Alien Honor (A Fenris Novel) (24 page)

ARGON:
Would you have me revive Captain Nagasaki?

WEXX:
No one is saying that. Either Jasper or the aliens have contorted Nagasaki’s thinking too much for me to trust him now.

ARGON:
I am open to suggestions.

WEXX:
(Pointing at Lieutenant Jones) Why not put him in charge of day-to-day ship duties?

JONES:
Hey, leave me out of this. I never asked to be captain of a Teleship.

ARGON:
Your points are sound, Doctor, and Premier Lang indeed believes in a division of power. Lieutenant Jones, will you accept authority as captain of the ship?

JONES:
Is this legal?

WEXX:
Accept the post, Lieutenant. We need somebody running the ship who knows what to do in detail.

JONES:
What’s wrong with Lieutenant Tanaka? He’s higher on the chart than me.

ARGON:
Tanaka has the same problem as Nagasaki. The aliens warped Tanaka’s thinking once. Maybe it is a permanent situation. Now is not the time to gamble on it.

JONES:
In that case, I’ll do it.

ARGON:
For the sake of form, you are now Captain Jones.

JONES:
This is crazy.

ARGON:
You will be in charge of repairs. I will continue to watch everyone, particularly for alien possession. Doctor Wexx, you must consider how to contain Special Jasper if we decide to wake him.

WEXX:
When would we do that and how would we decide is the right time?

ARGON:
It would be a last resort.

WEXX:
By then it might be too late.

ARGON:
This is a delicate situation. Special Cyrus, can you contain Jasper?

CYRUS:
My mind shield is better than it used to be. I can withstand his mind bolts if he hurls them at me.

ARGON:
Can you protect others with your talent?

CYRUS:
Nope. I never learned to do that.

ARGON:
Can you attempt to learn it now?

CYRUS:
If you can explain to me how to do something like that, maybe.

ARGON:
Dr. Wexx, are you familiar with advanced psi-training techniques?

WEXX:
He’s not talented enough or strong enough to do as you suggest.

ARGON:
Do not be so sure. He resisted alien domination when others more powerful than him couldn’t.

WEXX:
Yes. He has more internal fortitude than the others do. Why this is the case, I don’t pretend to know. If I could test him with other psi-talent…

CYRUS:
What about Roxie? She’s in stasis. If we’re going to wake Jasper, why don’t we wake her, too?

ARGON:
I am not as sanguine concerning Roxie. She succumbed more completely to the aliens. With Jasper, there is a question of his mental submission to them or not.

WEXX:
Roxie might have succumbed to Jasper. We still don’t know why she did what she did.

ARGON:
There are too many mysteries. It is a grave danger to wake Jasper. I am against it.

WEXX:
I agree with you there are mysteries and our plan is dangerous. But waking him is better than blowing the Teleship and surrendering our lives. It’s a
chance to live and escape and I’m for doing that while we can.

JONES:
I’ll tell you how I see things. We have to repair the tele-ring and tele-chamber. That’s the best way for survival in that everything rests on us. Regarding these aliens, I’m with the chief monitor. I don’t trust them. I’d rather try something, though, than just self-destructing. But if it comes to that, I don’t see we have any choice in the matter. I mean dying with dignity is better than being captured. Cyrus told me about Venice’s clairvoyant dream. I don’t want to end my days on some alien torture table. I’d rather kill one more of their ships and go out in a blaze of glory.

WEXX:
There is no glory in dying.

CYRUS:
I don’t want to self-destruct, but sometimes there is glory in death, depending on how you go. Let’s decide here and now to go in a blaze of fighting. I’m with Lieutenant… with
Captain
Jones.

WEXX:
Bah. Those supposedly big words mean nothing more than ending our existence. I have this one life and I don’t intend to throw it away so easily.

ARGON:
We will not throw away our lives easily, this I assure you; we will sell them dearly. We have our tasks. I suggest we each gather a supply of stims and begin working around the clock until we’re either free or dead.

WEXX:
We still haven’t answered the question about Jasper. Who decides whether we do it or not?

ARGON:
I am against waking him. What do you others say?

JONES:
We ought to try it at least.

CYRUS:
Let’s do it.

WEXX:
You know my position.

ARGON:
Doctor Wexx, I suggest you look into the means of waking and keeping him under control.

WEXX:
I’ll begin right away. Now the question is when do we try?

ARGON:
We should wait at least forty-eight hours and assess the repairs then.

WEXX:
And if the repairs are lagging?

ARGON:
There is no need to vote on this, as I understand each of you would attempt this sooner rather than later. But this is a matter of ship security, which is my area of authority. The meeting is adjourned.

End of Transcript #14

9

The damage to the Teleship proved worse than first estimated, particularly with the fusion engines. That made one decision easy for the new captain.

