The End of Winter Chapter 8

Chapter 8: On the Brink of Disaster

August 11^th, 2808

The conference was being held at the Earth Space Force battlestation Horatio, and Curt decided to get there a few days early. The Horatio was brand new, state of the art, with 50 laser cannon towers, and a number of smaller weapons.

About half a light year out, Behemoth called in, “Horatio approach control, this is the Ancient Starship Behemoth on final approach. Request clearance for docking.”

“Roger, Behemoth, you are cleared to dock at docking bay #1. Seems like you guys are the main event for this thing. Prepare to lower your shields.”

Amazona laughed out loud.

“What’s so funny?” Behemoth asked.

“Lower our shields. That’s a good joke!”

“Uh, Amazona, they weren’t kidding, it’s standard procedure for this station. All approaching ships must lower their shields on final approach.”

“Well, they can kiss my scaly ass! Those shields are not coming down until we dock.”

“Curt,” Behemoth said. “We need an issue resolution here.”

“What’s the problem?”

“The station wants us to lower our shields and Amazona refuses to do it. Frankly, I agree with her…but what do we do?”

“Hmmm, I agree too. This has ceased to be an operational problem, and is now a diplomatic problem…which means it’s my problem.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I haven’t the foggiest notion. But, reopen the voice line, and we’ll find out!”

You could see the controller waiting patiently on the view screen. Behemoth reopened the voice channel.

“Sailor, this is Commander Curt Jackson of the Earth Space Force. I also hold a dual commission as Vice-Admiral in the Ancient Imperial Service. Our procedures require that shields remain up until we dock. We will be unable to comply with your request to lower our shields at this time.”

“Uhhh, roger that Commander. Stand by one.”

Both the video and audio feeds were cut off. When they came back on, the controller had been replaced with the craggy visage of Admiral Quinn, commanding officer for the Horatio.

“Alright, Jackson, what are you up to this time?”

Behemoth: THIS time?

Misha: It seems we’re not the only ones he pushes to the limits.

“Uh, nothing sir. I assume you heard the conversation I had with the controller about my new status. Ancient Imperial Service procedures require shields to remain up on all Imperial ships until docking is complete.”

“Dammit, Commander Jackson, lower those shields now!”

“No disrespect intended, Admiral, but I will be unable to comply with that request. If you prefer, we will simply leave peacefully. Of course, that would make the conference rather boring.”

You could almost see the steam coming out of the Admiral’s ears, but he kept his cool. He turned to the controller and said, “Sailor, the Behemoth is authorized to dock with shields up, on my personal authority as commanding officer of this station. And you, Commander Jackson, will report to my office immediately after docking.”

“Yes sir!” Curt said.

The connection was cut, and Behemoth continued with the final approach and docking. Curt exhaled loudly, then turned to his crew and said, “Damn. I’m going to catch a full ration of shit for this.”

“Frankly,” Misha said, “I don’t see how you pulled it off. You effectively gave a senior officer an order. How do you get away with this stuff?”

“Well, I didn’t give him an order, exactly. I just pointed out his limited options. Misha, I want you with me at that meeting. For moral support, if nothing else. We’ll introduce you as my ‘Chief Advisor’.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Curt! I’m right there with you!”

Behemoth docked without further incident, and there was a sigh of relief from both sides that was almost palpable when Behemoth lowered his shields.

Misha took up her usual position around Curt’s neck, and they proceeded inside, where they were met by two armed guards. Heavily armed. One of the guards said, “Sorry, sir. No pets allowed on this station.”

Curt felt an odd tingle in his head, and then the other guard said, “Oh, what’s the harm? It’s just a cat.”

The first guard said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Please follow us to the Admiral’s office, sir.”

As they were walking down the hall, Curt said quietly to Misha, “I always suspected you could do that. I was just wondering when I’d see it.” Misha just smiled.

They got to the Admiral’s office, and his first comment was, “What’s that damned cat doing in here?”

“Admiral, this is no mere cat. This is Misha, an Ancient of the Council of Guardians, and my Chief Advisor. I thought she might be useful in facilitating our discussion.”

“Pleased to meet you, Admiral,” Misha said, and stuck out her paw to shake hands. The confused Admiral Quinn took her paw, and they shook hands.

