Commander Cross nodded his head in agreement. “The Alliance is preparing for war with the Chroniech. I was hoping that… ”
Falnath’s tail snapped down and struck the carpet hard enough to shake the room. “The Chroniech! So I was right – they have figured out how to breach the barrier.”
“It’s worse than that,” Cross replied. “The Kyrra have informed us that they will have to drop the barrier altogether in the near future. If they don’t, the worldship could be destroyed. When that happens the Chroniech will invade. From the information we have from the Kyrra we will be out-numbered and out-gunned by a considerable margin. Your project could help even the odds.”
“I am confident that we will have a solution soon.”
“Please keep me informed. If you need any additional assistance let me know and I will see that you get it. I would like to be updated any time you have some new information.”
“I believe we have all the resources necessary at this time,” Falnath replied. Getting up from the chair she added as she headed out the door, “I will let you know the results of this test as soon as they are available.”
Commander Cross sat in silence for several minutes after Falnath had departed. His facility was charged with coming up with new technologies to assist the Alliance in defending itself against any form of attack. Although many advances in weapons, shielding, and stardrive technology have resulted from the efforts of the scientists working on Havatanu the Chroniech had apparently countered those with advances of their own.
He had seen thousands of wild ideas as well as thousands of practical ones appear in the massive project database the research station maintained. Perhaps a review of everything ever proposed but not yet implemented would yield something useful. It would be a daunting task but it was a challenge worth taking – one seemingly especially suited for him.
Jim Cross was a workaholic dedicated to his job. He was thin as a rail, nearly bald, and had skin so white his coworkers and friends referred to him as an albino. His mind had an attention to detail that few could match. He did not excel in any particular science but, instead, knew a considerable amount about almost everything.
The Commander started a fresh pot of coffee – which he tended to drink by the gallon – then made himself comfortable, and got to work.
A Question of Honor
Captain Zatch Batack watched as his ship settled into position within the gathering attack fleet. The helm checked his board then locked the controls into automatic station-keeping. “We are in position,” the helm informed him.
“Acknowledged,” the Captain replied. Fresh out of the shipyard the newly built heavy battleship had performed admirably during its initial space trials. Massing over 615 kilotons and armed with the most advanced weapons possible she was built to perform one function, and to perform it well.
Word had finally come from fleet command that the impending attack on the Alliance was soon to commence. Ships that had been stationed throughout the empire were forming into attack fleets near what used to be the Alliance border. Ever since the hated Kyrra had erected the hyperdimensional barrier the Chroniech had been building ships at a furious pace. Most of them, including the one Captain Zatch now commanded had been built for a single purpose – to obliterate anything that stood in its way.
The Captain’s thoughts, however, were not entirely centered on the operation of his ship, nor upon the preparations that were being made to attack the Alliance. “I will be in my stateroom,” he informed the helm who automatically assumed command of the bridge.
The Captain stood up and, as he turned to leave, heard a tone sound from the command console. Turning back around he acknowledged the incoming message. The status summary on the main display was replaced by the face of Commander Aruthra Chazataktak, the ship’s operations officer. “May I see you in your stateroom Captain?” he asked without preamble.
“I am headed there now.”
“Very well – I will be waiting.” The screen shifted back to the status display.
On the way to his stateroom the Captain started to get worried. Recently, in anticipation of war with the Alliance, he had moved his wives and children from their home on one of the outer worlds to one located in a more protected area of the empire. Two days ago the passenger ship they were on had failed to pass by one of the tracking stations. While accidents were rare, they did occasionally occur – usually with disastrous results. The Commander could very well be delivering bad news.
The operations officer was patiently waiting by the Captain’s stateroom door. As soon as the door had closed behind them he said, “I have received news of your family. They are all safe and are on their way to Tepchok.”
The Captain felt as if a weight had been lifted off his heart. His relief, however, was short lived as the destination finally registered. “Thank you for the good news. Why Tepchok? That is a military base on an airless moon, not a civilian world.”
The Commander paused before replying. Choosing his words carefully, he said, “The circumstances surrounding their rescue have generated some concern. They are being taken to Tepchok to be debriefed and quarantined.”
The Captain sat down and motioned for the Chazataktak to do the same. “I am assuming you have the details of this rescue?”
The Captain was well aware of the fact that his operations officer was the brother of Aruthra Manetgu, the Supreme Fleet Commander. Normally, such relations had little effect on how someone was treated within the military. In this case, however, Captain Zatch was grateful because it meant he had access to more information than would normally be available.
Aruthra produced a memory chip and twirled it lightly between the fingers of his left hand. “This came directly from the Supreme Fleet Commander's office. I am the only person aboard who knows its contents.”
Aruthra set the crystal down on the desk in front of the Captain then continued, “According to the ship’s automatic log recorder the stardrive experienced a failure causing the ship to suddenly drop to normal space. They did so directly in the path of a small asteroid. It wasn’t large enough to force the ship to make a course correction but it was big enough to damage the ship in normal space. Two seconds after dropping out of stardrive the asteroid impacted, destroying one of the ship's fusion reactors.”
Captain Zatch was stunned. Asteroids were occasionally encountered in deep space but it was a relatively rare occurrence. Stardrives were extremely reliable and failures were very rare. The odds of a stardrive failure happening at the same time as an encounter with an asteroid and having the asteroid and the ship have intrinsic velocities that put them on a collision course made the odds of this kind of accident astronomical.
Commander Aruthra allowed the Captain to grasp the magnitude of the accident then continued his explanation. “The damage to the area of the ship near the point of impact was extensive and it appears as if a power accumulator malfunctioned. The voltage on the power grid spiked causing many systems to burn out. The accumulator apparently exploded causing extensive damage to the aft cargo area and setting off a secondary explosion. Something in the cargo hold exploded which damaged engineering. A second power accumulator in engineering then exploded, blowing the ship into several pieces. All power was lost and the emergency beacon was destroyed.”
