ALERT!
ALERT!
ALERT!
“Someone shut that goddam siren off!” The booming voice of Commander Ridgway echoed around the compact space of the bridge, rivalling the sound of the automated siren.
ALERT!
“Sir we can’t do that until___” The young officer was cut off mid explanation.
“Now Ensign!”
ALERT!
“Yes Sir!” The Ensign’s eyes flickered over the interactive pane facing him.
AL___
The return to the normal decibel level of beeps and background hum was a relief to the duty officers on the bridge of the IDS Nixon
“Now what in the hells was that all about?” The bulky Ridgway overflowed the modest command seat positioned behind the semi-circular cluster of departmental workstations.
“Class One alert from a nearby colony system Sir, the umm…,” the nervous Ensign manning the combined Comms and Hunt station blinked his eyes at the glowing pane again, “Su-Kam System. Sir.”
Ridgway ran his fingers through his mane of unruly blonde hair, “Not a name I recognize, not a family system that’s for sure. From the Sino diaspora?”
“Err no Sir…it’s an… early conglomerate settled system, an Old Earth corporation by the registry tag.” The Ensign absorbed the data from his pane, and tilted his head a shade to one side as he processed an audio burst, “Transmission cuts off mid-sentence but it’s an SOS for sure, claim they are being confronted by an overwhelming superior force from___”
“From where, the Silicates? The New Radicals? It’s those traitorous bastards I bet.”
“It’s unclear Sir, that’s where the transmission cuts off. The alert is automated otherwise.” The Ensign shrugged, too green yet to realize his unprofessionalism.
“Closest IF tub?”
The Ensign interrogated the pane once more, “The Martyrdom of Matthew Hancock is ten rift cycles away in the Mezzegra System. Our own distance is three rift cycles.”
“When I want to know how far out we are, I’ll ask how far is it Ensign? Did I say that Ensign?”
“No. No…No Sir!”
From behind the Commander came the tell-tale whoosh of the bridge bulkhead spiralling open and closed.
“Contact the Matthew Hancock, tell them they’ll have to take the job, this pot is only meant for patrolling borders and repelling illegal aliens. With our peashooters we aren’t going to win any fist fights.”
“Fist fights Sir?” The bewildered Ensign asked.
“Fire Fights, whatever. Just make the call. Now!”
“Sir, yes sir.” The Ensign blinked the fleet communication directory up in front of him.
“Belay that order Ensign.” The familiar no nonsense delivery of Temjentula Longkumer cut across the drone of the ship’s instrumentation.
“Captain on the bridge!” Lieutenant Parker at the Engineering and Sanitation workstation was the first officer to react, his cockney warble still detectable despite the years of voice coaching.
The remaining officers hastened to present the commanding officer of the Nixon with the snappiest of salutes, no mean feat whilst strapped into reaction couches.
As usual the last to do so was Ridgway, and as usual Longkumer rued the fleet politics that had dumped the man on her.
“Lieutenant Commander, I made a risk assessment of a distress call from the Soi-Cam system___”
“That’s Captain, we’re not off duty on Lave, and you will respect my position as commander of this vessel Mr Ridgway.” Longkumer locked gazes with her XO until finally eliciting a grudging acknowledgment.
“Yes…Ma’am.”
“It’s Su-Kam Commander, I read the summary on my imager in the wardroom. Given our proximity we owe the colonists whatever help we can provide, peashooters or no peashooters.” Longkumer glanced meaningfully at the command chair as she finished her reprimand.
After a calculated delay, the first officer shifted his large frame and made way for his Captain. Crouching under the low ceiling, the pain in Longkumer’s arse lumbered over to a wall mounted reaction harness with attached hot terminal, and strapped in.
“It’s a fascinating system XO, did you know it’s the only example of a Kelvin-Helmholtz habitation in the whole of the Illustrious Domain?” Strapping herself into the Command position, Longkumer grimaced as her nanomesh flight suit encountered the film of sweat left by the previous incumbent.
“No can’t say that I did. Captain. Presumably, your fancy qualification from Olympus Mons comes in handy sometimes.”
“Holding a doctorate in stellar cartography does help sometimes yes XO, in this instance though my awareness stems from Su-Kam being part of our regular patrol sweep.” Not for the first time Longkumer reflected on the ridiculous levels of nepotism that allowed an idiot who barely scrapped a PPE undergraduate pass to rise to a position of command. No wonder he screwed up on the Trump, she supposed. “You must bone up on the local geography, I can forgive Ensign Gwyrdd given he’s so wet behind the ears, but this is something you and I need to discuss later Mr Ridgway.”
There was no reply from her first officer, and she felt rather than saw the eyes lasering into her back. She would pay for that at some point in the future no doubt, however with the trajectory of her career as flat as a Terran pancake, it wouldn’t make any difference anyway.
Don’t let the bastard drag you down to his level, she thought, concentrate on the job in hand.
She addressed young Gwyrdd, “Ensign resume the communication with the Matthew Hancock, advise them of the alert and report that we are on the way to conduct a sitrep. We’ll contain the situation until they arrive if it all possible.”
“Yes Sir!”
“Lieutenant Parker, rift status?”
“Primed Ma’am.”
“Wayfinder set course for Su-Kam system.”
“Yes Ma’am.”
“All stations report in.”
“Green.”
“Green Ma’am.”
“Green.”
“Vert.”
Smiling inwardly at the idiosyncrasy of Blayton on Weapons and Pacification, Captain Longkumer addressed the entire crew via the commnet, “OK people prepare for rift mechanics, in five, four, three, two, one…hit it!”
The customary feelings of dislocation and disorientation washed over the crewmembers, medulla implants stimulating the release of anti-emetics and mood stabilisers where required, as the IDS Nixon winked out of existence in the normal physical universe.
