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Reed was in a virtual simulation again, along with Delegator Chariot, as
everyone was allowed to come as a duo. They were in a much more comfortable
environment than the one that they had been using separately. Now was the
meeting where they were all coming together to hammer this out. As the
Tangent approached Proxima Doma, they had to come to an agreement. There was
only one elevator platform, and it couldn’t be in two places at once. Both
poles were going to be evacuated, but each one would take months, so who had
the honor of going first?
They were all sitting around a table. It was a purple theme, evidently based
on a known diplomatic ship called the Vellani Ambassador. Portraits of the
crew were even on the walls, suggesting that this simulation took real
imagery from base reality. The meeting was small. Two representatives from
the northern pole, two from the southern pole, and two from Teagarden. Most
star systems were afforded a couple of Teaguardian ships to watch over them
in case something happened. Obviously, that had already proved insufficient,
but they were still here, and would be able to help with the evacuation
procedures. The platform was going to hover over each pole, and expend
massive amounts of fuel to do it. They needed resupply to make that work,
and for constant transport off the platform. Every body weighed it
down, so evacuees weren’t going to be staying there for long. Climbing up
the tethers was only the first step.
The leader of the Teagarden’s contingency held the rank of president. It was
one rank above captain, and the president assigned to the Proxima Centauri
system was indeed here in this construct, but in a secondary capacity since
he was not the highest ranking member. No, more Teaguardians were dispatched
from neighboring systems, including Bungula. There were presently eleven of
these ships in the system. But still, not even the coronel of those eleven
Teaguardians was in charge. This went all the way to the tippy-top. Matar
Galo was only called in for really big issues. Reed would have thought that
she was too busy with other things, but apparently, this took precedence.
None of this was real, but she was nearby in base reality, in one of
those Teaguardians. Reed really wanted to know how they traveled
faster than light.
Matar Galo cleared her throat. “Welcome to the evacuation dispute between
the northern and southern poles of Proxima Doma, Proxima Centauri, as it
relates to the emergency rescue efforts provided by the Bungulan Space
Elevator Platform known as The Tangent. I am your host, Matar Tiare Galo of
the Teagarden Stellar Neighborhood Aid Service, and I would like to remind
you that these evacuation procedures happen at the pleasure of Teagarden.
The Tangent is a stolen vessel, and while we have tentatively agreed to the
continuation of this mission for the sake of hostages, we do so under heavy
duress. This is not a question of whether Executor Reed Ellis has the
authority to maintain his command over the Tangent, nor what rights the
Bungulan government has over it. That is a separate issue, which is why no
Bungulan representatives are present. It is important to note, however, that
decisions are subject to change, and what we decide here may be rendered
irrelevant before certain actions can be completed, or indeed even begin.
Furthermore, Executor Ellis, while we recognize your leadership for the time
being, it is not up to you which pole receives aid first. It is up to them
to come to the decision between themselves. You are here predominantly as a
guest, and will listen respectfully, speaking only when appropriate. Is that
understood?”
“Yes, sir, it is,” Reed replied.
“Delegator Chariot?”
“Agreed,” Jodene replied.
“Very well,” the Matar continued. “This is not a structured debate. I am
here to facilitate discussion, but I am not an official moderator. The
representatives from the poles are free to proceed as they see fit. I will
only step in if talks devolve into unproductive or unrelated speech, or
escalate towards violence.” She paused for a moment before prompting, “go
ahead.”
Reed had already heard all of their arguments, and was prepared to hear them
all rehashed here. There were more people in the north, so they needed to be
cleared out more quickly. The south argued that that was a failure in
leadership. The reason things were better for them was because they made a
concerted effort to rescue those who lived in the lower latitudes. They
built a four-kilometer bridge in a matter of hours after the ring faults
broke apart. They figured they ought to be rewarded for their hard work, not
punished for being too good. And besides, there were fewer people
because a giant mountain range made the southeast arc of the Terminator Line
too treacherous to colonize. The northerners were going to contend that
there was a brand new dome in the south pole, which was more than enough to
sustain the refugees for a while. The north was maxed out, they needed help
the most. The south could be rescued faster due to their lower population,
but that didn’t really matter. The number of people who could be
transported—and more importantly, the number of people who were
waiting for transport—would be the same, regardless of which side got
to go first.
“We’ve already worked it out,” Delegator Sarkozi began with a weird smile.
“The southern polar region concedes its bid, and congratulates the northern
pole on its win.”
They swung their chins towards Xaovi Rue, who nodded. “The northern polar
region accepts the southern pole’s concession, and happily welcomes the
Tangent to begin evacuation procedures as soon as they are in place.”
“What happened here?” Matar Galo questioned.
“You said you wouldn’t get involved unless you had to,” Delegator Sarkozi
reminded her. “Things are fine, we came to a decision amongst ourselves
beforehand.”
“Yeah, well, that sounds suspicious,” Matar Galo says. “It sounds like we
could be dealing with blackmail, or something worse, like an abduction.”
