception of multiple hull breaches.”
The admiral stood and motioned me back to my seat. “Again, the Confederation is sorry for the loss of life that occurred here,” he reiterated. “Our hope is that we can get past this unfortunate misunderstanding and peacefully welcome you into the Confederation.”
“We demand the return of the Mallard and all of her crew,” the lead Federation representative replied.
“Of course, we already have the remainder of the crew’s bodies here. If you supply us with the jump codes for the system you want the Mallard towed to, we will be happy to deliver it.”
“Bring it here. We will tow it home and do our own analysis. Our Pharad allies should be able to reproduce what happened with much more accuracy.”
“Be careful of what the Pharad tell you, they are master manipulators,” the Drashig rep reminded them.
The Galactic Federation representatives all jumped to their feet. “We will take no more of your slandering one of our members,” the lead negotiator bellowed. “Your treatment of them was inexcusable. We will speak to our government on how to proceed, but rest assured, the Confederation will make reparations.” With that the delegation marched from the room without another word.
I just sat there wide-eyed and turned to Jemma. She looked equally shocked at the reaction. Finally, the leader of our delegation stood and turned to the rest of us. “Well, the Confederation’s had worse opening negotiations.”
UCSB DATE: 782.085
Keshtin System, Debris Zone
I was in no mood for a spacewalk as I ventured out of the airlock towards the wreckage ahead of me. The ship was like nothing I’d ever seen and I had seen too many destroyed ships lately. In addition to the ones I’d seen with my own eyes, I also had to review the reports from other forensic teams.
The
negotiations with the Galactic Federation fell apart after we returned the GFS Mallard to them. Both sides still sent representatives to Treaty Station. From what I understood, the meetings tended to turn into long staring sessions between negotiators.
I was sent back to work immediately after the first disastrous meeting two tridecs ago. Jemma had remained for a few decles longer and was now told that she would be returning to Anul. We communicated frequently over the psicomm, but I feared I might never see her again. Then a few cycles ago she called me with good news. “They changed my orders. I’ve been reassigned to Cathedral 3,” she had told me.
I was ecstatic at the news. I didn’t want to lose her after all we’d been through. I had even considered applying for a transfer to be closer to her before her announcement.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on a date, boss?” Tomer asked as he emerged from our runabout’s airlock.
I growled before I replied. “Yes. Jemma’s shuttle has probably just arrived.”
“Sorry, boss. What’s your read on this one?” he asked pointing ahead.
The ship looked like it had been made of a series of giant stacked seashells. It looked organic, almost as if it was grown, not built. The ridged surface still retained a glossy sheen. Scars from multiple blast impacts marred its hull and there were more breaches than I could count. A few tridecs ago and I would have suspected a pirate attack. Now, I couldn’t be so certain.
I spotted something I recognized, a thruster port floating alongside. “Tomer, did any Confed fighters respond to this transport’s hails?”
“Um, yeah, a flight of three local militia fighters. Two were toasted and the third escaped, they’re sending us his flight and combat data. The other two pilots ejected safely and were picked up. There were no reports of any survivors in the transport.”
“OK, send Team Two out to see if they can recover the System Telemetry Recorders from the militia fighters. Keep a lookout for anything that doesn’t belong to the transport or any known Confed ships.”