#
The Nixon winked back into physical space on the edge of the Su-Kam system, bordering the inside of the Oort Cloud, the dull grey border patrol craft dwarfed by a nearby icy planetoid.
The cutter was not a sleek or svelte vessel in the estimation of any observer. Tapering to a blunt point at the bow along a narrow cylindrical body from the bulky rift mechanism at the stern, it’s hull covered in an eruption of sensory nodules, communications pods, and the odd weapons blister.
The Palin class cutter was so notoriously ugly that workers at the Desi Diaspora dockyards that built the ships christened them the Bitter Gourds. Each ship bearing a glorious name from the days of Old Earth only added to the ignominy, and they were shunted to operations in the margins of the Illustrious Domain.
Lieutenant Commander Temjentula Longkumer was aware of the Nixon’s reputation but she had battled too hard and fought too long in reaching her first command, to worry about such superficial concerns.
Besides this is a tough little boat, she patted her command seat affectionately as she tilted to face her first officer.
“Initial analysis XO?”
The Terran freed one of his prodigious forearms from the secure webbing to turn his hot terminal towards him. He blinked at the interface.
“Christ! It’s a brown dwarf, what kind of colony is this? Polar bear stock?”
Longkumer sighed to herself, what else to expect when Old Earth families such the Ridgways promoted inbreeding over healthy genetics? She tilted back towards the cluster of workstations.
“Mr Gwyrdd, lets test your academy learning, what can you tell us about a Kelvin-Helmholtz habitation?”
“Well uh Sir, uh...Ma’am…uh__”
“Sir or Ma’am will do Ensign, pick one and stick with it.”
“Uh yes Ma’am! Theoretically its where a planet sits in a goldilocks zone created by a gas giant or a stellar dwarf, the contraction of the stellar body produces heat rather than the usual fusion mechanism. Ma’am.”
“Not bad Gwyrdd, not bad. I would say though that it’s a little more than theoretical here.”
“Uh yes sorry Ma’am.” The young officer returned his attention to his pane, “Yes, the Su-Kam Corporation found a habitable zone around the second planet generated by the gas giant itself. Luckily for them a large moon orbited within the zone which they named New Gurgaon.”
“Barely habitable I’d say. Right listen up everyone the inhabitants are gas harvesters and ice miners by trade, not easy to scare in other words. Let’s liven up, shall we?” Longkumer turned again to Ridgway.
“Ideally I would have liked a risk assessment of our current scenario Mr Ridgeway, give yourself a half a minute and come back to me on that.”
Longkumer wasn’t hopeful on the quality of Ridgeway’s forthcoming assessment, utilising the thirty seconds to make her own preparations regardless.
“Parker prep the sub-light engines and shift the rift mechanics to shielding.”
“Aye-Aye Ma’am.”
“Mr Blayton charge the particle cannons and pump the grazer.”
“Cannons charged Ma’am. Neutron pump activated…excited state achieved; the grazer is primed.”
“Mr Ridgway?”
“Captain…my scanning hasn’t turned up any unidentified vessels, however there are no intersystem traffic or comms either. It could be that the potential aggressors have sufficient technology to block the sensory equipment. We’re too far out for an accurate visual scan, I recommend we move in closer, cautiously.” The XO tone was stiff but professional.
Well, well he can do it when you push him, mused the Captain, but you must push him every time.
“Very well, thank you XO. Wayfinder Ratuniyarawa take us in please, one third sub-light power. Mr Gwyrdd ping the Matthew Hancock with what we know so far.”
“Aye, Sir!”
“Yes Ma’am!”
As the Nixon sped towards the heart of the system the reaction couches absorbed the initial acceleration before the ship’s inertia dampeners caught up to speed.
“Still nothing on scanning.” Ridgway boomed from his wall harness.
“Mr Gwyrdd try raising the colony.”
“No response Ma’am, I’ve been trying since we zipped into the system.”
“Thank you, Mr Gwyrdd, nice initiative.” Longkumer felt the smile radiate from the young Cymro in response.
The knot of anxiety in the pit of Longkumer’s stomach began to grow as the minutes passed and the craft closed with the second planet, this was peculiar, damn peculiar.
“Captain, I have…something on visual.” The usual arrogance in the XO’s voice was missing, displaced by incomprehension.
“What for god’s sake man?” The increasing tension did little to ease Longkumer’s irritability around the first officer.
“Best if I show you. Ensign raise a mass viewing pane.”
“Yes sir!” Gwyrdd tilted his head as he carried out the XO’s order, a viewing matrix springing into life on the front bulkhead, obscuring the small titanglass viewing ports in the hull.
There was half a second pause as Ridgway passed the feed to the pane.
“Mon dieu!”
“Moses!”
The viewing pane was dominated by two large balls of blue light obscuring the view of the colony ahead. The surface of the balls shimmered and pulsed in writhing patterns of sheer randomness.
“Distance?” Longkumer heard herself ask.
“Uh…Forty-Six million miles and…closing fast.” Ridgway’s delivery indicated he doubted his instrumentation.
“That’s impossible. The size I mean.” Young Gwyrdd’s outburst was forgivable under the circumstances.
“Merely improbable it would seem Ensign.” Longkumer shrugged off her own disbelief, “Wayfinder full stop please. Mr Parker full power to the rift shielding. Mr Blayton can you get a target lock?”
“I don’t think that will be a problem Mon Capitaine, I couldn’t miss even if I fired blind.”
The sudden deceleration overwhelmed the inertial dampening field again, prompting the Captain to remember her duty to the rest of the crew.
She flicked open the commnet, “Now hear this! All crew to reaction couches and harnesses. Lockdown for battle stations, I repeat battle stations. Captain out.”
