by S. H. Jucha
“Cordelia, your analysis, please,” Alex requested.
“Gregich conversed with multiple individuals ... a second officer on his ship, the captains, the leader, and he attempted to speak to the leader’s supporters,” Cordelia replied. “He was urging his captains to maintain their stations and his ship’s crew to resist the leader’s actions. Underlying his messages was an appeal to us.”
“Us?” Tatia asked.
Julien made the bridge, and he replied to Tatia’s query. “It’s our contention that the captain is requesting our intervention.”
Quickly behind Julien came Lucia and Jess.
“I believe Gregich intends to adopt our proposal,” Jess offered. Having been chosen by the SADEs to be connected to the bridge conversation had intrigued him.
“Now, Gregich is cut off from further communications with his captains,” Lucia added.
“The senior captain told us that he locked up the leader because he’d caused problems for the expedition,” Renée said, as she joined the group. “If Cordelia believes the leader is unstable, we’ve an explosive situation.”
“I agree wholeheartedly with Renée,” Tatia said. “We’ve a narrow window of opportunity to successfully interdict the leader. If we wait, he might convince some or all of the captains to join him.”
“Tatia, execute a maneuver to surround the lead ship at a distance that allows the Tridents to escape missile launches,” Alex ordered.
“You want intimidation, with minimal exposure,” Tatia replied, nodding in comprehension. Then she connected to Reiko and Deirdre, who’d been kept apprised of developments by the SADEs.
Tatia and Reiko used the SADEs to design a perimeter approach for Deirdre’s command. The Tridents were underway before the details of the plan were approved by Tatia.
If the Stasnich bridge supporters were watching for engine flares to indicate Omnian maneuvers against them, they were in for a surprise.
Using grav engines, the Omnian forces moved silently and swiftly to surround the battleship. At the distances to travel, it would take the Tridents a little while to reach their final positions.
A junior officer on the lead battleship’s bridge threw up his hands and sucked his teeth in frustration.
“What?” Stasnich asked. His annoyance with the junior officers’ lack of abilities to manage his revolt was growing.
“We don’t have control of most primary systems,” the officer reported.
“Why not?” Stasnich screeched. As a political appointee, he had little knowledge about the inner workings of a battleship. Worse, during the course of the expedition, he’d never bothered to learn.
“We’ve been preempted at the engineering control stations ... telemetry, engines, and armament,” the officer replied.
“How about comms?” Stasnich asked in a loud voice, spittle flying from his muzzle.
“Still ours,” the officer replied, shrinking away from the irate leader.
“Send my supporters to those locations,” Stasnich yelled. “I want control returned to this bridge.”
“Leader Stasnich, our groups are already holding a few precious locations. If they leave them, we’ll lose them,” a second junior officer pointed out.
“Then get me more supporters,” Stasnich railed, which made the officers and crew members regard one another with concern.
“While you do that,” Stasnich continued, “get me a conference call with the captains.”
The officer in front of the comms panel was glad to look busy. Moments later, he turned to Stasnich and said, “The captains are online, Leader.”
“Hear me, this is Leader Stasnich. I’ve taken control of this ship, as is my right and duty as head of this expedition.”
“We’d like confirmation by Senior Captain Gregich that he’s acceded control to you,” a captain requested.
“The senior captain is indisposed,” Stasnich replied imperially.
“Here we thought he was aboard the shuttle that’s hiding from you,” a second captain remarked.
The Stasnich bridge crew hid their faces. The leader was unable to leave the bridge to take a private call in his cabin, which meant they were party to the conference call and had heard the captain’s snide taunt.
“Captain, your amusement is not appreciated, and I’ll remember you when we sail from this system,” Stasnich threatened. “I require assistance from additional crew members to regain control of the entire ship.”
“Then you haven’t been given rightful control as you intimated,” another captain challenged. “Are you holed up on the bridge?”
“Of course not,” Stasnich fumed. He and the bridge crew could hear the captains’ laughter.
“Flare your engines, Stasnich. Prove you retain the crew’s allegiance, and they support your reinstatement,” a captain demanded.
Stasnich sucked hard on his teeth. He tried hard to think of a means of convincing the captains to support him. Making matters worse were the supporters who surrounded him. Their faces reflected their burgeoning doubts and fears.
“It’s as we thought,” the captain, who’d spoken first, said. “You’ve a few crew members who hold the bridge, and not much more. Obviously your control has been preempted by the engineering stations, which means you haven’t been able to refresh your telemetry scans.”
“If you had, Leader Stasnich,” a second captain said sarcastically, “you would have noticed the Omnian fleet closing in on your ship. That’s a tremendous amount of firepower to focus on one vessel.”
“And you without weaponry or engine control,” a third captain chided.
The captains’ high-pitched laughter reached a crescendo, and Stasnich couldn’t tolerate them anymore. He reached across the junior officer and slammed a hand on the comms panel to cut off communications. Unfortunately, Stasnich didn’t know what he was doing, and the officer quickly tapped the icon to end the call.
A junior officer stood. Thoughts of the captains’ derision, their isolation on the bridge, and the approaching Omnians were too much for him. He gazed at the other supporters, whose expressions mirrored his. Collectively, they wore the face of defeat.
