Every single officer at the table looked sick. Lorga, a mineral supposedly found only on Dremiks, was highly combustible when mixed with sulfur-oxide and nitrous-oxide.
“In answer to your question, Commander, I do not believe an single explosion of lorga between Najif and Dremiks will be enough to correct the orbit of the moon. Before we do anything, we need more concrete data from the surface of the planet. In conclusion, I believe we were brought here without a full disclosure of the facts and that the Dremikians show no inclination to provide further information.”
Fortunas sat while whispered conversations broke out around the table. Guttmann and Chi discussed ways to increase the protective coating on probes and the landers. Price and O’Connell were having a furious debate over the likelihood of landing on the planet. The captain sat quietly, listening to them work. He nodded, curtly, to Fortunas in thanks for the briefing. After a few minute’s quiet contemplation, Hill rose from his seat.
“I have a message to compose to the Dremikian high council. Price there still exists the possibility that we’ll have to send a lander to go fetch my brother and Chancellor Trell. Please be ready to do so, if necessary. O’Connell, I need contingency scenarios from all departments ASAP. Dismissed.”
***
“You were a bit harsh with them.” Maggie sipped a glass of water and watched her captain pace. They were alone in the officers’ mess. It was 2000; she’d just finished her bridge watch. The captain spent most of the day huddled with Dr. Fortunas, Dwax, or Commissioner Trell, before listening to Price and Guttmann out-line a plan to get more concrete data from Dremiks.
The captain rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “They’ll get over it. It’s a good plan, but I cannot let them go through with it. The Dremikians won’t allow it.” He saw her scowl. “What choice do I have? This is in the diplomats hands now. Trell and Ryan will have to fight with the High Council and get permission to draw up a new treaty. There’s a two day delay in communications between Dremiks and Earth. This is going to take time.”
She took another sip of her water and let the cooled liquid sit in her mouth for a moment. She swallowed, asked, “And Commissioner Trell? He cannot have been happy about this.” She grunted in irritation when Hill began to pace again. “Please stop that, sir. You’re wearing me out just watching you.”
He stopped and stared at her in shock and then barked a short laugh. “This, from the woman who embodies perpetual motion. Thank you for the humor, Commander.”
She raised her glass in a sardonic salute. “The commissioner?”
He sat down and stretched his legs in front of him. “Self-righteous anger mostly. He and Ryan are both threatening to bring me before the Admiralty board for leaving them on Rhyse.”
“They do realize they were being held hostage?” She received a cross look in answer. “But, of course, bringing you up on charges is much more satisfying than examining the utter break-down in diplomatic relations. The Dremikians couldn’t have... detained... them for a few more days?”
“Sadly, no. Trell and Ryan are, actually, outraged with our hosts over the deception regarding the moon. Though, and I know it will be no great shock to you, Trell did manage to insinuate that the situation was at least partly our fault. He also indicated that he held no confidence in Fortunas’ findings. He came right out and said that it was pure idiocy to believe that it would be dangerous to land on Dremiks.” He raked his hand back through his hair in an, unwitting, imitation of Fortunas. “As for the notion that the Dremikians or anyone else purposely altered the orbit of a moon—he wouldn’t even discuss the issue. Mostly, he sputtered.”
“Well, sir, we can keep firing probes down at the moon and planet, but I don’t need to remind you that we’ve a limited supply of those. At some point we have to go to the surface ourselves or give this up as a lost cause.”
“I’m not ready to throw in the towel, Commander. Not yet. There’s been too much spent—in blood and money—getting us here.
***
Dwax, to the surprise of all, was sent back to the
Hudson
when Chancellor Trell and Ryan Hill returned from Rhyse station. Everyone seemed to realize that the young alien’s purpose for being back on the human ship was to report their actions back to his government. Unfortunately for Dwax, this left him as the sole target for a wave of disgruntled anti-alien comments and some very crass hand gestures.
He skittered to the side of a corridor when Specialist Mangoda and Dr. Ruger headed his way. The doctor smiled, albeit weakly, at him, but Mangoda’s expression was harshly condemning. The specialist moved to walk on the other side of the doctor, effectively separating her from Dwax. When they passed by, neither human offered a greeting. He watched them go, sadness transforming his skin tone from rust to pale pink.