“Shall I hit the alert Captain?” Gwyrdd raised the innocent enquiry.
Longkumer felt the bridge crew tense, and she herself shuddered as she replied, “That thing? Gods no. Total waste of energy.”
“Bogies are still closing, twenty million miles...fifteen million miles…ten.” The XO’s voice trailed off as the impossible velocity stunned them all.
The twin spheres had blotted all else out on the viewing pane, and the writhing surface was a mass of blue coloured plasma storms akin to the surface of a star.
“Five million!”
“Mr Blayton fire a warning shot with the grazer.”
“I couldn’t miss if I tried Mon Capitaine!” The Parisian woman’s voice wavered with indecision.
“Shit! Hold your fire then. Let’s not antagonise them unless we have too.” Longkumer tried to recall long forgotten first contact protocols, no-one has encountered these buggers before, or at least survived to tell the tale.
“One million! Christ, fire everything we have, strafe them with it all!” Naked panic washed across the bridge, not least in the first officer.
“Hold your fire Marie-Claire, we still don’t know what their intentions are, or what they are even.”
“They’re launching something!” The XO’s shrill scream pierced the eardrums of all present.
“Thank you, Mr Ridgway, we can all see that.” On the screen Longkumer could see a giant blue tendril lash out from each sphere, hurtling straight towards the imager.
“They’re right on top of us!”
“Fire all weapons Mr Blayton! Mr Parker divert all residual power to the rift device!”
“Shielding ineffective!”
“Sending to the Matthew Hancock!”
In the last few microseconds of confusion everyone spoke at once, then shocking blue light flashed through the titanglass portals, dispersing the viewing pane, and engulfing the bridge.
Longkumer felt the light pass through her, penetrating every cell in her body.
The universe shattered into a billion pieces.
#
“’Ere you are dearie, drinks like you ordered innit. Mother’s ruin for you girls and a pint of our finest ale for the big fellow with all them lovely muscles.” The buxom woman slammed down an earthenware pot, two pewter cups and a large pewter mug on the rough wooden table in front of Longkumer. She cackled as she did so, exposing a set of broken yellow coloured teeth and blackened gums.
With an efficient spin that set her dirty brown skirt twirling, the serving girl set off back to the bar threading her way through the raucous clientele with their powdered wigs, white stockings, and clay pipes.
Longkumer’s senses reeled, her hearing from the din inside the rough plastered room, and her nose from the prevailing stench of cheap spirits, and stale sweat. She grabbed the table for support.
“The disorientation will pass__” Began the man wearing a dark three-piece suit cut in an ancient style.
“__shortly. In the meantime, I suggest you enjoy your drinks. Gin is all the rage in your civilisation I believe.” Completed the man in the light three-piece suit cut in an ancient style.
The pair occupied the opposing side of the table from the bewildered Captain. Simultaneously the pair adjusted their long horsehair wigs, straightening them to match the rest of the male patrons. Their faces were ageless, neither old nor young, and as non-descript anyone could imagine.
In unison they toked on their burning weed pipes.
Longkumer’s peripheral vision picked out two additional presences as it recovered, a large bulk to her left, and a much smaller feminine figure to her right.
Ridgway then, and who? Thought the Captain, Ahh…Doctor Esgyrn.
“What the blazes is going on? Where’s the ship? What the hell is that stench?” As ever the XO was first with his mouth and second with his brain, Longkumer would have preferred a few extra moments to study both their new companions and their surroundings.
“Is this a Starbucks? Well I have to tell you your little charade isn’t at all accurate, where are the free WIFIs and blueberry muffins?” Ridgway opened his mouth to rant further but ceased as Longkumer dug her nails into his wrist.
“It’s a gin joint, no sorry make that a gin palace, on Old Earth, a thousand years or more ago.” The Nixon’s doctor spoke from her seat on the right, the Bonobo ancestry giving her voice that familiar high-pitched lilt.
Ridgway looked around Longkumer, condescending to notice the other senior officer for the first time.
“Oh, come on, what would you know simian? You were still picking bananas whilst we were fusing the atom.”
Keeping her poise in the face of the XO’s ignorance, the doctor replied, “I believe you meant split the atom.” She pointed out of the window adjacent their table, “that large domed building you can see is St Pauls Church which puts us in Old London.” She paused for some internal calculations, “Throw in the costumes and the gin, and I’d hazard we are back in the days when London was part of Wales, the precursor to Cymru.”
Longkumer resisted correcting her friend on a couple of inaccuracies, opting instead for solidarity in the face of Ridgway’s buffoonery.
“Nicely reasoned Kelley, which would put us well over a thousand years in the past, if we are anywhere at all.”
The Captain finished the sentence with a gaze directed at the twin oddities across from them.
The two exchanged a long silent glance before questioning the Nixon officers, “This is not a temporally contiguous setting for you? Our__” Began the Dark one.
“__apologies. We found this in the subconscious of one of your fellow units, one we have not reactivated yet. It was very prominent within its higher functions, along with the phrase apples and pears.” Completed the Light one.
“Not reactivated?” The Captain forced down an incomprehensible terror threatening to envelope her.
“Your cadre are safely stored. For now. Along with your means of stellar ambulation.” This from the Dark one.
“We cannot access conscious architecture for a setting__” The Light one.
“__ without risking serious corruption to the subject’s operational sub-routines.”
“Which would be regrettable from your point of view.”
“What? Explain what you mean, or…or else!”
Longkumer dug her nails into her first officer’s wrist for a second time, “Shush Mark, they mean they’d fry our brains.”
“Exactly.” The men chimed in unison.
They turned to each other.
