by Jim Rudnick
That got nods too.
Beedles asked another question. “How is it possible to build a ship that can still operate some twenty-plus thousand years later?”
The Issian answered that one right away. “Because they stole technology from every race that they conquered—and this we know to be true,” she answered.
Reynolds nodded but kept to himself the realization that what he’d just learned might be interesting—very, very interesting to the Baroness. He knew this ship had limited AI thought command capabilities, but the newly captured Praix ship—the Wisp he had heard it called—had fully functional and modern AI. AI that might, if properly investigated, provide the Barony with the abilities themselves. Technology that might be taken for our own advantages, he thought.
As the group went over to the two front chairs, they asked more questions and got answers that seemed to be honest and forthright, at least to Reynolds.
They also went through the whole wall of those cabinets by opening up each cabinet and having their captive look inside to let them know what things were or did. He only knew what few of them were, and they all appeared to be environmental controls here in the ship. Air. Temperature. Air flow. Hydroponics. Water. Many, he said—rather Jelinek said on his behalf—he didn’t know nor recognize.
As they moved back to the captain’s chair, the Issian stopped them and spoke up, her voice just a bit edgy. “He wants to know if he could take the captain’s perch? He says that just his DNA on that perch will power up the whole of the bridge—and he reminded me that the engines are wrecked and that there would be no repercussions from this. He did say it wasn’t for his benefit at all … just if you wanted to see things as they should be.
All the xeno team looked at Reynolds.
So it comes down to this—and the choice is all mine, Reynolds thought. He looked away for a second and then decided. “Marines, please circle the captain’s chair—sorry, captain’s perch. Xeno team step back, please, and Apostle, yes, have him step up there. Marines, if you detect anything untoward, full stun in an instant, if you please!” he said forcefully. Maybe more forcefully than what was needed as he remembered that the Praix couldn’t hear or understand him.
But he did remember to ask Jelinek to repeat his commands to the Praix, who stepped up to the perch and then grabbed the bar with the talons of both feet.
Moments later, the lighting in the room changed; it become more mellow, Reynolds thought, if he had to pick a word.
The forward area of the bulkhead that was black suddenly changed to a backlit view-screen like on any bridge of any ship. The scene was a hodgepodge of rocky jumbled colors and swirls. The Praix didn’t ask, but he leaned down with his beak and clicked so quickly on the console that there was no time to stop him—and the view-screen suddenly showed being airborne over Ghayth. The ship was flying along over a huge set of rocky mountains, most covered in snow, and the peaks were amazing.
The marines had all drawn their stunners, but with a gesture from Reynolds, they now lowered them o but kept them in hand in case something else might occur.
The view-screen continued to show the Ghayth terrain as though the ship continued flying, but Reynolds looked around the bridge instead of only at the screen. There was a new bank of machinery, but when he looked closer, he realized it was a hologram against the near wall. It looked like there were many controls, and he wondered if one could actually click one of them to control whatever functionality it might control. He had no idea. But he was glad there was going to be a video of all of this, and he wondered if it might give more answers to what he’d just experienced.
He looked down at the monitor at the captain’s perch and noted which icons were now lit up and brand new to see, and he made sure that his vid included that too.
As he looked behind him later, when they were all leaving the bridge, the lighting changed, the captain’s perch monitor went back to all grayed-out icons and the holographic bank of machines disappeared. Only works when a Praix is in the chair—or perch, he thought.
That was a new truth too … so much to try to digest and then write that report for the Baroness …
CHAPTER SEVEN
The thing that woke him, Bram thought, was the worst thing any navy man wanted to hear—a screaming klaxon though it was not as loud as it could have been. As he rolled over in his bunk, he realized that the klaxon was not going off on his ship, the Crimson I, but it was outside all over the landing port. It was still loud. And, from what he could tell, there more than one klaxon was going off.
He got up on one elbow and said, “AI, put the landing field exterior view on my view-screen.”
A second later, the view-screen filled with the view from the landing port. Something is definitely up, he thought.
The entire field was lit up with huge lights and searchlights were beaming up into the still dark sky. He had no idea what time it was, but that much of a commotion out there was not a good sign. He sighed, slid out of the bunk and the warm duvet, and put his feet down on bare cool deck. That woke him up, and he shook his head.
“AI, whatever the issue is out there, connect me to the Oirus landing admin channel. Send through a request about this commotion.”
Moments later, on the view-screen, text began to crawl along the bottom of the view-screen:
Security warning. Security warning. The Noriega destroyer NN Paladin is landing.
Please escalate your own vessel’s security to its maximum …
Security warning. Security warning.
The Noriega destroyer NN Paladin is landing.
Please escalate your own vessel’s security to its maximum …
He read that and wondered what it really meant. He messaged his bridge and ordered the duty officer to button up the Crimson I, and then he wondered why he’d done that. The ship was clad in Xithricite, so it was invulnerable, but these Warlord space realms didn’t know that as yet. Still, best to follow suit.
