Sades

by S. H. Jucha

  Approaching the end of the third hour, Gregich found his eyes tiring and watering. He turned toward the shuttle and barked a command.

  The pilot, a young female, peered around the hatchway, and Gregich beckoned to her.

  Alex sent.

  When Julien had begun the language process, the admirals had deserted the bay. Only Alex, Renée, and the three SADEs remained.

  A chair was placed beside Gregich, who had to encourage the pilot, Rischvoss, to join him. He was careful not to frighten her, as her eyes were wide enough, as she stared at the gargantuan Omnians.

  When Gregich had asked for a volunteer to pilot his shuttle, he’d gotten one — a young female. He realized that contact with the Omnians was dangerous, but he thought there was more courage than that among the pilots. As it was, he accepted Rischvoss, as much to reward her bravery as it was to shame the other pilots.

  Rischvoss descended the ramp, and Gregich spoke comfortingly to her about the chair. Her curiosity overrode her trepidation, and she eased into it. Moments later, she was chattering animatedly with him.

  Miranda brought food and water for the pilot, who hungrily worked to clean her plate.

  While Rischvoss ate, Gregich explained what the Omnians were trying to accomplish, and he told her that she would be taking over for him. She was introduced to Julien, who changed the image.

  “You’re not leaving?” Rischvoss nervously asked Gregich.

  The captain had been thinking to do just that, but the tremor in the youthful female’s voice told him that the idea was unacceptable. Besides, the chair was superbly comfortable. He shook his head, indicated Julien’s tool, and closed his eyes.

  Rischvoss focused on the image and called it out. It changed, and soon, she was racing to keep up.

  There came a time, when the image shifted, and Rischvoss studied Julien. The captain was sound asleep, whistling gently through his teeth, and she’d been hard at work with Julien for nearly four hours. The Omnian’s face was animated, but the tool he held never wavered, and his body hadn’t moved.

  Finally, Rischvoss could participate no more. Her eyes blurred, and she yawned deeply. When she pointed to the shuttle, she heard the Omnian say, “Yes,” in her language. It was a perfect pronunciation of the word. In fact, it was as if the captain had spoken to her. She hesitated and glanced at the captain, but the desire to relieve herself and sleep drove her to the shuttle.

  Soon after Rischvoss left, Gregich stirred and yawned. He’d had a relaxing nap. Suddenly realizing where he was, he snapped fully awake. Seeing Rischvoss gone, he uttered her name.

  “She sleeps,” Julien said in Packeo, and Gregich’s jaw dropped. “We do more,” Julien added in simplistic Packeo and changed the holo-vid display.

  Gregich was excited. Originally, he’d believed Julien’s methods were doomed to fail. Now, he thought he’d completely underestimated the Omnians.

  There were two things that Gregich didn’t know. One, he was conversing with a SADE. Two, he was watching imagery produced by the fleet’s SADEs, who submitted their work to Cordelia. In turn, she filtered the submissions for Julien.

  Hours later, with Gregich’s energy flagging, he felt a touch on his shoulder.

  “My turn, Captain,” Rischvoss said. Much of her timidness was gone, and Gregich happily turned the task over to her and retired to the shuttle.

  “Welcome, Rischvoss,” Julien said to the pilot as she sat.

  “Thank you, Julien,” Rischvoss replied.

  “Captain?” Julien asked, indicating the direction Gregich had taken.

  “Senior captain,” Rischvoss corrected. She was amazed at the speed with which she was already conversing with Julien.

  Having identified Gregich’s rank, Julien transmitted that piece of information to Alex, Renée, and Tatia.

  “Fleet commander?” Julien queried.

  Rischvoss replied, but the words weren’t comprehended. When Julien shook his head, Rischvoss drew a finger across her throat. In the SADEs’ growing lexicon of the Packeo language, the pilot’s words were equated with dead.

  Julien continued with the imagery display. He considered that Alex had intuited the reason for the entire thread of present events. It was a characteristic of humans, particularly Alex, which the SADEs coveted and would probably never possess.

