Trevor grimaced. Indeed they were, and he didn’t need to think about it. That still didn’t stop his next words. “I can’t proceed without the approval of my officers.”
“Then obtain it, Captain Grimes,” the politician said bluntly.
Well, what had he expected them to say?
Chapter 5 -- Return
It took two years to head back towards Earth. It felt like treason leaving so many behind -- they only let Trevor take Robin and a friend of hers, Shiloh Hicks. Trevor knew the two were sleeping together and honestly didn’t mind as much as he thought he should. Senior Pilot Officer Makaa was along, plus two hundred and fifty others from the Union.
He didn’t ask, but he was sure that they were volunteers who’d agreed to suicide if they were arrested; he hoped that wasn’t the case, but he was pretty sure it was. He was also aware that several of the Union military left on Odyssey were telepaths -- it made only good sense, and there was no reason why they should announce who they were.
He’d had several long talks with Commander Robinson. He was confident in her ability to deal with being the senior officer left behind, and he had stressed a zillion times they had telepaths, there would be at least one aboard, and she had to scotch any plans to try to overpower the Union people left aboard. Then he had to put it behind him.
It was a sad commentary on his relations with his peers that he had more trouble leaving the young people behind than their elders. Then it was nearly fifteen months back to the Federation.
They took a three-week dogleg to begin with, then two more at a week apiece, far away from where any Union ships would be, before finally heading towards Earth.
There hadn’t been much choice about where to go -- Earth was the best for any number of reasons. They crossed the invisible line that marked the old frontier of the Federation. Their course was planned to take a few doglegs in their final approach to Earth.
Their first ship detection was about halfway between the frontier and Earth. Makaa was the one who brought the news. “We detected three ships traveling in company on High Fan. Almost at once, one of them dropped from High Fan, reoriented and is moving to intercept.”
Trevor swallowed. “Either the Federation can detect ships on High Fan now -- or these are aliens.”
“There is another issue. They appear to be slightly faster than we are. We aren’t going to be able to shake them. Captain Moore is holding an officer’s call at 1000; I insisted that she include you, which wasn’t her original intention, but I have convinced her.”
The meeting produced nothing but indecision. They didn’t want to lead aliens to a human-occupied planet, but there wasn’t going to much choice.
Trevor solved the problem neatly. “As long as we have ship trailing us, what I want to do is drop from High Fan near Neptune. There’s a small Fleet base there, or was at the start of the war. If that base still exists and if they still have latch-frame, the human race is going to have serious problems if they can’t deal with one alien.”
Four days later, two more ships fell in with the trailing ship. Then four more over another two weeks. Trevor looked at the readouts of the sensors. “We’re boxed. If we drop from High Fan with zero cycle time, how long would it take us to detect that? We’d only be a few light seconds away before they did the same thing. They are keeping five light seconds of separation -- I’m as sure as I can be that no matter how fast we cut the fans, they’ll detect it and we’ll be boxed.
“We need to come off fans as far out as is reasonable -- Neptune still seems like a good choice. We beg, plead and cajole for time to explain that we aren’t hostile.”
“Except, Captain Grimes, we aren’t oriented anywhere near the solar system. Quite literally, we can’t get there from here. I’m sorry to say, I know about the laser designs you left behind. We must assume that those plans were passed on. If they open fire as soon as we drop from fan, we have no chance,” Makaa told him.
“Makaa, I was a Marine. I might be a transplanted habitat manager, ship captain, and jack-of-all trades, but at heart I’m a Marine. To quote an old saw, ‘Surrender is not in my creed.’
“What I’d like, then, is that we come off fan for about a second. Even if they have lasers that can reach out and touch us, they are still subject to Einstein’s rules. We stay down half the distance from the closest ship. We say something like ‘Don’t shoot! Zip burst follows’ and send a burst transmission explaining at greater length that we’re human and come in peace. Tell them that we are going to continue on as before, and that one of the ships to the side should slow slightly for a minute.