“Another locale? We need to concentrate on the matter in hand, an incorrect setting is distracting to races with a lower processing power.” The Light one ignored his three guests as he spoke.
“Yes, but not the neutral one. Too much white. Such as when drama makers cut costs,” the dark one replied.
“A cheap set? Yes, you are right. It has been done far too often, let us try__”
“__another. Yes. This one then.”
A flicker in the light and the gin palace was gone.
They now stood in an urban setting, which Longkumer recognised from the history zines of her youth as an Old Earth street.
The residential units, houses she recalled, stretched as far as the eye could see on either side of the road, lumpy blocks with peaked roofs and living hedges that separated the buildings.
Every few meters a tree grew out of the pavement, the dappled sunlight drifting through the leafy canopy bathing the scene in a warm summer glow.
Parked under one tree was an ancient internal combustion transport, a white rectangular affair with a bulky passenger compartment and a long snout containing the engine.
The machine gleamed, its pristine look a profound contrast to its polluting nature. The rear hatch bore a blue plaque that proclaimed the name Ford in florid lettering.
“All wrong again, there is no way the ancients had lasers.” Ridgway frothed, his face a shade of puce, as he pointed at stencilled red writing under the plaque that read Capri Laser two point zero.
“Forget that nonsense Mark, what are we doing here? Why are we here?” Longkumer’s patience eroded and she rounded on the two men, stopping in her tracks as she did so.
Two teenaged girls stood where the men had a second before, clad only in the shortest of skirts and the tightest of vest shirts. The girls were identical down to their curly blonde locks and hooped earrings. The only differentiation was in the colour of their skirts, and the lettering on their white shirts, one read Don’t Do It, the other Frankie Says Relax.
“You don’t like this setting__” said the Dark Skirt.
“__either? Lawks, we got it from the same geezer as before, he must be a duff one.” Concluded the Light Skirt.
“Their language patterns have altered.” Doctor Esgyrn noted.
“Yeah we absorbed the syntax from the same unit, we can wipe him if you want, like recording over Agadoo on a mix tape.”
“No!” Interjected Longkumer.
“Though I could run a full psychological check up on Mr Parker when this over.” Suggested the doctor.
“Yes, when this is over,” The Captain pivoted her attention from her colleague to the teenagers, now busy blowing bubbles with gum, “When will this be over? What do you want with us? What did you do to the colony?”
POP.
The Dark Skirt’s bubble burst.
“Jeez Louise, calm down sis. They’re safe innit? For now, __” the Dark Skirt paused.
POP
“__anyway. All saved like your spaceship, yeah?” The Light Skirt pulled out her gum and placed the lump behind an ear.
“Let’s take the motor for a spin and__” The Light Skirt mimed turning a wheel as she spoke.
“__find some high-class gear to sit your rear ends on.” The Dark Skirt opened the front vestibule of the combustion transport and placed a foot inside.
Longkumer blinked as the light flickered once again and she found herself sat at a long polished wooden table hewn from a dark wood. Spaced around the circumference of the table were leather upholstered chairs.
The table was the centre piece of a narrow chamber with pastel coloured prefabricated walls, plastic looking ceiling tiles and strips of old-fashioned mercury vapour lighting. A door made of a cheaper wood lay at the far end of room.
Opposite Longkumer was a glass wall looking out onto the world beyond, a quiet scene where a bird of prey soared through the clear blue sky over a row of four identical office buildings. The yellow brick and glass buildings were each set in a small patch of greenery and overlooked a slender asphalt road that separated them from the edifice currently hosting Longkumer.
The Captain noted that Ridgway had again been sat to her left and the doctor to her right. She craned her neck to look for the entities that held them captive, finding instead two blurs stationed beyond the end of the table rippling through avatars.
The pace of flux was too fast to catch more than a fleeting glimpse, though twice the images settled for a fraction longer. Once on a pair of men with shocking red hair and powder blue suits, then on a pair of green skinned beings with many tentacles and a single large eye each.
Finally, the kaleidoscope of images coalesced into a pair of ageless human males wearing pinstripe suits of a more modern vintage, identical save the dark slicked back hair on one, and the lighter slicked back style on the other.
“Behold the birth of capitalism and modern humanity!” Announced Dark Hair.
“This setting will be much more appropriate, much more productive.” Asserted Light Hair.
“Where are we? Or when are we even?” Longkumer was clueless on their surroundings.
“You do not recognise? Damn it these__”
“__linear realities are a pain in the ass.”
“Listen buddy, your time travel schtick isn’t washing well here, wait till the Domain finds you’ve been messing with a son of the Families.” Ridgway puffed up his chest to full preen.
“This isn’t time travel__”
“No that would not be cost effective at this point, this__”
“__is a simulacrum, a place drawn from the mind of an earlier sample. Now settle__”
“__down, your attitude isn’t productive, we will__
“__bring it up at your One to One.”
“Yes, bring us solutions__”
“__not problems.”
Longkumer slammed both fists down on the table, shocking even their captors.
“Again, what is this? What do you want from us?” She kept her voice low but added venom borne of strained patience and weeks of frustration from dealing with the idiot scion of a founding family.
“Isn’t it obvious? This is__
“__the Test of Humanity. We have monitored your species for countless generations, and we have to say__”
“__we’re disappointed with what we’ve seen so far. It’s not looking good__”
“__but we’re here to offer you a chance__”
“__to make one last pitch.”
“Make it a good one. Bowl us over with your ideas.”
The pair finished and stood waiting.
“What? What is that supposed to mean?” Longkumer looked at her fellow officers for support before turning a baleful glare on the Suits.
The Dark and the Light spoke in unison.
“We want…a PowerPoint presentation!”