He sat and watched, and in twenty more minutes, the destroyer came down on her Inertial Drive and slowly lowered herself. Shortly thereafter, she sat on her landing fins and settled on the assigned pad. And then nothing happened. Not a single ramp came down nor did the big landing escalator extend itself either. But those damn klaxons were turned off at least.
Bram said, “AI, can you please get me info on this Noriega warlord, please,” and in a minute, the sidebar began to scroll down with that information. He read and then he paused the scrolling. Then he started it once more and read to the end.
Noriega was the name of the warlord himself, and as the custom here was, it was also the name of the group of planets that had been seized by the Warlord too. It was the same as the Tunander Coalition with their dictator named Tunander.
But there was more. It seemed that the Noriega group was in what couldn’t be called anything else but a battle to be the biggest dictatorship in Warlord space, and that war was with Konoe.
Noriega had six planets, and Konoe had ten. Noriega was trying to expand by any means necessary to become bigger than Konoe. At least that’s what Gallipedia reported, and Bram did see the sense of that. He did not understand the lengths to which they would go to achieve those goals, but he knew the “expand or die” values were shared by many species both on and off the RIM. The Praix alone were an example of a species who lived and breathed that edict.
Further, he read, the dictator Noriega had been a senior minister in the old Pentyaan Oligarchy, and his area of specialty was in economics. What that had to do with being a dictator, Bram didn’t have any idea, but he did know one thing. The klaxons had woken him, and that was a good thing. Wonder what will happen if—
The AI sounded three beeps and he stopped that thinking immediately.
“Here we go,” he said to himself.
“Captain, you have an incoming EYES ONLY message from one Sithe Ogrunder of the Tunander Coalition who requests that you pick up immediately. Do you have an answer for me to reply to the sender
, Captain?”
He sat for a whole minute. This needs more back story than what I can handle now in the middle of the night. That and I need to be in the game but from a position of more strength than wakened by klaxons in the middle of the night.
“AI, please send this answer,” he said as he composed his thoughts. “Your message was received, but as it is the middle of the night, it was held. In the morning, it will be given to the captain of the Crimson I at ten hundred hours.”
Bram sighed. “Send that verbatim, AI. Then close the Ansible, and do not accept any more messages until that time tomorrow. Confirm.”
And a moment later, the Crimson I AI said, “Confirmed, Captain, and good night,” and the speakers went quiet.
He turned off the view-screen and then rearranged the duvet covering him. “Tomorrow might be a very interesting day,” he said to himself. “Very interesting indeed …”
#####
More than a decade ago when mind linking was brand new to him, it used to hit him like a freight train. Now he knew what to expect as he suddenly fell down that big dark hole—a shaft that seemed to go on and on forever. Of course, now, after hundreds of these mind links, he knew what would happen next.
He looked down at the center of the black hole and, yes, there was a pinpoint of light. He didn’t bother anymore to try to swim toward that light or guide himself there; instead he just watched the pinpoint grow in size. Eventually, it became a brighter larger ball of light. And still the light grew until it was all around him as the blackness receded above his head.
And he heard the whisper now too. With a group mind link, there were many whispers, each from one of the brains in the group, but this time, there was only one whisper from the Master Adept’s mind. And the Master Adept appeared directly in front of him as the whiteness around him snapped out of existence and his quarters appeared to his now working eyes.
It was morning, and he’d just woken up. Somehow, in his sleep, he had made the assumption that the only thing to do was to ask for help—that was what the Master Adept in his dreams had said to him.
So now, he was here, mind linked to the Master Adept in person—and he was tongue-tied. He didn’t know what to say or how to even approach the way he felt. Perhaps he was in over his head. He felt like a straw man in the captain’s chair. He felt so far out of his depth that he really had no idea how to say any of this to the Master Adept.
So he sat, opened up his hands, palms up, and simply said, “Help … I need help, Master …”
She looked at him, and as always, she was dressed exactly the same as always. She wore her brown robe with the cowl neck and hanging from a chain around her neck was the big Issian medallion with the icon, the ringed planet of Eons, on her chest.
She did not smile at him at all. She just stared at the face of the man in front of her. Not a single emotion seemed to be on her face, and that never changed. One hand was curled up in her lap, and the other was on that ringed planet medallion on her chest, stroking the edge with a nail.
As he looked at her, he felt her slowly inserting her mind’s tendrils within his own. He didn’t fight back; he simply sat wide open and waited. He knew that she would see quickly how he felt. Why he felt that way would take more time. But eventually, he knew she would speak when she had an idea of the problem—and how she might help.
She nodded to him then, and inside his head, it felt like those mind reading tendrils were slowly drifting away. She picked up a cup of tea, had a sip, and then put it down.
“Bram, so good to have you visit with me this morning—well, it is later afternoon here on Eons. I see that you have some issues, and that is good. A captain must always find ways to balance the various factors in front of him—to make a valid and knowledgeable choice.”