“In the Cold Dark, we’ll have the best chance of taking them by surprise and maybe get a few extra seconds.
Captain Moore was another space-adapted person, although as far as Trevor could tell, she wasn’t a telepath. She was short and stocky, with a barrel chest, and long black hair.
“Is he honest, Senior Pilot Officer Makaa?” the captain asked his escort.
“Yes, Captain. I know you think I’m prejudiced; ‘hopelessly contaminated.’ You are surprised at how good a suggestion it is, and while you can think of a few small changes, you have nothing better.” Makaa waved around the room. “None of us do, because it is eminently sensible.”
“And since I’m screened against telepaths, how would you know what I thought, Senior Pilot Officer Makaa?” the captain said acidly.
“You might be screened from my probing, but I’m not blind or deaf -- you sighed when you heard the suggestion. A sigh of relief, not desperation.”
The captain chuckled. “I do not think you are hopelessly contaminated or totally compromised. You are not heart-stuck either. You are a good woman, Pilot Officer, who, like the rest of us, has too many conflicts in our duties right now.”
She turned to the communications officer. “Prepare the message and the burst transmission. We need someone to speak the first part as quickly and as clearly as possible. Five words -- two, two and a half seconds tops. Then a half-second burst -- that’s thirty seconds more. Stress that we come in peace and want to talk. That we will give a boarding party control of the ship -- so long as we are headed to a Federation Fleet base. Give them a time that we will come off fans, say ten minutes.”
There was a ship full of highly nervous people. Robin had added a recommendation of her own -- the burst transmission had to be separately recorded and processed, but there was nothing to stop that from being mated with a prerecorded short message.
They survived the unpleasantness of a zero cycle time fan transition and were still alive when they went back to High Fan.
Captain Moore held another officer’s call. “You will appreciate the irony: they must have prepared their own transmission. They said, ‘Fleet ship London. ID yourselves.’ Then there was a burst transmission of their own, basically warning us that if change course to head to an occupied system, we will be destroyed without warning, and that we must heave to and prepare to be boarded.”
The sensor officer spoke up. “Captain, I didn’t have time to report that the initial data reduction was completed a very short time ago. Sir, one of the ships that came off fan was three hundred billion tons. It was the source of the transmission.”
“Good grief!” Captain Moore exclaimed.
Trevor spoke up. “Yes, Captain, that’s a lot of tonnage. On the other hand, Odyssey masses about a two-thirds of that. That’s about thirty-five cubic kilometers of consolidated nickel-iron. That’s a rock, if it was spherical, would have a radius of a kilometer and a half. Obviously, if you put enough fans in a rock, you can move it just fine.”
“It is one thing to contemplate a mobile habitat as large as yours, Captain Grimes. The mind can’t comprehend what sort of a warship that would be.”
Makaa spoke up. “Captain, the Union has offered to build and let Captain Grimes command a vessel of comparable size to the Odyssey. It is my understanding that the survey was complete before we left, and that construction had started.”
She bobbed her head at Trevor. “Right now, half of the Union’s large scale laser production is dedicated to that vessel and the other half dedicated to the rest of the Union’s fleet.”
“This isn’t the place to talk about such things,” Captain Moore said.
Makaa nodded, “I want to emphasize that we are not beggars coming to plead for bread scraps. Yes, we aren’t the Federation and don’t have their research base. It did not escape Captain Grimes that they detected us before we detected them. That does not bode well for our ability to detect the aliens.
“I remind everyone what our mission is: to establish peaceful contact with the Federation, find a way to paper over our differences and adopt a common cause. If we aren’t forthcoming about our abilities, we can’t expect them to be. And that means a failure in our most basic, our most fundamental mission.
“The aliens have to be opposed to human expansion -- whether or not they’d oppose anyone else, we can’t say. That means if they ever discover us, they will seek to destroy us.