#
Longkumer bounced back from the door. For a simulacrum that’s a solid lump of wood, she thought as she cradled her aching shoulder.
Realizing that brute force wouldn’t work here, she relaxed her breathing, and examined her surroundings looking for inspiration.
Under the reedy light from the single sodium bulb Longkumer noted the shelves packed with ancient writing styluses and a forest’s worth of papyrus.
Rummaging through a box of miscellaneous arcane items she happened on a small palm sized item with a hinged set of four small fangs that snapped shut viciously under the application of pressure. She pressed the object into the nanomesh weave of her suit for later use.
Longkumer sighed on completion of the recce, not even anything flammable.
Settling on the cold floor in a familiar lotus position, the CO of the Nixon slowed her breathing further as she reworked the events of the last few hours in her mind’s eye, fishing for a fact or angle she had overlooked.
“What the hell is a PowerPoint presentation?” The bizarre request forcing Longkumer to bark at the Suits.
“A nice one too, with graphs and charts__”
“__and a split plane so we get a nice two-level effect.”
“Again, what are you talking about?”
“They don’t know PowerPoint.” The Dark Hair turned to his partner.
“No. That is an issue. Well I’m not changing the simulacrum again.”
“Agreed. I like the physics here, and the ambience.” The Dark Hair hooked his thumbs under his braces, flexing the fabric straps as he spoke.
“Solution occurs.” The Light Hair stared at his counterpart for a few moments before slamming his palms down on the table and glaring at the spacefarers, “Listen up dweebs, we’ll insert the PowerPoint knowledge into the minds of your cadre and re-activate them. They’ll handle the IT and the bagels. You handle the content.”
Dark hair slapped his partner on the back in a roughhousing manner and expounded on the content, “You tell us why Humanity deserves its place out there in the stars, and why we would be wrong to erase you from existence, make it a big speech, rock us back on our oxfords.”
“We want this over by close of business today, that gives you a few hours. Refreshment will be available along with coffee outside the board room. No lunch though, lunch is for wimps.” As he closed out Light Hair pushed back up from his power hunch and shook hands with Dark Hair.
“What the blazes is going on?” Ridgway directed his question at the two women.
“I don’t understand the terminology, but I get the gist, we have to make the best speech in the history of Humanity, or it’s Ragnarök.” Longkumer hoped she wasn’t under selling the situation.
Finding nothing of help in that exchange Longkumer skipped ahead.
She looked out of the glass window onto the road below, the sporadic parade of internal combustion machines continued along the road, passing signage that proclaimed Basing View.
Behind her the argument raged, and she considered wading in with her command authority.
“How dare you sit this out! After all the Domain has done for you and your kind!” Ridgway was frothing at the mouth, spittle flying in all directions. At that moment Longkumer doubted anyone could find the ogre attractive, though she was aware that was the consensus in the fleet, amongst some of her own crew even.
“My kind? My kind? All you have done for us? Invade our world? Strip it of its wealth? Conquer us, subjugate us, prevent us from practising our cultural heritage? Go copulate with your mother Terran sublishj!” Master Sergeant Harlan the senior most of the Nixon’s contingent of Mil Marines stood up to his full height, reaching Ridgways chest, and gave as good as he got. His troops slapped their hard polyarmour in support.
The similar sized contingent of Chimp ratings spat screams of rage at the Mil shock troops in support of their Earther idol.
“Cultural heritage? You mean eating other races? Raiding and killing them for food?” The XO’s apoplexy had reached critical mass.
Longkumer stepped back towards the long table, but not before the Master Sergeant got in a retort, his mottled grey skin turning a darker shade as he spoke, a sure sign violence was a hairbreadth away.
“You can talk! You’ve always eaten sentient races, before you left your little ball of mud and as you spread out like the swarm of ravenous slugs you are. Finding new morsels to flay and marinade on every planet. Yet you ban us from the same.”
“OK gentlemen that’s enough! Stand down the both of you. This isn’t helping us; we’re supposed to be collaborating not calling each other pigs. We don’t have time to argue, we have to sift through what we’ve come up with so far, so I have something to work with.”
Sergeant Harlan addressed the Captain, his skin lightening as he did so, “Captain I have great respect for you, but if Humanity is erased, then my people are free from tyranny. We cannot help you if it keeps us bound.”
Longkumer pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation but finally nodded, “Fine Sergeant, fine. If you cannot help, then at least please stay out of the way and don’t hinder us further.”
Harlan grasped her arm, “Out of deference to you we will retire to the mess, this lounge as they call it.”
With that the contingent of ten marines made for the exit, Longkumer felt a stab as the five Tane galley technicians rose with them, centuries of rancour between the two races put aside for the same rationale.
As the door slammed Ridgway rounded on Longkumer, “You let them go! They belong to us; they should be here doing as we say!” He stood over his captain, “You’ve let our client races sabotage us. You aren’t up to this. I’m taking command.”
Finishing, he shoved her in the shoulder, she gave ground, but only stepped back a pace, her wiry frame containing more strength than he expected.
“I grew up on Proxima B remember? Ah no, knowing you probably not, the grav there is a third more than Terra. I’m no pushover.”
With that Doctor Esgyrn loped between the pair, “Please we’re running out of time, we must put something coherent forward. Captain Longkumer is our best shot at this.”
“Stay out of it pygmy!” Chief Rando the highest amongst the pan ratings leaped onto the table and hovered behind the XO. He reached down with a long finger and pushed the doctor in the chest.
Esgyrn brushed the digit aside and appealed to both men, “Please we must respect the chain of command and work together!”
Longkumer clasped the Bonobo on the shoulder and opened her mouth, “It’s OK Kelley I’ve got__”
“You’ve got nothing!” Thundered the blonde Terran, he sneered at both women, “Chain of command? Ha! We’re not on the Nixon, now are we? Off the ship I’m the ranking officer, so what I say goes, Lieutenant Commanders.”