Dwax wanted to explain that he wasn’t part of the High Council, that he hadn’t had a role in deciding to block humans from seeing Dremiks or settling there. He wanted to express his deep dismay with his race’s actions. Most of all, he wanted his human friends to understand that he felt just as betrayed as they did. He’d been assigned to the
Hudson
specifically to befriend her crew and represent his people. Too late, he learned that his reports were being used against those he thought of as
his
crew.
Dwax didn’t comprehend why the High Council suddenly didn’t wish for humans to land on the planet. He knew, like every member of his race, that without re-claiming Dremiks, the Dremikian people would die out. They needed lorga, specifically water containing lorga, to breed. Their supply of that water was nearly exhausted. If humans could not land on Dremiks and mine more of the mineral, Dremikians were doomed to extinction. The High Council’s decision made absolutely no sense to Dwax. He privately wondered if the majority of Dremikians were aware of the Council’s actions.
What disastrous event could have convinced the Council to doom us all?
Alone with his thoughts, Dwax drifted down corridors listlessly. When he saw Lieutenant Price approaching, the alien braced for a barrage of profanity or a quiet sneer of disdain. To his shock, Price smiled warmly.
“Hullo Honored One. Fancy joining us for cards this evening?”
“Cards?” Dwax’s skin color fluctuated as he tried to make sense of this odd request. “You wish to invite me to a social gathering?” Belatedly, he added the honorific, “Honored Lieutenant.”
“You’re stuck here with nothing to do, same as us. Might as well learn how humans goof-off.”
Dwax sensed a trap, but couldn’t quite grasp why the humans felt the need to ensnare him. “I would be honored.”
“Magnificent. See you at 1900 hours.” Price nodded once in dismissal before striding away. His back was turned. The Dremikian behind him didn’t see the grimace of distaste on the officer’s face. Price and Guttmann had been ordered to keep an eye on Dwax. To do that, they had to deeply bury their feelings.
***
Ryan Hill’s quarters were dark except for the soft glow of his desk lighting. He sat in silence, reading a message. Only back on the
Hudson
for four hours, he was still working through the back-log of information accumulated during his absence. A knick on the table’s edge caught at his sleeve. He scowled at it in irritation. Everything was going horribly wrong; he didn’t have time for obnoxious little flaws in his environment. That thought caused a wry laugh.
“What’s amusing?” Marissa asked from over his shoulder.
He turned to look at her. She was wrapped in a large robe. Her hair was tousled from sleep; her feet were bare. With a small hand gesture he indicated the chair beside him.
“Small environmental flaws causing irritation when this entire mess is caused by a
large
environmental flaw.”
Still not understanding the humor, Marissa simply said, “Oh.” She shifted in her seat, trying to find a comfortable position. “Will you be able to persuade them to let us land?”
“Permission to land won’t do us a damn bit of good if we cannot accomplish the actual landing.”
A bitter laugh escaped her. “The great and fearless Maggie O’Connell is backing away from the challenge?”
“She’s not entirely brain-dead. Besides, it isn’t up to her. The Dremikians refuse to offer a guarantee that they won’t shoot a lander out of the sky before it reaches the planet. Brett is torn between his intrinsic need to follow orders and his personal drive to complete a mission. That should work in our favor, given enough time.”
Placing both hands on her belly, his wife whispered, “And if we run out of time?”
Features betraying his bleak outlook, Ryan responded: “Then we are in far more trouble than my brother and his crew realize.”
Chapter 19
While Chancellor Trell, Ryan Hill, and the Dremikian High Council argued back and forth, the
Hudson
orbited the doomed planet. The military crew, unable to snap back at their officers, took out their frustrations on the civilians. Some of their actions were small acts of pettiness, like calling their passengers “refugees” instead of “colonists”. Other means of showing frustration were more insidious. Plumbing and electrical problems in civilian quarters cropped up with alarming frequency, and were slow to be fixed. The officers worked overtime trying to soothe tensions, but found that difficult considering their own worries over the situation.