“Your mind goes to 21st century b-movie intrigue,” Xaovi argued. “It’s
nothing like that. We’ve decided to snag the quickest win first. It will
take a little bit longer to evacuate the south as it will the north, so the
math just makes sense to us now.”
“That’s not true,” Delegator Chariot insisted. “The northern polar region
has a much higher population, even though the northern hemisphere suffered
more deaths during the initial evacuation.”
“Delegator Chariot, you were not asked to weigh in,” Matar Galo scolded.
“That being said, I too would like an explanation.”
“We’re not leaving,” Xaovi replied. “Most of us aren’t, anyway. This is our
home, and we’re going to make it work. The ground is stable, and anything
we’ve lost, we will rebuild. Make no mistake, we will not prevent
anyone from evacuating from the north. In fact, we encourage it. It
will just give us more room, which we need. The new carbon scrubbers we
added are great, but we don’t want it to last forever.”
Reed shook his head, but kept his mouth shut. He wanted to argue that they
were being foolish. Researchers still didn’t understand the long-term
effects of living on that planet. The cataclysm appeared to end
months ago, but they didn’t know for sure that nothing further was going to
happen. Lava could be trickling in through natural underground tunnels. They
just didn’t know. The whole reason he and his people stole the Tangent was
to execute this rescue. They were only here for these people. Colonizing
this world had turned out to be a mistake. It was unsafe. They couldn’t go
back in time to fix that, but that certainly didn’t mean they had to stay.
They were being stubborn and stupid. The only logical response to
this mess was to get the fuck out.
“Executor Ellis,” Matar Galo began, “I appreciate you biting your tongue.
“Call him Captain Ellis,” Delegator Chariot all but demanded. “Even if you
don’t agree with how he came to power, he does have that power now.
He commands a full channel of crewmembers.” The two of them had grown closer
over these last few months. Jodene had a hard time rectifying this in her
head. The mutiny was immoral, that much she believed, but she had come to
believe in the mission too. She was quite conflicted about it, and he tried
not to push her. They held their philosophical discussions when they weren’t
putting out fires together, but they never argued. She had come to see
things in a new light due to the success of their work. They suspected that
the Teaguardians felt about the same way. Their attempts at stopping them
midflight were laughably weak...almost unbelievably ineffective.
“Very well,” Matar Galo said. “Captain Ellis, I think we all know
your position here, and in this case, I must admit to agreeing with you.
Premier Rue, I urge you to reconsider. You and your people can
always return, but if you don’t leave now, there will be no second
chances. After evacuation is complete, I will be demanding the Tangent move
on from here. Whether you’re first or second, once the platform leaves, it’s
gone. You won’t be able to change your minds.”
“Actually, I won’t bite my tongue,” Reed jumped in. “If you do end up
changing your minds after we’ve left, I will not be returning. Matar Galo
and the Bungulan government will not need to convince me to leave
permanently. The hostage crisis will be over at that point, and I will
relinquish my leverage. Xaovi, don’t do this. Clarita, persuade it not to do
this.”
“As I was saying,” Xaovi went on, not letting Clarita speak, “I will force
no one to stay, but I won’t force them to leave either. If you would like to
try your hand at convincing them to get in those pods, go ahead. I’ll give
you the broadcast codes freely. We’ve been listening to our people. They
want to stay. I will be staying with them.”
Matar Galo breathed. “Captain Ellis, Delegator Chariot, I assume you have a
plan in place. You know the logistics of how you’re going to get people up
the tethers?”
“We do,” Reed responded.
“Then do it,” the Matar ordered. “Maneuver the Tangent into position over
the north pole, drop the lines, and start pulling people up. No more
decisions need be made, this meeting is over.” She stood up. “Thank you all
for coming. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get to a quantum meeting with
the Altaren ambassador.” She de-resed. There was something different about
it, though. It didn’t look like it did from most simulations. It was more
like the flickering of a hologram. Maybe this wasn’t so virtual after all.
Reed and Jodene de-resed as well, waking up in the former’s office. He was
leaning back in his chair while she was lying on the couch. Shasta was still
in the guest chair, doing something on her handheld. “How did it go?” she
asked them.
“We’re going north first,” Reed answered.
Shasta started to leave. “I’ll inform the pilot, and prep the ground crew.”
“I wanna be on that,” Jodene said to her.
“We’re meeting in Drop Bay One in twenty minutes to go over safety
procedures,” Shasta told her without turning around.
Jodene turned back to Reed after the door reclosed. “Don’t think I didn’t
catch the way you worded your little speech in there. You said you would be
giving up the hostages, but you never said you would be giving the Tangent
back to Bungula.”
Reed only cleared his throat.
“You’ve said you would before. It was one of your main arguments, that this
was temporary. What’s changed?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She smirked. “You think you can escape. With four torches, you think you can
escape? Reed, the Teaguardians have FTL.”
“Not all of them,” he reasoned.
