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Shipboard 5&6
Ryan sat on the bed in his quarters, reading an e-book, trying desperately to forget that he wasn’t allowed to leave. If he thought about it, he’d have a panic attack, and if he had a panic attack, he’d- well, he didn’t know what he’d do, but he knew he’d regret it.
He had no idea what the hell was going on. Yesterday he’d gone to bed after dinner; today, there had been two MPs in front of his door when he’d tried to leave for his shift.
It had been almost comical; he’d known this was a naval vessel, a military outfit, of course. But seeing those two little guys in their tiny helmets, trying to shout orders at him…
Still, they had been armed and deadly serious; they wouldn’t even tell him why he was confined to quarters. He’s tried to think about what he could have done, but nothing stood out.
He guessed it would have had to be something in the last couple of days, but he couldn’t think of anything. No fights, hell, no arguments. Maybe something earlier? Something the Wexiks had just caught?
He dropped his tablet down next to his bunk, sighing and covering his face with his pillow. At least the room was relatively spacious. He was too big for the regular barracks, so he’d been given an officer’s quarters.
Not massive by any means, but better than the crew bunks, or the brig for that matter.
He sat up, looking around for something to occupy him, and succeeded only in giving himself the feeling that the walls were creeping in on him.
He shut his eyes, shaking his head, and went through his breathing exercises. He was okay; he would be fine. If they would just let him go for a walk, maybe go to the gym. Then, Sykil might be able to tell him what was going on.
His fitness officer buddy had been acting strangely last night. Maybe that had something to do with it? Had Ryan said something, done something, to offend the Wexiks?
But that couldn’t be it; surely, they would have brought him in for mediation before moving to- well, to this.
There was a commotion outside the door, and he jumped to his feet. Maybe they were going to release him. He approached the barrier, listening.
He could hear talking, arguing, but he couldn’t make out the words. Whatever the topic of conversation, it ended abruptly, and after a moment, a voice called softly through the door.
“RyanMateo?”
“Sykil!” Ryan cried, sighing in relief. “Man, am I glad to hear a friendly voice. Can you let me out of here?”
There was a long pause, and for a second, Ryan thought the little guy had run off. “I can’t overrule the Captain; the best I could manage with the guards was a private conversation.”
“I see; well, don’t land yourself in hot water on my account,” Ryan said.
“Do you know what’s going on? They won’t tell me why I’ve been arrested.”
“You aren’t-”
Ryan heard an unhappy sigh.
“You aren’t arrested, exactly,” Sykil finished at last. “You’re under quarantine.”
“What?” Ryan frowned in confusion, “I’m not sick.”
“I know!” the Wexiks wailed, “The Captain had no cause, so he invoked the pathogen control protocols; he’s permitted to hold any crew member for observation; you’re not under arrest; it’s considered a precautionary measure.”
Ryan shook his head, and it was several seconds before he remembered his friend couldn’t see him. “I don’t understand; why does he even want me held? If there’s no legal cause, what did I do?”
The silence dragged on for what seemed like an eternity, punctuated by a whine from his friend. “It’s my fault,” the little man said, “after we left the infirmary, I pulled the security tapes and showed them to the Captain?”
Ryan frowned, he had an explanation, but it still didn’t make sense. “I don’t understand; why would you do that?”
“I didn’t know they would do this! I just-”
“Stop!” Ryan cried, “stop. Sykil, I don’t understand why you’re so hung up on this cardio thing.”
“RyanMateo!” the Wexiks said, sounding exasperated, “you ran for two consecutive hours. By all rights, you should be dead.”
Ryan couldn’t believe what he was hearing; it sounded insane. “It’s not like I was sprinting or anything. It was just a jog.”
“RyanMateo, I struggle to understand how you can say that,” Sykil said, “I know you’re not a doctor, but you must have some sense. I thought after visiting the infirmary that you may have some sort of adrenal disorder; I wanted the Captain to compel the doctor to test you. But now…”
“Sykil, I’m fine; it was a run, just a run,” Ryan said.
Sykil didn’t answer, and Ryan put a hand on the door. “Hey, you still out there, buddy?”
“Y- you really mean that, don’t you?”
“Uh, yeah?” Sykil sounded different, and Ryan’s own problems aside, Sykil was still his friend. “Are you okay?”
The diminutive alien took a deep breath, and Ryan heard him, blowing it out in a single burst of air. “I’m going to get you out.”
Ryan blinked. “Uh, great! How?”
“I- I don’t know, but-” Sykil stopped abruptly. “The guards are returning; I’ve stayed too long; I’m sorry, I’ll be back. I promise.”
Ryan heard the sound of retreating footsteps and then the guards returning. He sighed, ran a hand through his short brown hair, returned to the bed, and went back to trying to forget he couldn’t leave.
------
Admiral Nazarene Hu sat in her office aboard the Liberty’s Voice politics was neither her favorite pastime nor her usual roadhouse, but she was the senior officer aboard. Which meant she, and her staff, had to be present for whatever it was ambassador Tarrki wanted to talk about.
Nazarene resisted the urge to tip her chair and swallowed her yawn. Either would be unbecoming behavior to display to her people, even if both would be appropriate to the situation.
She did check the time. Both the diplomats were late, which rankled her. Just coming to this- whatever it was, was already time she didn’t have to waste.
She sighed and straightened her suit, a charcoal skirt-suit that had cost more than her parent’s first house. She would have preferred dress whites, but the diplomatic corps insisted their guests would find it off-putting.