Lieutenant Guttmann assigned Chief Turner and three of his best men to check Lander 3’s engines for heat damage. The chief set the men to work while he attended to other duties in the cavernous bay. He’d only been gone fifteen minutes when he heard raised voices.
“I’m telling you I’m not doing it. Why should I bust my ass fixing an engine for a
landing craft
when we aren’t going to
land
on anything?”
“I’m tired of doing all your damned work, Huan. Pout on your own time.”
Petty Officer Huan took offense and lunged at his shipmate. The two men threw several punches each before Chief Turner and two other crewmen broke up the fight. Huan dripped blood from a broken nose. The other man, Beijer, doubled over clutching his broken fingers.
“Sick-bay, both of you! When the doc has you patched up you’ll report back here immediately. You’ll be lucky if Lieutenant Guttmann doesn’t send you both to Captain’s Mast”. The threat of disciplinary action handed down from the captain sufficiently cowed the men. They stumbled away. Turner turned his ire on the men still standing nearby. “The rest of you get those engines stripped, now!”
***
“It makes even less sense now.”
Swede massaged a sore spot under his ribs. “Ma’am, why do you
always
try to talk to me after a run?”
Disturbingly feral grin twisting her mouth, Maggie replied, “Because I enjoy your pain, obviously. Come on, you have to admit that Dwax sabotaging the engine makes no sense.”
He glanced around the darkened storage bay, making sure they were alone. “If the Dremikians changed their minds and didn’t want us reaching the planet, Dwax destroying us in transit makes
perfect
sense.”
“But,” she held up a finger, “they didn’t use force to keep us away from the planet. Those escort ships could have fired on us at anytime or made such a tight cordon that we couldn’t slip through. They seem bent on using non-violent means to solve this disagreement. Blowing up an engine mid-jump is the exact opposite of non-violence.”
That train of thought gave him pause. While they walked slowly to the bay door, his mind processed her theorem. “O.K. But if Dwax isn’t the saboteur, we’re right back to square one trying to find the responsible party.”
“I know. I’m going back over the locator and communications logs. I feel like I’ve missed something.”
The clicking of the bay door as it shut behind the departing officers was dutifully recorded by a hidden microphone. The mechanism transmitted the last hour of recordings to a pre-set location, erased all records of the recording and transmission, and waited for the next time someone had a conversation in the bay.
***
Two hours later, the chief waited until Commander O’Connell filled her coffee cup. Years of experience with the vagaries of officers, particularly female officers, kept him from wincing when she poured a substantial amount of sugar into the cup. There was no accounting for the needs of women, he thought.
“What’s the plan of the day, Commander?”
She only turned her head after taking a large gulp of the fresh brew. “I have no idea, Chief. Same as yesterday, I suppose. Sit and stare at each other and wait for the politicians to make up their damn minds.” Her greens eyes snapped sharply to the side the moment the profanity left her mouth. She wasn’t use to showing her frustrations in front of subordinates, even subordinates with thirty years more experience in ship-board life.
Turner kept his expression neutral as he said, “I cannot work with that, ma’am.” He watched her turn fully to face him and blink with surprise. “My sections require detailed plans of the day with specific goals. The crew needs focus.”
Voice hoarse, O’Connell snapped, “Until I have specific orders,
your
sections will have to wait just like the rest of us. No one is happy with this situation, Chief. Not being in charge of this half of the universe, there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.”
“I beg your pardon ma’am, but I find that surprising. I would think the officer who managed to manipulate half the male crew, and the captain, into holding a football game just so she could do a fly-around, would see a way out of this mess.” He picked up his cup and moved toward the door. “Seems to me that the XO sometimes has to nudge her CO, for his own good.”
***
Swede was tired. He was tired of worrying if they would be able to complete their mission and return home. He was tired of worrying about the saboteur re-appearing and killing them all. He was tired of bearing the burden of that secret. He was tired of watching the captain walk the political tightrope stretched between Chancellor Trell and the Dremikians. He was physically tired and emotionally tired. He was also very, very, tired of watching Chi flick his cards as he held them. He rubbed at his face and realized he hadn’t shaved in…. he could not recall how long it had been. That fact made his very soul tired.