  As Alex had theorized, the fleet had lost one or more key individuals. In this case, the commander was dead. That left unresolved the question as to the political leader’s status.

  When Gregich woke aboard the shuttle, he used the shuttle’s comms panel to communicate to Damich, the first officer of his ship, who had the duty rotation.

  “Captain,” Damich replied crisply.

  “Things are going well,” Gregich said, speaking confidently. He wanted to give the fleet hope. “Communicate my message to all captains. The Omnians are adept at learning languages, and we’re progressing exceedingly rapidly. I expect that in another day or so, I can have a dialog with the Omnian leaders about our predicament.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Damich replied jubilantly.

  When the call ended, the bridge crew celebrated, and the first officer ordered a conference call to inform the captains.

  Gregich returned for his stint with Julien, trading off with Rischvoss. When she was freed, she trudged to the shuttle to rest.

  “Welcome, Senior Captain Gregich,” Julien said. “We’re sorry to hear of the loss of your fleet commander.”

  Gregich was about to thank Julien for his condolences, when he hesitated. “What are you?” he asked.

  “Omnian,” Julien replied, “but not human.” In the Omnian language, he said, “SADEs,” and indicated the only three Omnians remaining in the bay.

  “SADEs,” Gregich repeated, trying out the word. He had an idea that Julien wasn’t biological, at least not in the sense that Packeoes would define the term.

  Putting aside the question of the makeup of the individual he was working with, Gregich dived into the process with a will. He wasn’t surprised that Julien had progressed to complex vids. Each time Rischvoss and he had traded off, the next one to work with Julien discovered the extent to which the imagery had evolved.

  It was the second morning after the Packeoes had made the Omnian ship that Gregich and Rischvoss had woken aboard the shuttle. They’d been dismissed by Julien in the late evening hours.

  “Are we done, Captain?” Rischvoss had inquired after Julien thanked them and left.

  “I don’t think the vids could get any more complex,” Gregich replied. “I was struggling to define ethical dilemmas.”

  “Perhaps, that’s the intricacy of our language that the Omnians require,” Rischvoss suggested. “After all, that is our situation.”

  “Well, I’m hungry,” Gregich declared, “and I prefer the Omnians’ food to our shuttle’s poor fare.”

  34: Jess’s Proposal

  After the team’s narrow escape from the Colony’s ambush, Jess had dropped to the Quall planet over the course of many cycles. He’d promised Lucia that he wouldn’t leave the ship, and he kept his word. He sat beside Sharon, with the copilot’s helmet over his head.

  Sharon flew over the countryside, industrial complexes, and residential centers. She thought Jess and she would be continually engaged in conversations, but he rarely said a word. Instead, he marked points on the telemetry scans to indicate the directions he wanted her to go.

  “What’s he doing?” Lucia had asked Sharon.

  “I don’t know, Commodore,” Sharon had replied. “We fly around, he watches the ground, and he doesn’t talk.”

  “During the flights, is he sad or morose?” Lucia asked with concern.

  “He doesn’t act like it,” Sharon replied. “It’s like he’s focused on studying the problem ... the Colony’s infestation of Quall, I mean. I think he’s trying to figure out a solution.”

  One late morning, Jess felt he’d seen enough, and he requested Sharon return them to the Judgme
nt. Immediately, he sought out Lucia.

  “Done with your surveys?” Lucia asked, with a bit of pique.

  “Yes,” Jess replied.

  “That’s it?” Lucia asked in frustration. “You’ve been roaming over the entire planet for days, and you haven’t shared a word with the rest of us about what you’ve been doing.”

  “Sorry,” Jess replied. “I don’t know what I’ve been seeking. Maybe, it’s just been inspiration. I do have some ideas, but I need to talk to Alex.”

  “Send him a message or have a conversation?” Lucia asked.

  “A conversation,” Jess decided.

  “Orbit, plot a course to join the fleet,” Lucia ordered. “Execute when ready.”

  “How long to reach the fleet?” Jess asked.

  “Eight Omnian days,” Orbit replied.