It was ridiculous, of course; she wasn’t a civilian, so why shouldn’t she dress in uniform? But while she could have pulled rank, told Hotchkiss where he could shove his skirt, and been done with it. But that would have cost political capital better spent elsewhere. So she wore the suit, did so without complaint, and made the diplomatic corps’ stay on her flagship a little less comfortable wherever she could.
Finally, Ambassador Hotchkiss and his people entered the room. She stood, greeting the diplomat with a scowl. “What’s this about, Hotchkiss?”
She had nothing personal against the man other than the fact he’d turned her ship into an embassy, which wasn’t entirely his fault.
The diplomat shrugged. “I suspect you know as much as me. I see our guest hasn’t arrived.”
Nazarene grunted unhappily, spinning in her chair to face the large picture window at the back of the room, looking down at the Earth beneath them. “Whatever it is, we’d better smooth it over.”
The diplomat joined her, the stakes of their work looming large over their heads. Earth’s position was based on a shell game; everyone on the ship knew it.
They’d managed to con the Wexiks into thinking Humanity was some hyper-advanced extra-galactic civilization, mostly by simply looking impressive.
It had turned out they probably didn’t need the deception with their little fox-people friends, but they were committed now. Their best bet was to become that civilization before the lie was discovered.
Hotchkiss huffed a sigh and seemed about to say something when the door opened, and the Wexiks delegation entered the room.
They turned, and Hotchkiss took his seat, his people joining him. “Ambassador Tarrki!” he cried, “thank you for joining us. How may we help our distinguished friends today?”
“Ambassador Hotchkiss,” Tarrki said in his Wexiks squeak, “there is a matter which has been brought to my attention.”
The little man set a datapad on the table, fiddling with it before pushing it across to Hotchkiss. She leaned over to see what was so important and found herself watching a video of a man on a treadmill.
“Man jogs,” she snorted, “news at eleven. Why are we watching this?”
Tarrki looked at her in what she presumed to be an attempt at a glare. “This isn’t funny,” he said, “this sort of endurance is indicative of a particularly vicious form of predator on our homeworld. A material fact made available to your diplomatic corps along with all other information about our biosphere your people requested.”
Nazarene glanced at Hotchkiss, and Tarrki turned his attention that way as well. “Why have you concealed this information, JeremiahHotchkiss?”
The diplomat raised his hands, palm up. “We weren’t concealing anything, Tarrki.”
“You didn’t disclose it,” the Wexiks said pointedly.
“Ambassador,” Nazarene said, thinking fast, “have we attempted to conceal our morphology at all?”
The alien tilted his head, eyes narrowing. “This- isn’t the result of undisclosed physical augmentation?”
She swallowed her gasp, realizing her mistake, but Hotchkiss jumped in immediately. “Don’t be ridiculous; we evolved under higher gravity and with many natural predators. Our species needed a means of escape.”
The alien whined, scratching his nose, and Nazarene picked up the conversation then. “We haven’t denied your doctors access or permission to perform any sort of testing.”
The Wexiks’ left ear began to twitch. “I suppose not.”
“Then perhaps the simplest explanation of this unfortunate incident isn’t deceit but a mere oversight,” Hotchkiss said, bridging his fingers and leaning forward over the table.
Tarrki shifted in his seat, looking at the data pad he’d laid in front of them. “I suppose….”
Nazarene glanced at Hotchkiss; Tarrki clearly still had doubts.
The man cleared his throat. “Tarrki,” he said, “I’m sure I can speak for Humanity when I say how sorry I am for this misunderstanding. We’re far removed from our primitive past, you understand, don’t you?.”
“This,” he tapped on the datapad’s screen, “is just a vestigial relic of our misty past.”
Hotchkiss pushed the datapad back across the table. “I hope you won’t let it destroy our relationship.”
The alien reclaimed the item staring down at the screen, pensive.
“What about my Seaman?” Nazarene asked.
“Hm?” the Wexiks asked, looking up.
“My sailor,” she said, pointing, “what about him?”
Tarrki glanced back down at the datapad, snuffling in distress. “He’s been placed on a medical hold.”
“He’s sick?”
“Not- as such.”
“You’ve arrested him?” Hotchkiss demanded, “on what charge?”
“It’s for his safety as much as the crew’s!” Tarrki objected.
“Lieutenant Mateo is a diplomatic envoy, in fact, if not name,” Hotchkiss said, “and you-”
“Shut up,” Nazarene said.
The man turned, blinking at her, “Admiral!”
“Shut up.”
She stood up, staring the Wexiks down. “Call your Captain, have my man released.”
The alien shook his head. “I don’t have the authority; the Captain can-”
“Then tell your Captain that while humans might not use fancy particle weapons, Wexiks flesh doesn’t care if it’s a proton stream or a cobalt slug ripping them open.”
The little creature’s eyes widened. “You would go to war over one man?”
“We don’t leave our men behind,” she snarled, “and we don’t take kindly to their imprisonment, by supposed allies, without so much as the courtesy of an accusation.”
She turned, walking to the window, her dusky skin just barely reflected in the pane, perfectly transparent, despite being impenetrable to any weapon short of a capital ship’s main battery. “Think about what you’ve seen; what do you think this ship was really designed for?”
The ambassador was silent, thinking, for a long time, and when he finally answered, his voice was soft and filled with awe and more than a little fear. “You built this to besiege planets.”
“That planet,” she said, looking down at Earth. “But it will work just as well on yours.”
“Admiral!” Hotchkiss bellowed, slamming his hands down on her desk, “this isn’t helping. I will get your man out, but you-”
She turned, her glare silencing the man. “You had better,” she said, voice stony, “now get out of my office, all of you.”