“If we devote the next millennium to preparing to defend ourselves, devoting most of our human and material resources, if they give us that long -- we might, I emphasize might -- be able to defend ourselves. We can’t afford to lose this opportunity. Please, have a care!”
“I couldn’t have said it better,” Captain Moore concurred. “I know that some of us are opposed to further contact with Federation. We have been outvoted. I am master and commander; interfere with my mission and you will experience the full weight of the Union’s wrath. I’m sorry to have to say this, but I want us all on the same page. Stuff a sock in your disagreement with policies.”
She turned to Trevor. “Captain Grimes, Senior Pilot Officer Makaa, attend me after this meeting. The rest of you have duties to attend to. Attend to them.”
Captain Moore was blunt when they met shortly. “I’ve been told to give you your head, Captain Grimes. That said, Senior Pilot Officer Makaa is going to hear your every whisper of thought. She assures me that you have no ill-intentions, and I assure you that I have none either. Nonetheless, if she senses a change of intention, I’ll shoot you out of hand. You will be the only one of your people to make initial contact with the Federation.
“You are familiar with our desires in this regard,” Captain Moore told him. “And I have no doubt that you are an honorable man. But, just as I warned my officers, now I’m warning you.”
“Trust me, Captain Moore. You have fifteen thousand hostages to my good behavior. I’m not about to take a misstep.”
“Good. We have about twenty minutes before we put it all on the line.” She held out her hand for him to shake. “Lets all pray for good results.”
“I thought you were all believers these days?” Trevor said with a grin.
“A good many are, however, many are agnostic. Likely prayer won’t work, but really, how is rubbing a lucky rabbit’s foot going to help?” the captain said.
Trevor smiled. “You might have a lucky rabbit’s foot. The rabbit didn’t.”
“How easy it is to mistake good fortune for us personally for good fortune to all concerned!” Makaa said.
“I know we’ve talked about this before, and your decision was to hold back with Lieutenant Barnes and Lieutenant Hicks. Please, Captain, having a woman at my side -- a Federation citizen -- will help quite a bit.”
“Not at first,” Captain Moore said. “Those are direct orders. But I assure you, Captain Grimes, that she will join you as fast as practical.”
Again it was nail-chewing time when they came of High Fan. “Cut your fans,” came the preemptory command.
“Done,” Captain Moore reported.
“A boarding party will shortly arrive. Please, be sensible.”
“We stopped, didn’t we? Please, we’ve come in peace.”
“And you are who?”
“A ‘lost’ colony, that has had a number of years of development apart from the Federation. Sir, I’m Captain Agnes Moore, the Union Space Force. I have with me some of your people. Captain Grimes, your floor.”
“I’m retired Colonel of the Fleet Marines, Trevor Grimes...” he went on to explain what had happened after Grayhome. At least is served to kill the time until the boarding party docked.
He knew exactly when they boarded because Makaa put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed hard. She made a cutting motion with her hand, and gestured at the comm link. Captain Moore nodded. “I gave you my name, you didn’t give us yours. Thus, I’m going to be a little rude myself. We will talk again when your boarding party arrives on the bridge; now we need to talk amongst ourselves.”
She turned to Makaa. “Senior Pilot Officer Makaa?”
“Their thoughts are shielded.”
Captain Moore grimaced. “This isn’t good. Captain Grimes, your opinion. How will we stand if we demand them to stop interfering?”
“I have no idea. Obviously, they feel there is a risk. Ask them to unshield them all, then settle for one.”
Captain Moore stared at him for a moment.
“He is surprised, Captain, just as you are, and just as I am,” Makaa interjected.
The captain laughed. “I keep forgetting the effect of fifteen thousand hostages for this man’s good behavior.”
Makaa made a rude gesture. “He never thought of them -- just a way to get the best result.”
She stopped, paled and her jaw tightened. “Captain, there is -- an entity -- aboard that large ship that is scanning our minds. You are safe, so are a few others.”
“And you, Senior Pilot?” Captain Moore asked.