She sipped again from her tea, and this time she must have finished the cup as Bram saw her nod to someone beside her, to get a refill, he assumed.
“That, and yes, there is this whole new Noriega situation—which I do not know about as you do not know either. But I do have these words for you,” she said, and she leaned forward just a bit when she spoke to him again.
“You need to forget that you’re new to the captaincy—you are the one there in charge. You must take charge, Bram—you are the RIM Confederacy to these warlords. Confidence is what you need, and while that usually comes only from experience, you will remember that I have the ability to look ahead. To see the future of some people is a gift—one that I have in strength,” she said, and again, she took a moment to have more tea.
He nodded. He wanted to know right now what his future looked like.
She smiled then. “What I see is that you are at the crux of a major change that will be happening in the future of the RIM Confederacy—and Warlord space. I will not comment on the choices that you will face, but I know that you make the right moves in each case—that I can see. You have the word of your own Master Adept, Bram,” she said, and a nod was now added to that smile.
The relief he felt was like a wave of warm air on a cold night. He’d make choices, yes, but he now knew those choices were going to be the right ones. Just knowing that was so much of a confidence builder that he slapped his knee and almost laughed right out loud.
He nodded to the Master Adept, and he thanked her profusely for her help and, of course, for taking the time to help a new captain. The mind link was broken, and he was once more alone in his quarters.
On Eons, in her quarters, the Master Adept sipped her tea yet again. By telling such a lie to Bram, she might have endangered his mission, but that was not why she’d done that. Giving the young man the strength to be the captain and make decisions was the reason she had lied.
And that was a good thing … at least I hope so, and she took yet another sip of tea.
#####
The meeting was held—at the insistence of Tunander himself, Sithe Ogrunder told Bram as he finally took last night’s EYES ONLY request—at a few minutes past ten hundred hours. It was a simple message, and it had an update on it as well.
The Noriega head of state—Noriega himself, it appeared—requested a meeting with both the RIM Confederacy representatives and the Tunander representatives. He had requested this happen in the middle of last night, but that had been a moot point since Bram hadn’t taken the call.
And then there was the update. Just two hours ago, Ogrunder had updated the message to add that the meeting would be fine with the Tunander side and that the dictator himself would be at the meeting, which was now going to be at noon in the administration building on the landing port. Ogrunder had added that they had refused to meet on the Paladin and insisted the meeting was on neutral soil. The administration building on the landing port had also been chosen as the Noriega side had refused to go to the official residence for the Tunander with the big arched building and those huge stairs.
Bram said to himself, “Neutral territory maybe for them, but not so much for us.” He acknowledged his receipt and reading of the message and replied that, yes, the RIM Confederacy diplomats would attend that luncheon meeting. The message went out immediately.
He grinned for a second to himself, wondering if he had gone a bit too far with his luncheon modifier, but he thought it might calm things down at a meeting that was going to be a doozy. While he’d never heard the word doozy growing up on Eons, he had heard it at the naval academy, and it described a course to not take as it was too hard and too demanding.
He sighed. This one is gonna be a real doozy. He went to his keyboard and once more dialed in for Gallipedia and asked for more information on Noriega and Konoe. As he read, he wondered how hungry each was when it came to expansion since there was little information on that rationale. But it really didn’t matter; after all, no matter what happened at the meeting, he could not make a mistake, he reminded himself. My karma train has come in—thanks to the Master Adept, he thought, and he couldn’t quite shake the smug feeling knowing that gave him.
He s
howered. He had his steward put a fresh press on a set of dress whites, liking the duke’s choice of the plain color as well as how crisp the uniform looked. He looked himself over in the big mirror on the back of the closet door in his quarters. “AI, notify the ambassador that I’ll meet him down on the landing deck in ten,” he said.
He picked up his tablet and made some modifications to the automatic settings. From now on, the tablet would record the audio and its camera would save everything that happened in front of the tablet too.
Done. I look good. All is prepared. I am ready for this meeting, he thought and left his quarters to take the lift down to Deck One.
Minutes later, he stood on the deck, looking out across the landing port at the ship from Noriega, the Paladin. She sat almost twenty landing pads from the Crimson I, all alone way out at the far end of the landing port. In front of her sat a small carrier vehicle, for transport over to the administration building, with two guards standing in front of same.
As he looked down again, he noted there was a similar vehicle waiting in front of the Crimson I.
“Morning, Captain,” a voice said from behind him, and as he turned, Ambassador Harmon smiled and offered his hand.
Bram shook his hand. “You clean up very nicely, Ambassador,” he said, and he was right.
The ambassador wore the dress blues of the RIM Confederacy, and it was less of a military uniform than one might think. There were no ribbons on his chest and no epaulettes on his shoulders. There were some badges of service on his chest instead. There were ten gold stripes on his left sleeve. Each represented five years of service in the RIM Confederacy Diplomatic Corps, and if that meant anything to anyone anywhere, it had to be an important factor in judging the man himself.