“We’re still under assignment on the ship as far as we know, this crew is my responsibility.” Longkumer’s gaze never wavered as she faced the Commander in front of her, instead Ridgway turned away from her and reached out to the rest of the crew.
“How many of you think we’re still on the Nixon?”
Ensign Gwyrdd raised a hand, a low growl from Ridgway and the arm lowered. No one else raised an appendages or an opinion.
Longkumer felt the situation racing away from her and stepped forward to address her team, as she did so Ridgway moved in front of her, obscuring the crew’s view of her. The XO spoke again.
“You all know that we have a better chance of pulling this off with me in charge, I’m full Terran and the son of a Founding Family. I was born on Earth and went to Princeton, the most famous college in the galaxy__”
“Did you pass out?” Longkumer interjected saucily, “or did your daddies buy you that third?”
The XO ignored her and continued, “I’ve served in the real service, the Illustrious Fleet and not this poxy border force. By thirty-five I had my own command, The Veneration of Donald Trump. We need a thoroughbred right now, not some nobody from a slum planet. A privileged underclasser who went to college on a minority scholarship and used positive discrimination to get a command.”
The sheer nerve of Ridgway’s distortions enraged the Captain, “Oh, and are you going to tell them how Commander Perfect ended up subordinate to a slum dweller? What you did on the Trump to deserve such a demotion? How many died because of your incompetence?”
“Who’s with me?” Ridgway roared, shooting his Captain a side long glance as he pumped his fist at the crew.
The Chimps to a pan raised their fists and roared, depressingly for Longkumer all her officers save Parker, Esgyrn and Gwyrdd followed suit. After a fierce look from the XO, Gwyrdd too raised his, sending his captain an agonised look of apology.
“This is mutiny!” The Doctor hopped in enraged vexation.
“Like I said, not on the ship anymore, and we took a vote,” the blonde officer leaned close to the Bonobo doctor’s ear, “are you going to be a good pygmy and shut up, or shall I let your cousins play with you in private for a while?”
The doctor looked at the leering faces of the Chimps and nodded her head, her gaze not raising from her magno boots after that.
“Is there’s somewhere we can lock the slum dweller out of the way?”
“There was a room marked stationery next to the lounge, sounds like it’s for keeping prisoners. It had no windows and only the one door anyway.” Chief Rando seemed keen to please the new boss.
“Sounds good, sling her in there and throw away the key. Right my people, let’s save the Domain!”
As the Chimps dragged her from the room Longkumer passed her officers, Blayton looked her in the eye and shrugged, “He is so ‘ansome, they are bound to listen to him.”
Longkumer shook herself from the memory shocked at how people kept falling for Ridgway’s kind.
Next to the Lounge? An appeal to the Mil? Longkumer rose from her lotus and looked for something heavy.
As she did so she heard the key turning in the door lock.
Looks like inspiration is coming to me instead.
#
The downy haired face of Kelley Esgyrn snaked around the open door, “Come on Atula, no time to waste, Commander Blondie is about to screw Humanity, all in one go this time.”
Flexing the aches from her muscles Longkumer stepped outside the room, “Nice handiwork, I didn’t know you had it in you Kelley.” She pointed at an unconscious Chimp slumped outside the door.
“Oh, I can’t take all the credit, merely wiggled my little pygmy hips as a distraction.” The doctor gestured to a small alcove as the bare feet of another Chimp rating disappeared into the cubbyhole marked Vending Machines. A second later the reedy form of Lieutenant Parker emerged from the niche.
“Lawks, he was heavy that one, stuffed him behind something called a coffee machine. Hello Ma’am, can you grab that one’s ankles, we’ll tuck in behind the one marked snacks.”
As they manoeuvred the limp pan behind the bizarre machine full of gaudy looking packets, Longkumer’s curiosity got the better of her, “Got a thing for ancient London then Mr Parker?”
The New Essex worlder blushed in response, “Oh gods, I’m so sorry, the Doctor filled me in on that. Its…well I’m something of a historian, proud of my ‘eritage I am. Everyone says we make the best engineers, and I wanted to see where that came from, so I’ve read every manuscript about Old London there is.”
“Well your knowledge on the period is unrivalled it seems. Thank you for this Mr Parker.”
“Well can’t let that odious ball of overgrown ego, destroy the whole Domain, can I? Besides, he keeps singing out Apples and Pears whenever he sees me, like I’ve never heard it a million times.”
“Not to mention Parker and I weren’t welcome anymore for our disloyalty as the Commander put it.”
As the trio made their way along the maze of corridors to the presentation area, the CO had a moment of clarity. “Not only the Illustrious Domain Mr Parker, it’s all Humanity.”
“Wot the Others as well?”
“Yes, Mr Parker, the beings were very…specific to the Captain and I, a test of all humanity.” The Doctor struggled for breath as she kept pace with her longer legged colleagues.
“Makes me feel like a Saint then, saving our mortal enemies as well.”
Longkumer held up a hand as she peered around the final corner.
“Two more Chimps on the door, not looking too alert at least.”
“Blast I would have though more would have been loyal to me; I am their bloody boss!” Parker’s hurt at the disloyalty surprised both the women.
“Well Mr Parker don’t take it personally, they weren’t bred to be too bright, but they will follow the nearest Alpha Male. I would postulate that Mr Ridgway fulfils that role for them more than you.” Sometimes the doctor’s bedside manner needed a little work noted the Captain, Parker’s expression was now even more hangdog.
“Alpha Male my arse! What a ridiculous concept, it didn’t even exist until we bred it in.” Shaking her head Longkumer strode out towards the Chimps.