When the junior officer deactivated his weapon and laid it on the panel beside him, the others followed his example.
“No,” Stasnich cried. “Don’t give up. I’m the rightful expedition leader.”
“And where would you lead us?” the junior officer asked. “To our deaths?”
The bridge hatch was opened, and as armed crew poured in, the Stasnich supporters held up their hands in surrender.
The few gangs fighting to gain control of the ship quickly ended their insurrection, when they heard the bridge was lost and the leader was arrested by Second Officer Bastich.
With comms returned, Bastich contacted Gregich.
As Rischvoss maneuvered her shuttle aboard the battleship, Gregich called the Omnians to notify them that the emergency was over. Later, telemetry scans revealed that the Trident fleet remained on station in its enveloping perimeter.
After gaining the bridge for the first time since he’d arrived, Gregich contacted his captains. His desire to hold a face-to-face meeting was undone by Stasnich. The leader had made the Omnians nervous about the captains’ intentions.
Gregich chose not to hold a private conversation with the captains by making the call from his quarters. Instead, he chose the bridge, where the crew could hear them. “Comm, a conference call with the captains,” he requested.
Within moments, the officer on the comms panel announced, “Your call is ready, Captain.”
“Captains, this is Gregich. The leader’s revolt has been put down. The ship is under my control.”
“Welcome back, Senior Captain Gregich,” a captain said. “You were telling us that the Omnians had made you an offer, and we’re anxious to hear more.”
Gregich glanced at the faces of those on the bridge. The crew was eager to hear the news. Each individual knew of the fleet’s dwindling res
ources.
The bridge crew count was easily three times the normal complement. Part of the reason for the overcrowding was Bastich had posted armed individuals to guard bridge access.
“The Omnians offer life to all of us,” Gregich stated,” but we’ll have to earn it. I’ll tell you up front that the Omnian leader, Alex Racine, said the entire fleet must participate or none will.”
“What’s the price?” a captain asked.
“No,” Gregich replied forcefully. “I’ll tell you about the gift first. We’re being offered a planet. It’s not as lush or as wet as our first landing on Crocia, but this planet has plentiful streams, rivers, and lakes.”
“If it’s so desirable, why is it unoccupied?” a junior officer asked.
When the captains heard the ancillary voice, they knew that Gregich was sharing their conversation with his crew. That meant every fleet member would know what they discussed before the cycle ended.
“This area of space is occupied by many races,” Gregich explained. “They’re collectively referred to as the alliance, and they have a common enemy ... the Colony. I’ve seen images of this sentient species, and I’ll tell you they’re terrifying. The Colony occupied the planet, which we’re being offered, and they eliminated the inhabitants.”
“Then why is this offer even being considered?” a captain objected.
“That was my question to the Omnians,” Gregich replied. “I found their answers interesting.”
Gregich might have been on a call with the captains, but his intended audience was the entire fleet. As he spoke, he turned to regard various individuals on the bridge, and he held them in an intense gaze.
“Apparently, while we’ve been sailing around this part of space and annoying or killing the locals, the Omnians have been assisting a group of alliance members,” Gregich continued. “In combination, they’ve retaken two planets from the Colony and will soon make that three.”
“So the Omnians say,” a captain said, with derision.
Gregich laughed. He deliberately sucked on his teeth in a way to emphasize his disdain for the remark.
“Some of you must think you have a fool for a senior captain,” Gregich said. “The Omnian technology makes us resemble our ancestors squatting by stream banks and mesmerized by our reflections in the waters. They’ve individuals called SADEs. As best I can determine, they’re highly advanced, social entities, who operate with artificial intelligence.”
No one spoke, and Gregich let those comments sink into his audience’s minds.
The third officer quietly spoke the name “Artifice.”
Gregich knew that he’d been heard, and he said, “No, the SADEs are as unlike Artifice as you can imagine. The SADEs displayed historical telemetry and vids on portable holo-vid devices. I witnessed the fights on the alliance planets.”
“Will we be given the opportunity to see this planet first, Captain?” Bastich asked.
“The Omnian leader has said that we could,” Gregich replied.
“When can we sail, Captain, and will we have enough supplies to reach there?” an engineer asked.
“We can sail whenever we tentatively agree to entertain the Omnians’ proposal,” Gregich replied. “The transit time is eight cycles. We have enough food and water for the trip.”
“I would hear the price,” a captain reiterated.
“It’s simple but painful,” Gregich replied. “We must give up our ships, shuttles, and heavy armament.”
Silence answered Gregich. The faces surrounding him were as stunned as he had been when Alex enumerated those points.
“Ridiculous,” a captain snapped, when he’d recovered from the pronouncement.
“Wait,” another captain said harshly. “Captain Gregich, you wouldn’t have considered this offer unless you saw more value than you’ve expressed.”
“True,” Gregich replied. “A patient mind can hear well.” It was one of his favorite sayings. “I thought that we’d be abandoned on this planet, Quall, by the Omnians and be left to be killed by the Colony. I asked the Omnians why this wouldn’t be the case.”
“What did they say, Captain?” a young tech asked eagerly.
