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Ajax immediately ran over to the second shuttle. Reed wasn’t sure if Vasily
hadn’t noticed that there was another one in this bay, or didn’t think that
they would have time to catch up. But as the true, legitimate captain of
this vessel, Ajax had the authority to skip all pre-flight procedures, and
just go. Reed tried to follow him and Shasta up the ramp. Ajax turned
around, and held up a hand. “No. You don’t have a local back-up body. This
could be a suicide mission.” He turned back around and started powering up
systems.
“Why would you be concerned with that?”
Ajax just kept working. “Because I secretly agree with you. Don’t tell
anyone. Just take this thing, and go save our neighbors. I’ll be on the
ground. The Tangent is so new that I only had one local back-up.”
“Shasta,” Reed said simply as he was backing away on the ramp.
“I’ll be here to help the Captain if he needs it,” she replied. “Now go so
we can close the hatch.”
Reed stepped all the way out, and let them launch without him. It was
frustrating, sending people on missions, placing them in danger. But that
was the burden of leadership, and it was a lot better in real life than in
the space operas, where death was usually permanent. He watched the shuttle
for as long as possible until it disappeared around the bend. Then he just
kept staring through the transparent plasma barrier. Bungula was beginning
to shrink as they were breaking orbit. He breathed a sigh of relief, and
then opened his comms. “Ellis calling the bridge. Seal the bulkheads in this
shuttle bay and shut off the plasma. We need to save power.”
“Belay that order,” Shasta’s voice came on. “I’ll be coming in with the elevator pod shortly.”
Reed switched to a private channel. “You survived? How did you stop Vasily?”
“I’ll explain when I get back, but Ajax is gone. It’s just me, so have a
security team on standby to secure the VIP hostages.”
Reed went back to the main channel. “Send a security squad to Shuttle Bay
Four. We got the pod.” He could hear them all cheering on the radio, but he
couldn’t celebrate with them. There was still one more loose end to tie up.
Vasily was about to be resurrected in the crazy new chrysalis thing, and had
to be dealt with too. If he told his people what happened between them, it
would cause some internal conflict. Some here would be okay with murdering a
human, and might end up siding with Vasily on this matter. Reed could stick
him in hock, but there was no guarantee that he would stay there for long.
One ally would be all it took to set him free. This was a very delicate
situation. He had a number of options, and each came with advantages and
disadvantages. He could even just pardon the guy, or straight up keep it all
a secret in order to maintain peace. Even if he found a way to transport him
off-ship far enough to shift his consciousness stream from the Tangent to
Bungula, he might become a martyr. Vasily was a permanent problem no matter
what. “Also, send one team to the chrysalis room to escort someone who is
about to respawn.”
“Aye, captain,” his Head of Security acknowledged. “Alpha-Gamma squad, go to the shuttle bay. Beta team to the chrysalis
room.”
“Hey, Thistle. Report,” Reed asked his AI as he was starting the long trip
back up to the bridge alone. The summary ran for as long as it took him to
reach his destination. Everything was going all right. Auxiliary engineering
was holding the platform together, the security sweep of the tether complex
didn’t turn up any other traitors or spies, and the bridge crew was
establishing themselves, and settling into their new roles. The biggest job
was the cleanup. There were a lot of dead bodies scattered all over the
place, which needed to be disposed of respectfully, according to the user’s
own personal wishes. Some of these could be found in the database, while
others might have to be contacted later. The mutineers responsible for this
work knew who they were, and were doing it without being asked. That went
for everyone. Nothing was being neglected. Nothing was falling apart. They
might actually pull this off.
“Captain,” his pilot began, “we’ve started acceleration. We’ll be on our way
in six minutes.”
“Thanks, that’s good to know.”
“Sir,” his comms officer said, taking her turn. “Mediator Fenwick is on hold
for peaceful negotiations.” She used airquotes.
“You didn’t alert me right away?” Reed asked.
“We figured you would want to make him sweat,” she replied.
Reed smiled. “Good call.” He took a deep breath, then did a 180. “On
screen.” The image appeared. “Kemper, how the hell are ya? Long time, no
blackout hock.”
Mediator Fenwick was already frowning, but deepened it now. “You have the
audacity to criticize our judgment after what you’ve just pulled? What I did
when I ordered your consciousness frozen was an executive decision that I
take responsibility for, but it only affected you. You killed dozens of
people—”
“Wait, we didn’t kill anyone. We destroyed some people’s substrates.
You’re the only one here who has conspired to murder anyone.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Fenwick contended. “Did someone
die in the drone strike? That was only meant to disable propulsion.”
“Now, Kemper, we’ve known each other for decades. There’s no need to play
coy with me. I know about your spy.”
“We do not have a spy. I will not stand for this projection. It is you who
infected our ranks insidiously, and instituted a mutiny. Now, we all have
empathy for the Proxima Domanians, and we recognize where you’re coming
from, but making us out to be the villains is reckless, and the history
books will not remember it that way.”