“It ripped through my defenses like they were tissue paper. Sorry, sir.”
“Captain,” Trevor said, “Please... let me.”
“Go, Captain Grimes.”
“Comms, bring up the link.”
“You are attempting to read our minds,” Trevor said without pause. “That is unacceptable. Your boarding party’s thoughts are screened as well. The crew of this vessel is prepped to suicide faced with a hostile response.
“We have acted in a peaceful fashion. It is you who are acting in an aggressive, unacceptable fashion. Leave our minds. Open at least one mind in your boarding party; we will look, but not do anything further.
“Please, I beseech you. I arrived on this planet with fifteen thousand refugees from Grayhome -- a thousand infants, about fourteen thousand young people, most of them young women, ranging in age from six to twenty. If this ship is lost, they will kill every last one of them. Obviously we are powerless to stop you -- except by our deaths. Please, cease and desist these hostile acts.”
“Which is it? Colonel or Captain?”
“You are a fat-headed moron like those back on Grayhome. They killed thousands of innocents. I hope the Fleet hangs you by the neck until you are quite dead.”
Another voice popped into the circuit. “Trevor Grimes moved out to Grayhome -- then dropped off the map. He would never, ever, be confused about his rank.”
“If he had fifteen thousand refugees he was responsible for, he might just decide that ‘Master and Commander’ was a better position of authority,” Trevor said. “You sound like a lieutenant of mine. Kristopher Felsen.”
“There has been a little water under the bridge since then, Colonel. I have been authorized to tell you that the scans of your ship have stopped. Please, no drama! Admiral Cathcart hates paperwork and you’ve threatened him with tons. Colonel Grimes, things are a bit unsettled at the moment in the Federation. The scans weren’t authorized and have since been overridden. We will permit a single Marine sergeant to discontinue coverage for about two hours.”
Makaa nodded, and Trevor spoke again. “The scans have stopped. It’s a start, anyway.”
Another voice spoke, different from the others. “Are you a colonel or a captain, sir?”
“I was a retired Marine colonel. There wasn’t any time at Grayhome for formalities. Who is this?”
The voice laughed. “I ordered no one to ide
ntify themselves, Mr. Grimes. I’m Erik Cathcart, vice admiral, commanding this detachment of the Fleet. I seem to be ignored.
“There were no known survivors from Grayhome, although a habitat reported that a refugee ship was going to attempt to escape. It’s been nearly five years and so that ship was written off.”
“Admiral, they kept my passengers behind. No one has been crass enough to suggest they are hostages. That is, except me. Our goal is to reestablish contact with the Federation.
“Please, think about this, Admiral. In your records you will find the records of a malf back in the time of Kinsella, the French-flagged vessel Miracle at Orleans. My habitat had never had occasion, and never had plans to go to High Fan. When I attempted to do so, my fans failed like they had so long ago.
“Except we survived.
“Please, sir. We traveled hundreds of light years in about four seconds. If this ship suicides, you will lose the information I have in my logs about what happened.”
“And like Colonel Felsen said, Mr. Grimes, I’m not interested in drama just now. If you can look at that sergeant’s thoughts, you are going to learn that we’ve just undergone a revolt in the Federation. A very peculiar revolt, from a very peculiar source.
“One of the things that happened was that members of the Fleet were compelled to act against not only their duty, the Fleet, but themselves. All of Grissom Station’s personnel were lost. Everyone is going around with their hands on the trigger.
“I am told that the situation is under control however the AI controlling London is not under my control, so I’m a little insecure.”
Trevor made a mental leap. “The AI can read minds?”
“Read and control,” was the reply.
Makaa shook her head.
“Admiral, can you give us a few minutes? I’m told your people are now on our bridge.”
“Agreed. Please don’t take long. We are close to a latch-frame beam; I need to report this. There is a task force already headed out this way.”
The Odyssey and the Iliad (Kinsella Universe Book 7) Page 9
