Chapter 17

Duryss smiled. “That is wonderful news, Captain. You are to be commended.”

He sat behind the desk in his state office on Emen facing the holofac image of Captain Brooks of the Vilant. He always appreciated the Captain’s professionalism. Brooks knew his place in the universe and never strayed from it.

“What would you like us to do with them, sir?”

“They’ve earned bounties, haven’t they? I want you to bury them. Ship them off to the penal colony in that marginal, nowhere system, and impound their ships. All except the engineer. I want him brought to me on Emen as soon as possible.”

“Understood, Consular.”

“I’m dispatching the Decimator. Colonel Reeves will be en route to you shortly.” He tapped the console to send an encrypted text communique to the Decimator.

Brooks half-turned as if to look back at something. “Curious. I recently saw a report that the Colonel had been removed from command.”

“My faith in her has recently been restored.”

“Very good, sir. We’ll ship the prisoners off to Arber Penal Colony and hand the engineer over to Colonel Reeves when she arrives. We’re remaining in the system to assist the research efforts at Wagner Park.”

“In fact, Captain, with the engineer in hand, the situation has changed. Please let Chief Larenz know that I no longer need the calculations his teams have been working on.”

“Very well, sir.”

“That’s all, for now, Captain.”

The Captain gave a brief salute before the holofac connection terminated. The polarized windows returned to normal after the call, allowing the deep red of the evening sun back into the office.

Duryss tapped his fingers together. The engineer, finally in hand, changed everything. The Senator would soon have his modules and make his move.

He turned toward his terminal and interacted with it to begin dictating a message to Senator Draden:

“The timetable is active. Expect delivery to begin in 5 days. Assemble the fleets and signal when ready.”

He sent the message and sat back with a breath.

Help the Senator or destroy him. It all came down to this decision. He realized he had finally arrived at the height of his influence and power.

It was in his hands alone whether the Senator’s efforts would succeed or fail. The original plan would make Draden one of the most powerful Senators in the Empire. Of course, if he helped the Senator, he would greatly benefit, but only under the shadow of Draden’s office.

On the other hand, sabotaging the Senator’s efforts had the possibility of elevating himself to an untouchable political position.

Plotting against an Imperial Senator was unthinkable. He was at extreme risk from failure, but the rewards… The rewards were too tantalizing to pass up. Succeeding meant etching himself into the annals of history and victory over a man with whom he held a lifelong hatred. But failure would utterly destroy him. It had the potential to remove his hold on power, expose him, and worse than anything else, make him infamous in his failure.

A comm tone sounded.

Already tense, he was startled by the sudden sound and jumped in his seat. He took a moment to catch his breath before he answered the comm request.

“Consular, there is an urgent call from Chelum.”

A mild panic took hold. In all his maneuvering around the device, he’d lost sight of the first coordinated plan the Senator and he had put into motion. “Yes, yes. I assume it’s a frantic appeal from the Medical Director.”

“Indeed, Consular. Shall I tell her you are unavailable?”

He grumbled back, “That woman is as stubborn as a dying star and will no doubt continue calling until she has my attention. No, go ahead and put it through.”

“Yes, sir.”

The holofac illuminated to project the form of an elegant looking older woman. Her straight silver hair curled at the ends where it rested on the cobalt blue fabric at her shoulders. Duryss recognized the blue suit as a government uniform for the Chelum Health Corp. Although there was a definite beauty to her narrow face, she held an angry expression.

“Consular Duryss. Thank you for taking my call. I half expected that you’d simply ignore my messages. I’m a little shocked, actually.”

“Director Albright, I do keep a busy schedule. Hyades is one of the largest Sirius Gov regions. I manage hundreds of star systems with trillions of citizens to care for. In the future, I think you’ll find it far easier to schedule a call with my staff.”

“You know Consular, in fact, I did schedule a call. Two weeks from now!” She almost spat it at him. He was, at that moment, thankful for the remote call. “This entirely avoidable crisis is continuing unabated with a trickle of the necessary treatment. The epidemic is now out of our ability to control.”

“Yes, I’m quite aware of the situation on the Walker Lab colony. The outbreak there is terrible. My staff continues to give me regular updates. I’m told it’s spread to Kippax Beacon and Shepherd Terminal.”

“And Buchli Orbital. And Brunton Dock. And Zamka Dock. That’s an exposed population of 1.1 billion people, Consular.”

There was no doubt, she was a force to be reckoned with. He scoffed, “Exposed? Come now, Ms. Albright, you have your quarantine procedures in place, don’t you? How many cases are there now?”

“Over 60 million. And you know full well that people never adequately follow quarantine guidelines. Between that and the lack of available treatment, it’s spreading beyond our ability to contain it.”