  “That should give me sufficient time to hear these ideas of yours,” Lucia said sternly, eyeing Jess.

  * * * * *

  “Transiting in three, two, one,” Orbit counted down.

  The Judgment had arrived at the coordinates the SADEs had shared from Celsius.

  “Commodore, our entire fleet is present in an alliance system known as Egette,” Orbit said. “Also present is a federacy fleet of nine battleships. Interestingly, the lead ship has proceeded in system alone.”

  After examining the fleet’s telemetry, Lucia ordered, “Transit below the ecliptic, Orbit. I want to come up under the Freedom and away from that battleship.”

  Within two days, Lucia, Jess, the veterans, and the Dischnya were aboard the city-ship, and Jess and Lucia were meeting with Alex, Renée, and Julien.

  “We’ve Senior Captain Gregich, his pilot, and a federacy shuttle in a bay,” Alex explained to Jess and Lucia.

  “Why?” Lucia inquired.

  “The Packeoes, as they’re called, are desperate. They’re about to run out of food in less than two months,” Renée replied.

  “How are you communicating?” Jess asked. He was perplexed as to how the Omnians could converse with a race they’d never met.

  “Meet my interpreter,” Alex said, indicating Julien with a flourish.

  “The process is similar to the one used by the Messinant console,” Julien replied. “We learn the new race’s language through displays in a holo-vid. When we finished compiling the Packeo lexicon, we loaded it into a pair of ear wigs.”

  “And the ear wigs contained our language,” Jess finished.

  “Precisely,” Julien said. His fedora appeared. It was a salute to the SADEs’ efforts.

  “What can you do for the Packeoes?” Lucia asked. “Do we have the resources to help them?”

  “It’s not that simple,” Alex replied. “The SADEs have offered the opinion that if we supply the Packeoes with sufficient infrastructure, which they’ll need, and the food stocks to reach their home world, there’s no guarantee that they’ll return.”

  “Meaning they might continue to search out a location in alliance space,” Lucia said.

  Alex held up his hands, indicating his frustration. “Captain Gregich is hoping we’ll come to his fleet’s aid. As of this moment, we don’t have a solution,” he said.

  “Our primary concern is the heavy armament onboard the battleships,” Renée added. “When the captains discover that we’ve chosen not to resupply their fleet, there’s no telling what they’ll do.”

  “I see that the ships are huge, but are they that powerful?” Jess inquired.

  “They could be carrying missiles that are termed planet killers,” Julien replied. “There are nine battleships out there. We know that each one of them carries enough firepower to destroy every habitat in a system, including the home world.”

  “Why are you here, Jess?” Alex asked.

  “Quick question first,” Jess said. “What kind of diet do the Packeoes prefer?”

  Alex frowned, and Julien replied, “They prefer fresh catch from the banks of streams and the shallow waters of the wetlands. Why do you ask, Captain?”

  “We found a ring at the fourth lost dome, and we destroyed it,” Jess explained. “Then we landed on the planet Quall to survey the degree of infestation. The inhabitants of the planet are gone. The Qualls are dead.”

  Renée sucked in her breath in alarm, and Alex’s brow furrowed. There was pain in their eyes.

  Julien chose to focus Jess on more details to prevent the humans from dwelling on the unfortunate news. He said, “I’m told by Orbit that the ring at the Quall dome didn’t appear as robust as the other rings you’ve encountered. He noted segment repairs and replacements.”

  “We surmise that this dome was a much earlier invasion site by the Colony,” Lucia said. “When the shuttles erupted from the Colony’s transports, the Qualls ran for their population centers. Many of them didn’t make it. The insectoids broke into vehicles and buildings where the Qualls hid. Only those who managed to fortify themselves behind electrified fences survived the onslaught.”

  “For a while,” Jess added, in disgust. “The Qualls waited for help. They sat there, and they waited, while they starved to death or died of dehydration.”

  “We found the citizens in completely desiccated states,” Lucia continued. “We checked protected sites in population centers for many days. It was the same everywhere. We’ve no reason to believe a single Quall lives on the planet or in the system.”