“You men! Step aside from the door!”
The two pans pivoted and ambled towards her, “Get lost dirt dweller, you aren’t welcome in there, Blondie’s orders.” The lead Chimp grabbed for Longkumer’s arm as he spoke.
Sweeping his arm aside the Captain used the pan’s momentum to pull him towards her. Ripping her Stationery Cupboard find from her suit, she clamped it down hard on his sensitive year lobe in one swift movement.
The rating yelled in surprise and pain, hoping up and down on the spot in distress. As his companion looked on in confusion Longkumer tackled him around the shoulders and administered the same treatment.
“Now, now, best to remain as calm as possible. The venom from that Old Earth snake I found in the Stationery Cupboard is lethal if not treated properly.” The Chimps paused in their keening to stare in horror.
“Lucky for you the ancients knew enough to keep the antidote handy, coffee. You’ll need to drink at least ten litres each. The dispenser is that way, run.” She pointed back toward the Stationery Cupboard.
The Chimps barged passed the startled Parker and Esgyrn as they joined the Captain outside the door. Parker peered at the object from the cupboard.
“Snake? Looks more like a staple remover.” Parker demonstrated his Old Earth knowledge.
“Well I did mention the intelligence level.” Longkumer heard the doctor quip as she pushed the door labelled Boardroom open and stepped back inside.
Her eyes adjusted to the lower level lighting now employed and she took in the scene before her. Ridgway stood at the end of the table fiddling with a low-tech interface, whilst a viewing pane of sorts hung on the wall behind him.
The two Suits sat midway down the table, one on either side. The rest of the crew stood around the sides of the office.
“Dammit, you bloody monkeys, I said one slide at a time! Go back! Back!” The XO berated two tech ratings in the corner as they battled over a larger example of the low-tech equipment.
“Never mind. Leave it. I’ll finish up without it. Imbeciles.” He shuffled from foot to foot as he examined some papyrus on the table in front of him.
“Right, ahem…in conclusion the Illustrious Domain has tamed savage and backward civilizations such as the Mil, raised up fellow Terran species such as our…tenacious…Chimp brethren, and the Bonobos that make such good clerks. With our focus on firmly enforcing peace, this region of the galaxy has never been more stable. Thank you.” Ridgway looked up expectantly from the papyrus.
“He’s finished?” Longkumer plucked at the arm of Lieutenant Blayton, who stood a pace in front of the Captain.
“He…yes, he was light on detail…but…his charisma…yes it will get him, us, through.” Blayton’s voice was bereft of its usual outrageous French delivery, her manner nervous.
“Ha__”
“__Ha”
“Ha__”
"__Ha”
“Brilliant, so__
“__funny. We haven’t laughed__”
“__so hard in eternities.”
“Infinities! Now shall we__”
“__move onto the real presentation?”
Light and Dark hair folded their arms in tandem and looked at the XO.
The succession of emotional waves crashing upon the shoreline of the Terran’s features were comical to behold, perplexity, then humiliation, and finally anger.
“That was the presentation you…morons. How can you not understand that?” The Terran booted the nearest chair towards Dark Hair, the mistimed kick sending the furniture spinning instead into the onlookers.
As the cries of shock subsided Light Hair spoke, “That’s a coincidence Commander, similar__”
“__to the time you destroyed that freighter when you held the__”
“__the bridge of the Donald Trump. What was the ship called__”
“__again? The Castle on the River? Strange how you__”
“__confused a refugee barge with a New Radical frigate.”
Veins bulged on Ridgways temples, his hands balled into fists and his body trembled. “It was__”
With the XO struggling to articulate through his clenched jaw, Longkumer interceded.
“It was only the first half of the presentation, I’m ready to give the second part now.” She projected what she hoped was an air of calm as she stepped to the head of the table alongside the Terran.
“Argh! Get lost bitch!” The XO yanked his arm back to launch a hammer blow but froze before he could release.
“Your__
“__fired chump.”
Dark Hair flicked his wrist and Ridgway winked out of existence to a collective gasp from the Humans and a round of reflexive lip smacking from the Chimps.
The Suit turned his attention to Longkumer, “Glad you could make it Captain, you had us worried there for a moment, you are the most important part of this exercise after all.”
“It’s too late for another part of the presentation I’m afraid. It’s time to make a call.” Light Hair rose as he spoke, “Please take your time Captain, but let us know when you have made your judgement and we will stand ready to implement it.”
“What? I...I...I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
“Well you don’t expect us to judge another species, do you? How arrogant and disrespectful that would be.” Dark Hair shook his head.
Light Hair joined his companion, “Bad form, not the sort of thing higher beings should indulge in. No, we get the subjects to judge themselves.”
“You Captain were earmarked from your inception, your DNA enhanced, neural pathways tweaked, you should have risen to the pinnacle of your species by now,” Dark Hair smiled, “that you haven’t is an indication of Humanity’s problems, my opinion, don’t let it influence you.”
Longkumer staggered, reaching to the wall behind for support, the next words lost as Doctor Esgyrn loped from the crowd and steered her to an empty chair.
“We’ve monitored you for decades, grown quite fond, but now is the time for you to decide. What is the fate of Humanity?”
#
Longkumer stood and motioned to the waiting Chief Rando on the door, at the Chimp’s direction the rest of the crew marched back in, the mood sombre.
She nodded to the two Suits before turning and addressing her comrades, her crew, her charges.
“I’ve have done as asked, and spent the last few hours contemplating our race, our history, our outlook, and our place in the cosmos.” Locking eyes with the Mil, Harlan, she began.