“So, what’s this ‘dual commission’ business? Who do you work for, me, or them? I should have you court-martialed for this whole business!”

“Well, you could do that sir, but then I would have undivided loyalty to the Ancient Imperial Service. Is that what you want?”

More steam. “Well, probably not, but I need to think about it. And you’ll need to stay here on the station while I do. You will both be confined to quarters.”

“Uh, Admiral,” Misha said, “that’s a really bad idea. I suggest you let us return to Behemoth.”

“So, I’m supposed to take orders from a cat now? Why is it a bad idea?”

“Oh, you’ll find out in about ten seconds.”

It turned out it was just a few seconds later when alarms all over the station went off, and the crew went to battle stations. On the view screen an armada of Ancient ships suddenly appeared. The centerpiece was at least half a mile in diameter, and was flanked on all four sides by Behemoth class ships.

“What the hell is that? And where did they come from?” Admiral Quinn yelled.

“No clue on either count yet, sir,” Commander Halsey said. “They just popped up out of nowhere. Never showed up on our long range scanners at all.”

“That,” Misha said, “is the flagship of the Ancient Imperial Fleet, with a full battle complement of support vessels.”

“Admiral Quinn, the commanding officer of the flagship would like to speak to you. What should I do?”

“Patch him in here.”

On the screen was the face of someone from an Ancient species Curt hadn’t seen yet. Mostly human in appearance but…different, somehow.

“Greetings Admiral Quinn. I am Grand Admiral Akido, commanding officer for the Ancient Imperial Fleet. The large craft you see on your screen is the Superstar Battleship Andromeda, flagship of the fleet. I understand you’ve been in discussions with my Vice-Admiral, and with our Ambassador to Earth and the surrounding systems. This is good. We should get to know each other better. But, I need to conference with them now, and they need to be on their own ship to do it. So, you will need to continue your conversation at a later time.”

“Greetings to you as well, Grand Admiral. I’m afraid you will need to delay your conference with these two for a bit. We have some unfinished business here on the station to conclude.”

Impasse!

“Bad idea, Admiral,” Misha said quietly

“Surely, Admiral Quinn, you aren’t holding my officer and Ambassador against their wills, are you?”

“Grand Admiral, please give me a few minutes to discuss the situation.”

“I will be happy to wait ten minutes for you, Admiral Quinn.”

Quinn signaled the communications officer to cut off the voice channel. He turned to Curt and said, “That sounded like a threat to me.”

“It was,” Misha responded. “He was just being polite. You don’t know who you’re dealing with. Akido’s nickname is ‘The Butcher’. You really don’t want to piss him off. He could destroy this entire station with barely a blip on his power meter. And he’ll do it, if he thinks the honor of the Imperial Fleet is at stake.”

“Well, we’ll see about that. Commander Halsey, set shields to maximum and target all the main guns on one of the secondary ships, but do not fire except on my personal command.”

Curt felt that weird tingle in his head again, only much stronger this time.

“Belay that order and freeze, Commander,” Misha said in a voice impossibly loud for a body that small. And sure enough, Commander Halsey froze dead in his tracks, and did not move a muscle.

“What the hell is going on here?” Quinn screamed.

“Admiral, what you are planning is a really, really bad idea,” Misha said. “You will not like the consequences of this course of action. I strongly recommend you reconsider. Now, I’m going to release your Commander. Do you want me to release him with no memory of the order, so you can have him follow a different course without loss of face, or do you want him to continue with your original order?”

“I gave an order, and I want it carried out, dammit!” Quinn said.

“Very well, Admiral. You are not going to like this, but it’s your call. (There’s that tingle again). Commander Halsey, when you next hear the word ‘go’ you will execute your last order, with no memory of this delay. Go.”

Commander Halsey went back in motion as if nothing had happened. He ordered his gunner to target the closest Behemoth class ship. Almost instantly, a violent shudder struck the entire station.

“What in God’s name is going on here?” Quinn shouted.

“Sir, this is unbelievable, but they’re slicing the laser towers off of the station!”

The shuddering stopped suddenly.

“How many did they hit?” Quinn asked softly.

“Every bloody one, sir. All 50 are now adrift in space. The station is effectively defenseless.”

Quinn looked with fury at Misha, and said, “What have you done?”