Gregich had created the conditions that he wanted. It was as if the crew occupying the bridge had been turned into a trainee class — eager minds interested in learning. He needed that. The captains wielded enormous power, but their influence was intimately entwined in their battleships. Without them, they were greatly reduced. In contrast, the crews thought of their lives. They knew retreat to the home world was impossible. Supplies wouldn’t last the journey, and they wouldn’t have been accepted at home without having established a new colony.
“The humans who have led the efforts to regain the planets will teach us how to fight the Colony,” Gregich replied. “The SADEs will teach us to run the infrastructure of the Qualls, who were once the inhabitants.”
“But without our ships, Captain, we’ll be reduced to living on this planet and within this system for many generations, until we build starships,” a junior officer complained plaintively.
“You’d think so,” Gregich said, with a twinkle in his eye.
“What do you know, Captain?” Bastich asked.
By the tone of the speaker’s voice, the captains wished they were in Gregich’s company. Obviously, the senior captain was in his element, spellbinding his audience.
“We’ve witnessed the structures on the moons that orbit the worlds we’ve visited,” Gregich said. “Like you, I assumed they were habitats, outposts, and like you, I was wrong.”
“What are they?” the engineer, who’d previously spoken, asked. He was assigned to guard the hatch, but his weapon hung at his side, and his attention was focused on the captain.
Unbeknownst to every captain, including Gregich, those at every ship’s comms panel were relaying the enormously critical conversation throughout the fleet. It wouldn’t take until the cycle’s end for the fleet’s crews to be in the know.
“These domes were built by an ancient race to enable travel between the stars,” Gregich replied. “They house a collection of Q-gates that enable instantaneous transfer of individuals and goods from one dome to another.”
“How do they work?” the engineer asked. He was enthralled by the concept.
Gregich eyed the engineer, with his patented reprimanding expression, and the crew sucked on their teeth in laughter.
“I sail starships; I don’t repair them,” the senior captain replied, and the crew laughed harder. Then Gregich laid a hand on the engineer’s shoulder in a comradely gesture.
“Then, with shuttles, we could reach the moon and operate the dome,” a captain surmised.
“I agree with the part of reaching the moon,” Gregich replied. “However, there was no offer from the Omnians to teach us the dome’s operation.”
“Why not?” a junior officer asked.
“Did you forget?” Bastich questioned rhetorically. “Our leader ordered the destruction of a freighter, an unarmed ship. Then we landed without permission on two planets. On the second one, we fought and killed the inhabitants. We’re not exactly welcome in this area of space.”
“If we’ve not received an alliance invitation, why would we risk settling on this planet?” a captain asked.
“The Omnian leader gave me his word that if we accept the proposal, we could stay,” Gregich replied. “As to the question of dome operation and traveling to other worlds, I think that opportunity will fall to our future generations. In time, I hope the alliance races will forgive our offspring for our trespasses.”
“Captain Gregich, we will need time to consider the offer,” a captain said. “We’ll probably have more questions for you before we come to a decision.”
The comms officer coughed to attract Gregich’s attention. He pointed to a lit icon on the panel that indicated a shipwide broadcast. Then he circled a finger in the air to intimate that this was replicated across the fleet. Gregich tipped his muzzle to a
ffirm his understanding.
“No, Captains,” Gregich replied sternly. “Our race has a history of grievous errors. You can add this ill-fated expedition to the list. We’re here in unknown territory about to starve to death with orders not to return home unless we’ve been successful. If we ever wish to be accepted by the alliance races, we must change our ways, and I’m going to initiate the first of those changes. The acceptance or rejection of the Omnians’ offer will not be decided by the captains. Tomorrow, every member of this fleet will make their choice made. The greater number will decide what we do.”
Several captains tried to simultaneously voice their objections, and Gregich waited them out.
“Understand this, Captains,” Gregich said, when he had an opportunity. “If you move your ships before this is decided, you endanger us all. If the majority refuses the proposal, then on that cycle or another one we’ll fight the Omnians for our lives. Their leader has sworn to this.”
The conference call ended, but not the session on Gregich’s bridge. The conversation rolled on until evening meal, and it was shared across the fleet. Questions originated from every section of the ships.
The captains belatedly realized that they’d been party to fleet-wide communications, but they also understood that ending the broadcasts would infuriate the crews.
The following cycle, the crews made their decisions known. It took a while to tally the opinions, as there was no simple mechanism to accommodate a democratic process among Packeoes. The decision was close to unanimous to accept the Omnians’ offer. No one knew who was responsible for the thirty-eight no votes, but there were plenty of suspicions.
One individual did as much to sway opinions as Captain Gregich. While the fleet crews respected their captains, they were senior officers. They knew who had visited with the Omnians, who wasn’t a senior officer. Furthermore, as a shuttle pilot, Lieutenant Rischvoss was outside of general ship’s operations.
After evening meal, Gregich retired, and Bastich invited Rischvoss to the bridge. The comms officers reset the fleetwide relays. Crew members crowded the lead ship’s bridge to hear Rischvoss personally. They were fascinated by her stories of her time with Alex, Renée, Julien, Jess, and Lucia.