  “What about elsewhere?” Alex asked.

  “It’s possible, but not probable,” Jess replied. “According to Tacnock, who knows more about the race than I do, the Qualls had only recently activated their dome. They’d yet to be sponsored to join the alliance. Tacnock believes that they weren’t journeying to connecting worlds.”

  “If the Qualls hadn’t activated their dome, could the Colony have journeyed there?” Julien asked, relaying a question from Orbit.

  “Certainly, they could,” Jess replied. “The Messinants left every dome active for their own journeying. It was up to each race to discover and learn how to operate their dome’s console and the structure’s functions. The alliance races were put at a disadvantage when the Colony discovered the deeper subroutines of the consoles, things that only the Messinants previously knew. It wasn’t until the SADEs arrival that we learned what the Colony was doing through remote control of a console.”

  Julien sent a private message to Alex and Renée. He said,

  Renée had watched the faces and body languages of Lucia and Jess as they’d spoken. They were hurting. “I’m sorry you had to witness the race’s extermination,” she said solemnly.

  “It makes you realize the Colony’s insidiousness,” Lucia replied. “They’re hardwired to eliminate all sentients and consume every food source on a planet.”

  “The thing that angers me,” Jess said, his hands twisting together, “is that we didn’t find insectoid skeletons among the Qualls’ bones. The inhabitants didn’t fight back. They ran and hid. That’s all they did.”

  “Every sentient species has a general philosophy about the value of life,” Alex said compassionately. “Usually, within the race, there is variance among individuals. It’s rare to discover a species that shared such a homogenous outlook.”

  “A lot of good that did them to be so special,” Jess retorted.

  “Captain, your information doesn’t warrant you sailing to join the fleet,” Julien said. “What is the purpose of your visit?”

  “I had several ideas about Quall that I wanted to discuss with Alex,” Jess replied, “but you’ve given me a better one. Can we talk to Senior Captain Gregich?”

  * * * * *

  Alex, Renée, and Julien listened to the new idea that Jess was formulating. Their reactions varied, and each was dubious for different reasons that it would work.

  Gregich had been reticent to leave the Omnian bay. The shuttle was his link to the fleet and the captains. On occasion, it was necessary t
o meet with the Omnian leader, Alex Racine, who insisted on more pleasant quarters for their talks.

  This time, Gregich sat across a conference table from two new individuals.

  “Senior Captain Gregich, this is Captain Jess Cinders,” Alex said, beginning the introductions.

  After Lucia was introduced, Jess said, “I’ve been informed that your supplies are running low.”

  “It’s true,” Gregich replied. “As time grows short, it weakens my status in the eyes of the fleet’s captains.”

  “How much longer will the captains wait?” Alex asked.

  “I spoke to them this morning,” Gregich replied. “They’ve given me an ultimatum ... twelve more cycles.”

  “Then what?” Alex inquired.

  “Then they’ll sail, with or without my ship,” Gregich replied. “Don’t ask me where. They deliberately chose not to tell me.”

  “If you were to guess ...” Jess prompted.

  “Most likely the planet of our first landing attempt, which I understand is called Crocia,” Gregich replied. “The wetlands offer plenty of food. Starvation can force individuals to face the creatures of their night dreams.”

  “How many personnel are in your fleet?” Jess asked.

  “Close to three thousand,” Gregich replied.

  “Three thousand won’t survive in the Crocian wetlands,” Jess warned. “There are more dangerous denizens than the Dorgatha.”

  Gregich tilted his head, an indication of his confusion.

  “The Dorgatha are the monsters you fear,” Lucia explained.

  “So, they have a name,” Gregich said quietly. “It doesn’t make them any less fearsome. Are there many of them?”

  “The Crocians are reticent to talk about them,” Jess replied. “I know they’re out there. They’re long-lived, and they grow to enormous size. Even the Crocians rarely venture into the wetlands.”

  “Then if the fleet sails for Crocia, it’ll only be a matter of time before the deaths of many crew members result in the captains becoming desperate and punitive,” Gregich mused.