Misha just shrugged and said, “I told you it was a bad idea. I told you that you wouldn’t like the results. But would you listen to some dumb cat? No, you had to do it your way. And this is the result.”

Quinn suddenly turned white as a sheet, and asked the Commander, “How many casualties?”

“This system must be messed up, sir. It’s reporting no casualties at all. None.”

“That would be right,” Misha said. “Akido is called The Butcher because he cuts up ships, not people. He scanned the entire station ahead of time, and located sever points that could be sealed on both sides, with no loss of air or life. If anyone had been killed, some gunner would currently be getting a new asshole.”

Quinn looked at Curt and said, “Jackson, you’ve given me headaches for over twenty-five years, but this one is off the charts. Now what?”

“Admiral Quinn,” the comm officer called out, “Grand Admiral Akido would like a word with you.”

“Well, patch him in here.”

“Admiral Quinn” Akido said “Apparently you have a malfunction in your targeting system. It apparently mistakenly identified one of my ships as an enemy vessel. I regret that this required me to disable your weapons systems. We will be happy to assist with repairs, once Ambassador Misha assures me your targeting system malfunction has been corrected. If you could give me a status update in ten minutes, I would very much appreciate it.” The screen went dead.

“Admiral, I think there’s a way we can all come out of this as winners,” Curt said quickly. “If you appoint me as Vice-Admiral in charge of Ancient Relations for the Earth Space Force, I’ll have equal rank in both fleets, and hence, equal loyalty. Akido would take this as an enormous gesture of good faith, yes?” He looked over at Misha, and she vigorously nodded in the affirmative. “We write it up as a targeting system malfunction, the Ancients fix the station good as new or better, and everybody wins.”

“You know, Jackson,” Quinn replied “you’ve been proposed for Admiral more than half a dozen times. Twice by me, I might add, despite the headaches you give me. You get turned down every time because you’re constantly doing unconventional things. You have no respect for tradition, no respect for the way things have been done before. You always make it work somehow, but you make people nervous. But this is different, a unique situation. A field promotion rather than a formal review. Unconventional, as usual, but it’s legal, and it should work.”

“So, you’ll do it?”

“Yes, dammit, I’ll do it! Congratulations on your promotion, Admiral Jackson.”

“Thank you, sir!”

“Communications, get Akido back on the line.”

“Hello again, Admiral Quinn. Is your targeting system corrected?”

“Yes, Grand Admiral, but we’ll get to that in a moment. The discussions I mentioned earlier that I needed to have with your personnel have been completed. I have promoted Commander Jackson to Vice-Admiral in the Earth Space Force in charge of Ancient Relations, effective immediately. I believe this will facilitate working together to our mutual benefit.”

Akido smiled, and visibly relaxed. “A wise choice, Admiral. Admiral Jackson is a truly unique officer, with exceptional talents. I expect he will serve us both well. Ambassador Misha, has the targeting system error been corrected?”

“It is now in perfect working order, Grand Admiral.”

“Very well then, we’ll proceed with the repairs. Admiral Jackson.”

“Sir!”

“You will personally oversee this repair effort. I want it done quickly and correctly. My entire ship’s complement of technicians will be at your disposal for this task. How long will it take?”

“How many chimeran technicians do you have available, sir?”

“The exact number is classified. A lot of them.”

“Well, I’ll need to confer with my engineer, but I would guess…a day, maybe two at the most? We’ll have it looking like new in time for the conference, and I don’t see any need to discuss this targeting system malfunction with the attendees.”

“Very good, Admiral Jackson. Please contact both Admiral Quinn and me when you have a better estimate. Can we have that estimate within the hour?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem, sir.”

“Very good. Admiral Quinn, Admiral Jackson, Ambassador Misha, I wish you all well. We may drop in on the conference, just to say hello. Until then, good sailing!”

The comm link went dead, and at the same time, the Ancient ships vanished from the view screen. They didn’t move away. They were just gone.

“Well, that was entertaining.” Curt said “Admiral Quinn, I have a lot of work to do to get this station back in top condition before the conference. If we may be excused…?”

“Yes, get back to your ship, and get to work. One thing I can say about you, Jackson, is that people never get bored when you’re around! Off you go!”