“Well, I don’t agree with your prediction, but I’m not talking about the
kinetic drone, and I’m not talking about you fighting back against the
mutiny. I don’t even blame you for that, your people had every right to
defend their post. They will be treated with the utmost respect while
they’re on board my new platform. No, I’m talking about Vasily.” Everyone
within Reed’s field of vision winced at the accusation, and probably
everyone he couldn’t see too. “Now, I don’t know how you got to him, but he
placed the VIPs in the elevator pod in grave—”
“Executor Ellis,” Fenwick interrupted. “I do not appreciate being
accused of something that I had nothing to do with. If you suffered a
betrayal, then I would call that an internal matter. I’ve never even heard
the name before, so unless you are not done fabricating tall tales, I would
like to move on to the matter of the hostage crisis. For the safe return of
all hostages, we are prepared to offer the Tangent passage to Proxima Doma
without any interference from the Bungulan military, or the government. It
is all you need, let those innocent people go.”
Reed chuckled. “Nice try, Kempy, but I caught your sneaky little semantic
trick. The Bungulan military is symbolic at best, which is why you were
woefully unprepared for our takeover. Teagarden, on the other hand, operates
under an entirely different jurisdiction, and would be under absolutely no
obligation to uphold any promise of amnesty that the Bungulan authority
might offer. I doubt you’ve even mobilized your own forces. I’m sure your
first call was to that Teaguardian I see matching our speed on the port
side. Are we quite finished joking?”
Fenwick knew that he had been made. “Reed, you don’t wanna do this. Even if
you make it out of Bungulan space—even if you make it all the way to
Doma—how do you think you’re gonna pull this off? What, you’re gonna hover
over one of the poles for weeks at the shortest, and then you’re gonna fly
to the other pole and do it again? And throughout all of that, the
Teaguardian isn’t gonna figure out a way to rescue the undigitized humans,
and then blow everyone else out of the sky? You won’t survive that. You’ll
be too far from any back-ups. You’ll just be dead. We’ll rebuild the
Tangent, and the galaxy will move forward.”
“You still think you’re the good guy here?” Reed questioned. “The people
next door are dying. You really wanna do the right thing? Tell that
Teaguardian to give us whatever magical engine they use to travel faster
than light, so we can get this done, and get out! We will bring the Tangent
back. Every single one of my people fully recognizes the consequences of our
actions. No one is thinking they’re just gonna go back to their lives as if
nothing happened. We’re doing it because no one else is. We’re doing it
because you’re a bunch of self-obsessed, elitist nutsacks!”
Mediator Fenwick shook his head. “This is the last chance you will get to
talk to me, Ellis. If you finish breaking orbit, it will be out of my hands.
The Teaguardians will take over the case, and they won’t be as nice. They
may not care about the VIPs. Their ancestors pioneered neural
digitalization, and it’s been centuries. A lot of people think we should
stop worrying about humans who willfully reject virtual immortality. I’m not
one of those people, but you’re about a minute away from it being out of my
hands. Abort the burn, come back down. I’m not asking for any hostages yet,
or for you to surrender. Let’s just talk about this some more.”
“No more talking,” Reed decided. “I tried talking to you for a week. You
offered airdrops—airdrops! A coward’s hollow gesture. I’m sick of
looking at your face. Tell your Teagarden contact to bring it on!”
Without his order, his comms officer cut the call.
Reed took a breath, and looked over at his weapons officer, Aletha. “I
already know the answer to this, but maybe there was some faulty intel. Does
the Tangent have a weapons system?”
“No,” Aletha said. “It’s not a battleship. The only things keeping us from
the next salvo of kinetic drones are in that elevator pod that we hooked.”
Reed nodded, then looked back over at comms. “Shipwide message.” He waited
half a second. “New crew of the Tangent, Phase One is complete. Aletha will
be coming around to collect your weapons from you, and check them back into
the system. Only designated security personnel will be keeping their
sidearms. Thank you for everything you’ve done. I hope you’re ready to keep
going, because there’s no going back now.” He double checked the screen. “We
are officially on our way to Proxima Doma.” He could hear more cheers over
the radio, and out in the corridor.
“Congratulations, Captain,” Transdimensional Regulator Van Horn said.
“Thanks, Amulet,” he replied, “but I didn’t do it alone. In fact, I took a
nap earlier today while everyone else was getting in place.”
Everyone giggled at that.
Reed breathed deeply, and sat down in the captain’s chair for the first
time. That was when Shasta walked in, so he jumped back up. “Ajax?”
“He didn’t make it,” she replied.
“In here,” Reed decided, gesturing towards the captain’s bridge office. They
went inside for a private conversation.