Cyrus watched as Captain Jones launched the remaining fourteen Prometheus missiles. Each of them lofted from a dome and sped off into the void, with a tongue of fire propelling them. Each quickly became a mote of light.

“The approaching warship is bigger than the first one,” Jones said. “We’ll never outfight it, but we might trick them.”

“If you mean the missiles,” Cyrus said, “won’t the aliens seem them accelerating?”

“Of course, but I’ve timed the missiles’ approach to their dreadnought.” Jones had taken to calling the bigger warship a dreadnought. “The missiles won’t be in the dreadnought’s range until we’re firing the primary laser. By that time, their psi-masters should be busy fending off our beam and hopefully that will focus their captain on us and not the missiles.”

“I thought you said we couldn’t outfight the dreadnought. It’s bigger, probably has thicker armor, and we’re weaker than before.”

“We won’t win a toe-to-toe match like we did against the first alien battleship. But it’s good to remember that you have to consider everything in a space battle. The dreadnought’s velocity is half what the battleship possessed. That means our primary laser will be hitting them twice as long this time before they can fire back at us.”

“But the dreadnought is bigger,” Cyrus said. “Bigger ships on our side mean larger lasers because there’s more engine power. Won’t the alien have longer-ranged lasers this time?”

“Hmm, they might. Well, if the dreadnought has longer-ranged lasers it will cut down our chances, but we still have to use what we have. Fourteen Prometheus missiles—we’re placing everything on this next bet. If we win, we should be home free—if the tele-ring and Chamber are fixable. If we lose this fight, well, we won’t have to worry about anything then.”

Cyrus played combat simulations and listened to Jones’s critiques of his battle choices. The rest of the time, Jones left the bridge and inspected repairs, leaving Cyrus with little to do.

Cyrus spent some of the time in an observatory studying holoimages. They’d left the burnt prismatic crystals and dissipated gels in front of the Teleship, deciding to wait before they added more. It meant Cyrus could focus some of the main teleoptics on the new star system. He aimed the scopes on the Earth-like planet in the Mars-like orbit.

Sitting in the dark in order to observe the holoimage better, Cyrus examined the planet in detail. Nuclear fires raged. There were molten lakes, scarred mountain ranges, and too much debris in the air. That implied spewing volcanoes, with added dust and junk hurled spaceward by gigantic nuclear bombs. The second Earth-like planet had hundreds of armored satellites ringing it. From time to time, lasers fired down onto the planet.

Cyrus studied the second world, AS 412 II. It had less cloud cover than AS 412 III did and it possessed amazingly thick vegetation. By what Cyrus observed, the entire planet was a hot jungle. He didn’t spy any cities, just the fantastic growth. After hours of checking the computer, he did discover huge, artificial mounds. Fused sand amid wide swaths of tree-destruction showed that’s where the satellite lasers had struck.

Who fought whom and
why
did they battle each other? Did these Illustrious Ones have anything to do with their decisions?

One Earth-like planet was a burnt cinder and the other one was under a space siege. The aliens were humanoid and fired at others who lived in gigantic dirt mounds.

What have we stumbled onto in New Eden? How can we have been so wrong
about it? Who is our real enemy here—the technologicals, the planetary people, or both?

The hours passed and Cyrus awoke in his quarters after a fitful nap. He’d jammed a pillow over his head, keeping it there with an elbow. Someone hailed him on the intercom.

He floated to the wall-comm and pressed the button. “Yeah?”

“This is Argon. Meet me in medical.”

“Is something wrong?”

“It’s time we spoke with Jasper. I want you there.”

“I’m on my way,” Cyrus said.

He yanked on clothes and hurried down the empty corridors, swimming through the cool air. He smelled a burnt taint, and nothing the recyclers did could purify it. Jones had told him it was due to the damaged fusion engines.

There was the grim possibility that they couldn’t shift all the way home again. That the engines would break down before they’d journeyed far enough. They needed Venice, as she had shifted so much farther than anyone else could each jump. She would have considerably shortened the travel time.

Cyrus rubbed his eyes. He had to concentrate on the coming task. They were going to wake Jasper. Did that mean the tele-ring and chamber were ready, or did Argon think they could bargain with the aliens through Jasper?

Poor Jasper thought he was a god, Zeus in the flesh. Yet the aliens had used him. Yeah, he bet Jasper would be more than willing to help them now.

Cyrus listened as Wexx explained the procedure to Argon and him.

They were in medical, with a cot occupied by a “thawing” Special Second Class Jasper. Wexx had already attached electrodes to the nearly naked, pudgy little man. Those were torture devices.

“If during questioning you believe he’s attempting to telepathically dominate me,” Wexx said, “you press this switch. It will give him a painful jolt. The
longer you press the switch, the more painful a jolt will pour through his body. That should do several things. One, it will disorient him. That should stop his ability at mind control. Two, it will teach him caution. Three, it will show him we mean to save ourselves no matter what we have to do to hurt him.”