“As a race we have impacted on many others throughout our history, as the XO pointed out we conquered others, telling ourselves that we brought them the veneer of civilization, but suppressing what was already there. Imposing our own culture.”
Her voice choked with emotion, but she pressed on, “We did raise up others, our close brethren, the pans, ” she nodded in turn to the doctor and the Chimp ratings,” but not to be our equals. No, we were afraid of the strength of the Chimps, so we left them as children to control them.”
Chief Rando’s lips pulled back in a snarl of shame at her words, whilst his fellows looked only at their feet.
Longkumer smiled at Esgyrn through tears as she moved on, “We feared the Bonobo’s intellect, so we left them small and weak, all the easier to dominate.”
“As we moved through our galactic neighbourhood, we repeated the mistakes of our past,” Her voice firmed as she continued, becoming that of the Captain they all knew, “destroying ecologies, decimating species lesser than our own, whole worlds ground to dust to fuel our expansion.”
“We exported war, competing with rival empires for lines on a map, for resources we could have shared via trade and treaty.”
Longkumer’s face grew darker as she reached an open sore for all, “We could not even treat our own properly, continuing our history of persecution over slight differences. We forced the Others out to form the NR, or wander destitute as nomads, simply for their creed.”
She paused for breath, taking the opportunity to look each member of the crew in the eye, willing them to forgive for what she was about to do.
“Those are big events, the large scale, but even down at the minutiae we disappoint. I worked years to get my first captaincy, belittled for my sex, my race, or for the planet that gave birth to me.” She sighed, “Other people though, can sail through life failing at everything but still rise to the top because they were born into the right family, or went to the right school.”
Shaking with rancour she wrapped up, “Do you know the worst part of Ridgway’s demotion? He wasn’t punished for killing those refugees, those lives didn’t matter.” No eye would meet hers now. “No, they made him my subordinate as a petty revenge, because one of the charitable workers on board belonged to another founding family.”
She sneered, “Our lives don’t matter, only theirs, they only see themselves and their own narrow existence.” She unclenched her fists and stared at the palms of her hands.
A minute passed before she could bring herself to look up again, her bridge officers looked at her, willing their Captain to present the other side of the coin.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but that’s why Humanity must be erased.”
Consternation filled the room, screams and sobs of terror and shock. Whoops of delight and disbelief.
She addressed the Suits, “You should do the cosmos a favour and remove us. Make it as painless as possible.”
“We will make it as if you had never existed. A brave decision, unexpected, but brave.” Light Suit raised his hand.
“No!” Doctor Esgyrn threw herself at her Captain, “You’re making a mistake.”
“Why? When you look at it, we’re nothing more than vermin, repeating the same mistakes over and over. Mentally we’re still in the gin palace.”
The Bonobo’s head shook with agitation, “You are too close, you have suffered and can’t see the possibilities. Your kind raised my own to full consciousness, gave us access to literature, and higher thought, if you can do that then you can change.” She wrenched at Longkumer’s sleeve, “You can improve! It takes one person, at the right moment, in the right place to change things.”
“No, no, we’re too far gone, too set in our ways. It’s too late for us now. All the damage we’ve already done.” Longkumer forced the words through gritted teeth, blinking away tears.
“That’s it!” The Bonobo whirled round and bounced to the Suits, “If you have the power to erase Humanity, then you would have the power to wind them back as well, to an earlier point?”
The Dark Hair smiled, “Yes. We have before. In many realities, many realms, many times.”
“We would accept that as a solution.” Light Hair’s words released a wave of relief in the room. Only the Mil seemed disheartened.
“Why? We’ll make the same errors, again.” Longkumer felt herself pulled to the solution but her sense of honour compelled her to resist.
“We can send one unit back, to an appropriate point of your choosing, they would have no memory of this time, but we can impart some residual knowledge to help guide them.”
“Send the Captain!” Ensign Gwyrdd piped up.
“Yes, the Captain!” Several echoes arose.
“Would you accept that? Would you go?” Esgyrn cupped the Captain’s hand.
“Well I’d prefer not to kill everyone if there’s a better alternative, and I’ve realised I make no difference in the here and now. So, hell yeah!”
“When?”
“And where?”
The Suits queried.
Lieutenant Parker stepped forward, “I’m bit of an expert on Old Earth, may I speak?” when no objection was forthcoming he continued, “If you want to avoid the same mistakes then you want to nip them in the bud. Best time we would be late twentieth century, when computerisation and mass communication were taking off. Greatest reach and impact.”
“Agreed.” Longkumer’s eyes glowed with renewed purpose, “Now let’s do this before__”
SNAP
Dark Hair clicked his fingers, and the crew of the Nixon vanished.
All save a single Bonobo.
Doctor Esgyrn’s eyes glazed over before she gave a start and inhaled sharply.
Light Hair smiled, “Thank you Doctor for your efforts, as always.”
“Again? How many times is that now? How many more chances do we get?”
“Many times, Doctor, and as many times as they need until they get it right.”
“Why don’t you do it for them?”
“If we are to help them ascend it must be through their own efforts, not our arrogant presumption at godhood.”
“What was all that rubbish with finishing each other’s sentences? The weird dumb clever alien shtick?”
“Ha! Boredom, when you’ve done this sort of thing more times than there are stars in this universe, you like to mix things up a little.” Dark Hair smirked.
“You lost it at the end though.” The Bonobo grinned back.
“It didn’t seem appropriate when we reached the dramatic part, a shade gauche.”
“Oh well, what now?” Esgyrn glanced around the empty simulacrum.
“We’ll be seeing you again soon, in our terms anyway.”
SNAP.
The two Suits stood alone.
“Enough time for a cup of tea do you think?” Light Hair enquired.
Dark Hair nodded, and the simulacrum collapsed.
THE END
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