“Then perhaps it’s time to turn guidelines into a government mandate. Work with CHC and the Chelum government to enforce them system-wide.”

“Consular,” she sighed at him. “Forcing quarantine procedures is far too costly and time-consuming. The most effective solution is increasing delivery of Byrox to infected stations and colonies.”

“So get the treatments delivered.”

“You really have no clue what’s going on out here, do you?”

Her lack of respect crossed the line of civility. Duryss’s sense of decorum would not stand for that. “Be careful of your tone, Director,” he warned.

“Consular, with all due respect,” she said in a tone that sounded anything but respectful. “Shipping capacity in Hyades is almost non-existent. Your Thargoid defense campaign incentivizes shipping for anything but treatment. They’ll ship materials for manufacturing weapon parts. Or ship the finished parts to construct one of your precious station-mounted weapons. It’s made shipping costs so astronomically high across the region that no one but the rich can afford to import the Byrox treatment.”

“Oh, come now, Director, that’s nonsense. Surely that isn’t the only reason for the drug’s high cost. As I’m told, it has an expensive development process with rather small yields given the demand.”

She reluctantly bowed her head in acknowledgment, “Yes, that’s true, but–”

He interrupted, hoping to shut down the conversation, “Then I’m afraid there isn’t much to be done from a government perspective.”

“Consular, please. The small yields are because of supply-side constraints. The high cost of shipping multiplies the cost. Byrox is priced impossibly out of reach of anyone but the richest. CHC will continue to deny patients at these prices.”

Her expression turned from angry to pained and almost tortured looking. “Consular, you do understand what this disease… What aculosis does to people? What people are going through?”

“As it was described to me, it sounds quite unpleasant.”

“Unpleasant?” She shook her head and unfolded her arms and worked some controls in front of her. “Aculosis is a living hell.”

In a different frame of the holofac projection, images appeared beside her. They showed pictures of people covered with strange purple and brown marks on their skin.

“Look. This is what it does to people.” She worked controls in front of her to transmit more images. ”The infection starts with skin mottling. It’s followed by a mild tingling that becomes an excruciating stinging sensation. As the disease progresses, they experience acute muscle spasms. The stinging and spasms trigger coughing that rips tissue against the tightened muscles.”

The images changed to show a gruesome picture of a middle-aged woman. Her facial skin was covered in tiny veins that branched all over among the mottling. She had excessively dark marks in her eyes where vessels had burst. It upset his stomach to look at the image.

“Their lung tissue hemorrhages. Then the lungs fill up with blood and fluid. Eventually, they choke and drown in their own blood…”

He held up his hand, “Enough! I’ve heard enough.” Then he pulled back his hand and clenched it into a fist that he put to his mouth in an attempt to swallow down the lump in his throat. He was always squeamish at medical topics. After taking a moment to recompose himself, he continued, “What would you have me do? Force CHC into bankruptcy to pay for the drugs?”

“I’m asking for Hyades government assistance. You can offer incentives for pilots to deliver the supplies for the treatment or for delivering the Byrox itself. It’s the only effective medication we’ve found.”

“Does the treatment cure the disease?”

“No, but it drastically reduces the mortality rate.”

“Then I see no point in diverting shipping resources for a partial solution.”

She looked stupefied for a moment before turning cross again. “I just explained how horrific this infection is! This treatment reduces some of the worst symptoms and allows hope for otherwise hopeless cases!”

“I will not detract from setting up our defenses. The Thargoids are at our doorstep. The latest report puts them less than 100 light-years away.”

“Then, you’re condemning these people to die.”

“I’m protecting billions more.”

“These defenses you’re building—it all protects from a potential future disaster. But, there is a current disaster destroying the lives of your citizens today! I’m begging you, Consular! Help us!”

At this point, he knew there was no reasoning with her. The best he could hope for was a delay.

“I’ll tell you what Director Albright, I’ll take a day to consider it. Please send me all the data your office has on the infection, and its spread.”

She pressed him, furthering his irritation, “What time tomorrow will you make your decision?”

“I said I’ll take a day to deliberate it with my staff. You’ll have my final answer by this time tomorrow.”

“Very well, Consular. I’m sending our data to your office now. I look forward to hearing from you tomorrow.”

He gave her a quick head bow, then jabbed at the control to terminate the connection.

His mind raced. The outbreak complicated his ability to achieve success against Senator Draden. Chelum was one of the most populated systems in the Hyades cluster. It represented an enormous stake in the region.

The sound of a new message arrived. It was the data from Director Albright. He opened the attached data file.

The summary of the report painted a grim picture. The aculosis virus had high transmission and mortality rates that made it fast and deadly. Reading further, the report confirmed his fear. At first appearance, the data showed a rather indiscriminate assortment of infections across nationalities. But, he knew what to look for, and the data confirmed it: exceedingly low infection rates for people of Imperial descent.