The Captain was stunned. The odds of the initial accident occurring were astronomical almost to the point of impossibility and the chain of events leading up to the ship’s destruction was equally impossible to believe. It was almost as if someone had meticulously planned for this exact sequence of events to occur.
“How did anyone survive?” the Captain finally managed to ask.
“The passenger liner was equipped with automatic emergency doors supplied by local batteries. They closed and sealed off several areas of the ship. One such area was a large children’s play area. Your three wives and eight children were all there when the accident happened.”
So far the Captain had heard nothing to indicate why the passengers were being taken to Tepchok instead of a civilian planet. In fact, the more he thought about it the more he wondered how anyone had survived at all. Without an emergency beacon and without any power the survivors would have either frozen to death or been asphyxiated within a relatively short period of time.
The Captain mentioned his concerns then added, “But they obviously survived. They were incredibly lucky that the rescue ship found them so quickly.”
The look on the Commander’s face told the Captain there was another explanation. Reaching down in front of the Captain, the Commander slid the memory chip toward the him. While doing so Aruthra said, “This is a copy of a video taken by one of the passengers. Very few people know of its existence. My brother thought you should see it.”
The Captain picked up the memory chip and examined it. It was a standard chip used in many civilian and military recording devices. He placed it in front of his computer keyboard and spoke a command to the ship’s computer. The computer accessed the memory chip’s contents and displayed a list of available files.
“Computer, display the last video file,” the Commander said.
The video swirled for a second then the face of an elderly male appeared. “It has now been fifteen hours since the accident. The temperature is continuing to drop and it is getting very cold in here. I have given everyone the opportunity to record their final farewells as we do not expect to survive much longer. Whoever finds this please… wait a minute, there are some very bright lights outside the ship.”
The scene swung wildly as the videographer retrieved the camera and pointed it out the window. At first only stars and the blackness of space could be seen then a bright point of light rapidly crossed the camera’s field of view. The source of the light could not be determined.
The passenger kept recording and maintained a running commentary as he watched the probes investigate the ship. At one point in the video one of the searchlights ran across another probe. The Captain paused the video and ran it back until he could clearly see the probe. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before.
“I don’t recognize this style probe,” he said.
“Keep watching,” was Aruthra‘s only response.
After several more minutes of watching the probes move about the commentator’s voice became excited. “There is some type of large ship approaching. It’s too dark to see any details but whatever it is it’s large.”
A large object came sliding into view. A moment later the probes began heading toward it and in doing so their spotlights illuminated the ship. Captain Zatch slowed the playback and watched until something he had been looking for appeared. He stopped the video and enlarged a section of the screen.
The Captain’s claws involuntarily extended themselves and anger started to cloud his vision. Standing up he pointed an accusing finger at the screen and through clenched teeth said, “That is an Alliance warship! What kind of joke is this?”
The Commander had expected this reaction and had remained calm. “I have confirmed with my brother that a single Alliance ship had crossed over into our space when the Kyrra momentarily dropped the barrier. Apparently, it came across the disabled passenger liner.”
“They must have been responsible for its destruction,” the Captain hissed. “I will personally hunt them down and destroy them for what they have done.” Turning on the Commander, the Captain grabbed him by the shoulders and demanded, “What did they do to the passengers? What have they done to my wife and children?”
The Commander calmly forced the Captain to sit back down. “Watch the rest of the video and you will see for yourself. As I said before, your family is fine.”
The Captain took a deep breath and steeled himself for the worst. Restarting the video, he watched with growing confusion as the robot repair drones from the
Komodo Dragon
sealed the small air leaks and attached the life-saving devices to the hull of the disabled passenger ship. He watched in utter amazement as the Alliance ship vanished back into deep space.
“I do not know who they were,” the voice of the person making the video continued his dialog, “but they have saved us. The device attached to the outside is blowing warm air in to us. I can only guess that they have done so in order to give them time to return with a rescue ship. Whoever it was, our thanks go out to you.”
The video ended and left Captain Zatch with nothing to say. The Commander filled in some of the remaining details. “They attached air purifiers and heaters to all three sections of the ship containing survivors. Just before leaving, they sent a signal to the nearest planet describing what they had found. They also left behind a signal beacon which allowed us to quickly find and rescue all the survivors.”
The Captain’s mind was numb.
“Why did this have to happen to me?”
he thought.
“What am I going to do about this?”
As if reading his thoughts the Commander leaned back in his chair and said, “They are not Chroniech. Honor has no meaning for them. What are you going to do?”
The Captain shook his head. “I don’t know. Please leave me. I need to think.”
Commander Aruthra stood up and reached for the memory chip. The Captain’s hand beat him to it. “Leave it.”
The Commander shrugged his shoulders and left the Captain to ponder the problem he now had hanging over him. He did not envy him.
Over the eons, Chroniech society had been remarkably stable. Despite the violence of their home planet, the Chroniech people had remained coherent with clashes between clans virtually unknown. In the beginning, this had been necessary to preserve their race. Cooperating with each other was the only way they could survive.
For thousands of years the Chroniech society had been knit together by a complex honor system. Violating this honor system, for any reason, was unthinkable. It had become so ingrained into Chroniech morals and beliefs that laws and contracts were written to include them. In the extremely rare cases where someone had knowingly flaunted this honor system and had been discovered, that person became an outcast from society and in many instances was sentenced to prison. Nobody would sell them food, offer them assistance, or acknowledge their existence. Such individuals usually ended their own lives.