“It happened quite quickly,” Shasta began. “Vasily was able to send the
shuttle forwards, but not particularly fast, so we were able to catch up
before it could collide with the pod. I programmed our shuttle to match
vector with the target, flying above it, while Ajax sealed the
airlock. He wasn’t even wearing a suit. He tethered himself to the wall, and
then swung down. I don’t know exactly what happened then, but he
immediately broke the synchrony and altered course. He eventually burned up
in the atmosphere. I think he killed himself so there would be no question
who was in charge here. He did it to protect your authority.”
“No one can know,” Reed determined. “The official story is Vasily, delirious
and dying, fought back, and the shuttle was lost. On the record, Ajax must
be our enemy. Maybe we’ll be able to thank him one day.”
“I’ll fill out the report. And Vasily himself?” she asked
“He’ll be in hock alone. We need to minimize the amount he interacts with
others so he doesn’t influence and infect my crew.”
“Understood.”
The doorbell. “Enter,” Reed offered.
The door opened. A security officer was standing next to—not only a VIP—but
the most valuable hostage asset they had on board right now. “Sorry, sir.
She insisted. She threatened to kill herself.”
“It’s all right, officer. Delegator Jodene Chariot, it’s an honor,” Reed
said without a hint of sarcasm.
She sighed exasperatedly. “Report.”
“Six months. With only two operational fusion torches, it will take us six
months to get to the Proxima Centauri system. Once we’re there, we’ll hover
over the poles one at a time, and transport as many as we can off of the
surface. Once the job is done, I will hand the reins over to you, and you
can do whatever you want with me. We’ll negotiate specifics...in six
months.”
“When I was in the elevator pod, we only saw one torch get hit by a drone,”
Jodene said. “If you absolutely must do this, and no one can stop
you, I would like it to get done faster.”
“You can thank the military for the delay. Without that fourth torch,
propulsion is out of balance. We can only actually use the two opposing each
other. The third one will just be sitting there, doing nothing.”
“Can the fourth one be fixed en route?” she pressed.
“Yeah,” Reed answered. “It’ll take about six months.”
“Why bother?” Jodene questioned.
“We’ll need it,” Shasta interjected. “When we get there to hover over the
poles, we will need as much power as we can muster. The repairs will not be
a waste of time.”
“Your crew is not equipped to handle such an undertaking.”
Reed smiled. “I’m not allowing anyone else on board. We will be releasing
some hostages as a sign of good faith, but my people know what they’re
doing. They can handle it. That’s why they’re here.”
“Still, you could use some extra manpower,” Jodene reasoned. “I just so
happen to know of a bunch of people who were literally enrolled to work on
the Tangent, and could expedite the work, as well as make sure it lives up
to code.”
Reed nodded. “You’re just talking about the other hostages. You want some
kind of work-release program? You just got on board, and you’re already
negotiating?”
“No time like the present,” Jodene said. “Immediately acknowledging the
value of the regular crew will go a long way to earning their trust.”
“It will be hard to trust them,” Reed admitted. “It would only take one
person to sabotage a vital system function, and take us all down.”
“I’ll keep an eye on them,” Jodene volunteered.
He gave her a funny face. “That doesn’t help. I would have to trust you
too.”
“I can’t tell you what to think, but you should know that I have a neural
suicide inducer. I can simply deliberately transfer my consciousness in full
to a back-up without having to shoot myself in the head, or whatever. I
don’t have to stay here.” Jodene pointed to the viewscreen on the
wall that was showing the port side live feed. “That Teaguardian over there
is fully ready to receive the digitized mind of anyone who dies. They don’t
have to have a substrate waiting for them. They’ll just hang out in a
virtual environment until a new body can be built.”
“All right, no need to make threats,” Reed contended. “We can make this
work. Let’s head to hock right now, and address the crew together, so it’s
clear that we’re on the same page.”
They did manage to make it work. It wasn’t easy, and there was plenty of
friction, but the two separate crews fell into a routine, and eventually
became one. It was difficult to remember which of them was part of the
mutiny, and who belonged there legitimately. With the extra hands, they were
able to rebuild the fourth fusion torch, negotiating for rare materials by
releasing some non-essential crew to the Teaguardian escort, including a
couple of VIPs who had almost nothing to offer. While some crewmembers were
working on that, others were braiding tethers together. When you’re over the
equator at geostationary orbit, the tethers can be fairly thin, but must be
ultra-long. Over a pole, it’s the opposite. The strain causes a demand for
extra strength, but they can hover closer, so the tethers don’t need to be
as long.
They arrived in the Proxima system within five months. By then, the
Domanians had been suffering their own socio-political issues. Low resources
and high waste heat led to raised tensions, and muted morale. Reed now faced
the first actual dilemma to come out of this whole thing. Should they rescue
the refugees from the southern pole first, or the northern pole? The people
on the ground sure had their opinions about it.
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