The Senator had played the game well, and he found himself stuck between a rock and a hard place. If shipping slowed deliveries, there wouldn’t be enough defense systems in Chelum to hold it. But, if he didn’t re-prioritize delivering treatments, the virus threatened to thin out the forces that were loyal to him. There might not even be enough left to man the defensive systems.

The realization dawned on him that at the height of his power and influence, he had been held in check by the Senator from the very beginning.

“Well played, sir,” he said out loud to the empty chamber of his office. “Well played.”

“We have our orders, people. Get to it,” Reeves walked to the center of the Decimator’s command deck. Their orders hung over the crew like a shadow, even with the ghostly glow of the system’s blue-white host nearby. Reeves clenched her fists, a measure to keep her anger and embarrassment in check. She knew it wouldn’t sit well with her crew.

Sloane broke the silence with an angry outburst. “Prisoner transport? What kind of screb mission is this?”

Huxley shook his head, cleared his throat, then returned to the comms display at his console. Asher was her usual quiet, but her face said everything. The disappointment in the crew was understandable.

This slight from Consular Duryss wasn’t lost on Reeves. They were transporting the engineer that had gotten away. The message was clear. Screw up and get the screb jobs. She admitted a particular respect for the way he rubbed her nose in it. There was something almost poetic in its irony. Apparently, I still have a ways to go to re-earn his trust, she thought to herself.

“We go where we’re ordered to,” Reeves said. “Sloane, calculate a route to Syev.”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied through gritted teeth and tapped at his console to pull up the astrogation chart. He continued working, but clearly wasn’t finished complaining, “Permission to speak freely?”

Reeves felt a headache coming on. “What is it Mr. Sloane?” She put her hands on her hips and waited for it.

He swiveled his flight chair back to look at her. “Ma’am, these are total vackin’ screb orders, and you know it. We did everything we could to catch those ships. It took the long-range sensors on the Vilant to finally find them, and by that time, it was too late. That’s not our fault!”

Even Asher looked back to watch how she answered.

“Thank you for your observation, Mr. Sloane. And would you please explain how that is supposed to be helpful now?”

He continued as if he hadn’t heard her, “Their idents told us they were harmless! What, were we supposed to do?”

“For all we know, they were Resistance trained pilots sent to pick up the engineer…” Reeves began, cut off before she could finish. It ticked her off.

“Sure, but you make decisions based on the intel you have and adjust with new information. We followed protocol. We did our jobs.”

“I’m not arguing that!”

“But Consular Duryss is…”

“That’s quite enough, Lieutenant!” Reeves held a stern gaze at him. Her anger had simmered and was rising to a boil. Appearances, she reminded herself, aware of the rest of the crew watching her. “I hear what you’re saying, but here’s the cold reality of it—you can make what seems like all the right calls and still fall short. The galaxy doesn’t wait for you to stop whining and crying. It’s up to you to pick up and move on.”

“You mean like Commander Sumason?” Suddenly his eyes grew. She saw the realization set in on his face that he’d crossed the line.

She decided to build on the shock value, “Yes, exactly like Commander Sumason. I’m told he did everything he was trained to do, and yes, he got replaced. But he is a man with a backbone, Mr. Sloane. He didn’t whine or complain about the cards the galaxy dealt him. He took it in stride and stepped down like a good soldier.”

She paused to let it sink in.

Then it dawned on her why Sloane always had such an attitude toward her. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”

Sloane remained silent and began to shrink back to his console.

“This is about me taking command of the Decimator. Isn’t it Mr. Sloane?”

“Yes,” he said. Then quickly added, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Alright, then. I’m glad we had this out.” Reeves felt more clarity about her crew and how they saw her. It relieved her to know it wasn’t about her at all, but the change in leadership.

“Commander Sumason completed all the missions given to him. He had an impeccable record, Colonel.”

“And that is exactly my point, Lieutenant.”

The command deck remained quiet except for indicators beeping softly. The glow from the star was far dimmer with the growing distance. The distant thrum of the engines grew in her ears. She had to address it head-on.

“Alright, look people, I know you didn’t want me standing here. You didn’t want me, but I wanted you. I saw your record and the capabilities of this ship, and I knew that we’d accomplish great things. Commander Sumason turned you into one of the finest crews in the galaxy. He has my utmost respect. So do you. The Consular may not see it now, but he will. I promise you that. For the moment, I’m being punished for being sloppy.“

Huxley turned his flight chair forward toward the bow, “Sloppy, Colonel?”

“Yes. Sloppy. I missed one important detail.” Although reluctant at first, she knew she could earn their trust by taking responsibility herself. “In my debrief, it was pointed out that we didn’t notice the pilot of the Fer-de-lance was once in our employ.”