As they were walking down the hall, without escort at this point, Misha asked, “How in the world do you come up with these crazy schemes, and then make them work? It’s not natural!”

“I don’t know how to describe it, really,” Curt said.  “I build a model in my head of the interpersonal dynamics, feed in possible solutions, and usually come up with a workable result. The more impossible the situation looks, the weirder the answer looks--at least at first. But, once it works, people get used to it. And what about you, Ambassador?”

“You heard about it when I did, kid, just now. I guess I have a new job, although nobody told me in advance.”

“We did well today, Misha.”

“Indeed we did.” Misha curled firmly around his neck, and purred all the way back to Behemoth.

“Behemoth, are you online?”

“Yes sir!”

“Please have Chimera meet Misha and me in my office in five minutes.”

“Will do.”

When they returned to Curt’s office, Chimera was already there.

“I assume you saw Akido’s little show?”

“Indeed I did,” Chimera said. “Quite entertaining.”

“Yeah, well, we now get to fix it. And ‘we’ mostly means you. But it’s all real technical work! No diplomacy! Of course, you will need to manage the repair crew. Akido offered his entire complement of chimeran technicians to be at our disposal. How many does he have?”

Chimera shuffled around and said, “Uh, sir, that’s classified Level 20, and you’re only cleared to level 15.”

Misha chimed in and said, “I hereby grant Admiral Jackson a Level 20 clearance, based on my personal authority as the senior member of the Council of Guardians.”

Curt, stunned, looked at Chimera and asked, “Can she really do that?”

“Yup. Perfectly legal. OK, now that that’s not a problem, Akido typically has 50-55 Chimeran technicians on the Andromeda. The other ships will all have at least one, sometimes two.”

Curt was shocked. “That’s a lot. Can we generate enough power to support them all?”

“With that new engine and the other two in like-new condition, piece of cake.”

“OK,” Curt said, “here’s the challenge. We need to get all of those towers fixed, and fixed fast. How long would that take using 50 technicians?”

“Well, if they’re not all kids, twelve hours, maybe eighteen hours max.”

“Great. We’ll tell them twenty-four hours. Now, if you concentrate every resource you usefully can on just four of them, how quickly could you get them up and running?”

“Just four? With fifty techs? Twenty minutes, half an hour max.”

“Excellent. We’ll tell them an hour. Misha, can you work with Chimera to get the techs assembled in one place? None of the rest of us know how to contact Akido. Oh, and Chimera.”

“Yes?”

“Do you want to be introduced as Admiral, or as Commander?”

“Commander, please, Curt. Having stray Admirals floating around makes even chimerans nervous, which makes us inefficient.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do. OK, off you both go. Actually, Misha, before you get the techs, I need you to work with Behemoth and set me up a split screen with Akido and Quinn. How long will that take?”

Behemoth chimed in, “If we can connect with Akido quickly, not more than a minute or two, sir.”

“Excellent. Misha, Chimera, off you go!”

In a little over a minute, Behemoth had the split screen going.

Quinn piped in, “It’s been less than fifteen minutes. You have the estimate already?”

“Yes sir,” Curt replied. “We can have the entire station fixed within 24 hours. Admiral Quinn, if you can identify four towers you consider particularly critical, we can have those up and running within an hour. Just let my engineer Commander Chimera know which ones you want done first.”

“Bullshit,” Quinn said. “Nobody can work that fast. You’re making this up.”

“No sir, I’m not. No human can work that fast. But the chimerans who will be fixing you up operate at 0.9c, and channel 0.5TW of power. Each.”

“Bullshit.”

 

"Fact. Clocked, measured and documented. Nobody really knows how it works. You will find these ancients quite amazing, Admiral. They are far, far more advanced than any species in our part of the galaxy. Now, if you will just get your top priority towers identified to my engineer, we’ll get this show on the road.”

“OK. I still don’t believe it, but if this works, you and I will need to have a couple of drinks together, privately, to discuss your recent exploits.”

“It will be an honor, Admiral, but first I have to get this work done!”

“You have done well, son” Akido piped in.

“Still more to do, Grand Admiral. If you will both excuse me…?”

“Right, off you go” Quinn said.

 Well, hell, maybe this might work after all, Curt thought.

The repairs, of course, were all completed well ahead of the committed schedules.