“The ones who do will catch up. They could be clear on the other side of the
neighborhood, and they will still eventually catch up to us.”
“Us?” he echoed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she echoed him right back.
She stood up. “You said you would go to jail willingly. Obviously, you don’t
actually—”
“I don’t care about me,” he explained. “I care about them.” He
gestured towards the door. “Even the original crew has been helping us, and
some without much convincing. I’m worried about two things here. I’m worried
about Teagarden’s superior firepower, and I’m worried about Bungula’s
grudge, and plans for revenge. Neither party has what the other does, so we
either need to take away Teagarden’s advantage, or Bungula’s
motivation...not both. And I do mean we. I want you with me...all
in.”
She nodded. “Let’s see how the evacuation goes. I won’t place my chips on a
square until I see where the ball is gonna land.”
“Well, you can’t wait, the casino would kick you out. It would be an illegal
move.”
“This all started because of your illegal move.”
“Touché.”
Sixty-nine days later, the northern polar region was evacuated to the extent
of their inclinations. Matar Galo stayed in the star system to spearhead a
campaign to change people’s minds, but it was impossible to know for sure if
her words made any impact. On an individual level, they didn’t know what
anyone was planning to do before she started speaking on it. The numbers did
seem to go up in her favor, but that could have been the result of poor
polling methods. It was now time to move on to the southern pole. The very
last elevator pod was just coming up the tethers. It was mostly only
carrying the Bungulan ground workers, but also a few Proxima Domanians who
agreed to stay down there for over two months to help coordinate.
“Wait, they’re already here?” Reed questioned. “As of thirty minutes ago,
they hadn’t even left yet.”
“They made it an express trip,” Shasta explained. “A quarter hour total.”
“I didn’t approve that.”
“They were anxious to get back up here.”
“Were the Domanians with them even trained for the high-g acceleration?”
“The report didn’t say, but they were on it, plus one single final
straggler.”
“I would like to meet them,” Reed ordered, “the Domanians, and whoever
decided that it would be an express trip.”
Shortly thereafter, they arrived. He first spoke alone with the two
crewmembers who claimed responsibility over the decision to pull the
elevator up at extremely high speeds. Express trips were not uncommon, but
they did not have time to install inertial dampeners in every single pod,
and the stress it placed on tethers outweighed the benefits of it anyway.
That was why they hadn’t been doing it like that the whole time. Now those
tethers would have to be thoroughly examined, and potentially repaired or
replaced entirely. They were sent to hock—probably while covering for other
responsible parties—for twenty-four hours, and would be assigned tether
testing duty. They accepted their fairly light punishment without any
argument, and would not be a problem moving forward.
He was now standing before the five Domanian volunteers, looking over the
report. “What’s this thing with you?”
One of them peeked over the edge of his tablet to see what he was seeing.
“That’s Heracles, our beetloid. He saved Calypso’s life, and has been
all-around helpful.”
“A beetloid,” Reed thought out loud.
“You don’t have those on Bungula?” the apparent leader asked.
“We do not. Something like that might come in handy on the Tangent. Would
you be willing to provide us with its specifications?”
“We don’t have them,” a man said. “He’s a survivor, like us. None of us
designed him, though.”
Reed nodded. “Forgive me. I should have started with introductions. I’m
Captain Reed Ellis. And you are?” he asked, holding his hand out to the
leader.
“Breanna Jeffries,” she answered, shaking his hand. He shook the hand of the
rest as she listed them off. “This is Cashmere Hartland, Notus Konn, Calypso
Rotola, and Sorel Arts.”
“It’s nice to meet you all. According to this report, you did a fine job on
the ground when you could have done the bare minimum to satisfy the
Delegator’s impromptu enlistment. If it were me, I would have just let you
up here with a tight nod, but she was in charge down there. I am wondering
what the plan is next. Have you thought about where you might want to go?
Teagarden is facilitating ferry trips to the interstellar cyclers. Some are
going to Earth, others to Bungula, but that’s proving...politically
challenging in this situation.”
“Are you asking us to stay?” Breanna questioned.
“There’s plenty of room for a bunch of go-getters like you,” Reed explained.
“We could sure use your help with the southern evacuees. It’s going to be a
much bigger job, and you already know what you’re doing.”
“I wasn’t a part of that,” Sorel said. “I was transferring people off-world
digitally, mostly to Castlebourne, and would like to continue doing that, if
you’ll allow me to take a pod back down to the surface.”
“That can be arranged,” Reed determined. “The uploading option makes it
easier on us, so we’re in favor of it. And the rest of you?”
They exchanged looks and came to an unspoken consensus. “Yes, I think we can
keep going. We never made any plans for the future.”
“Great,” Reed said. “One more thing. What can you tell me about these two?”
He showed them a picture of this group from Elevator Ingress months ago,
standing next to a man and a woman who looked like they could be related. He
had seen the man before, in a portrait at the meeting on the Vellani
Ambassador.