“What?” Sloane looked up from his console in disbelief. “Vackin’ mercenaries. No loyalties!” He spit in disgust.

“The point is, we had all the tactical data we needed on the pilot and the capabilities of their ship, and we missed it. We underestimated them, so now…”

“Now we’re being made an example,” Huxley finished.

Sloane, still fuming, angrily tapped at his console, “So we need to make an example out of that pilot. That’s how it goes, right? Someone pushes you and push the next person down the line.”

“Yes, we are being made an example,” she responded to Huxley, then turned back to Sloane. “We don’t get to meet the pilot. He’s being shipped off to Arber with his accomplices. We do, however, get the engineer. Our orders are to ‘convince’ him to do the right thing.”

“Hah. The right thing. I have no idea what that is anymore, and at this point, I’m too afraid to screw it up again.”

Reeves ignored Sloane‘s pitiful complaining.

“Ma’am, what are we trying to convince him to do?” Asher asked.

“To continue working on his prototype—the tech the Consular believes will help us not only defend against but defeat the Thargoids.”

“Ahh! So there is a bright side to all this! We at least we get to make someone else’s life miserable,” Sloane mocked and turned back to his station to continue calculating their jump course.

“Colonel,” Huxley piped up from his comm station, a shocked and sudden urgency in his voice. “GalNet is reporting the protests in Chelum have turned violent. And… Resistance forces are mounting attacks in the system.”

She snapped her head upward, “Put it on audio…”

Huxley tapped the commands to run the GalNet audio feed:

Chelum Protests, Plagues, and Terror.

Authorities in Chelum have reported skirmishes with Resistance fighters. The widespread clashes remain small scale and appear focused against Imperial traffic in the system.

Chelum, the largest populated system in the Hyades, has, in recent weeks, seen several civilian labor protests. Thousands of protesters clashed with authorities on Boswell Hub in a fresh round of anti-corporation demonstrations. The violence ravaging the system takes place amidst a deadly outbreak of the devastating aculosis disease.

Workers’ unions are continuing organized labor strikes against unfair employment practices. The corporations are in fierce competition to cash in on defense contracts for the Hyades government. Sietae Federal Corp. manages the regional governance contract for Sirius Gov in the region. Alden Duryss, Sietae Federal CEO who presides as regional Consular for Sirius Gov, issued the following statement:

“I am distraught at the events reported in Chelum. Resistance terrorists have exploited the turmoil in the system of protests and disease. These craven attacks present a danger to the billions that call Chelum home. They threaten the safety of citizens throughout the Hyades. I have mobilized system authorities in the system and call upon the galactic community for their support.”

“It’s a mess there,” Asher remarked sadly.

Reeves sighed in a long breath, “It won’t be long before the system becomes a target for mercenaries and pirates.”

“Those coward churdflippers! They’ve been waiting for this!” Sloane slammed his console. “We should ignore Duryss’s orders and rip those terrorists apart.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that, Mr. Sloane. Do you have our route?”

“Plotted,” he spat.

“Colonel, I’m with Sloane on this one,” Huxley jumped in. “I have a brother on Buchli.”

Reeves nodded, “Believe me, I’d rather be there too. I’d love to drive those Resistance screbs back to the wastelands they came from.“

Sloane turned to look at her and raised an eyebrow, “Then why not?”

She shot him a look of disbelief at his apparent display of stupidity, “Orders, Lieutenant! Orders.” She made a gesture toward Huxley’s comms console. “We’ll get our chance, Mr. Sloane—I promise you. I was assured by Consular Duryss that after we complete this mission, we’ll be back at the front of the action. I’ll make a firm request to dispatch us to Chelum first, okay?”

Sloane let out a reluctant sigh, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Then let’s not waste any more time arguing so we can get it done people. Asher, charge the drive.”

“Aye. Starting jump prep, ma’am.”

A distant thrum toward the aft of the ship grew in the command deck from the power build-up in the drives.

Reeves spoke over the engines, “We get this done, then join the fight in Chelum.”

The tunnel enveloped the ship. It took a couple of back-to-back jumps. The transit time through hyperspace was short, but gave her enough time to reflect. The conversation was fruitful. The crew was beginning to accept her.

She felt more resolve and a growing anticipation for coming face-to-face with the engineer that had gotten away. Information was power. A short, intense ‘pain consultation’ might reveal a great deal. It could even produce an explanation for the advantage Consular Duryss saw in the engineer’s device. How will it help us defeat the Thargoids? She wondered. She’d know soon enough.

Once the Resistance was dealt with, they could finally turn their focus on eradicating the Thargoids from the galaxy. She felt a renewed energy watching their approach to the installation.