June/July Challenge Entry: Second Contact

[XCV330]

(this writing assumes Star Trek universe as being a separate reality which did experience both the Eugenics Wars in the 1990’s, description of the Kzin Wars in TAS, as well as the events of First Contact and subsequent actions. I will only be doing one chapter of this. I won’t put anyone through the misery of more than that.)

Excerpted From “Second Contact: The 1st Kzinti War”

Forward:


As we move forward into a better future and, as a certain politician recently opined, “Stability is breaking out with ferocity, everywhere,” it is easy to forget some of the rough patches we’ve had long the way, even after the dark days of the wars of last two centuries were behind us. During the months after the conflict ceased, and my gig as a reporter for WNS ended, I took an assignment from some agency from United Earth that’s already been folded into yet another agency from United Earth, renamed, redistributed and lost in a sea of virtual red tape. The idea was to record the thoughts and observations from people who experienced the limited conflict first-hand, and use that information to prepare in case another such conflict ever occurred. I, and others like me completed our assignments, and it was cataloged, stored, and remains somewhere on backup. Thank goodness I kept my own copies.


If there’s one thing humans are better at, I suspect, than our new green blooded friends, it must be our ability to forget that which must not be forgotten. Standing here with my own mortality looking over my shoulder as my pacemaker keeps my heart irrationally calm, I look out across the gaping canyon of Florida, an angry wound that will become another monument to our insecurities. It’s the Xindi this time. It was the Kzinti before. Who will it be next? Many of the people I recorded have passed away. Some have gone to the colonies. But some are still around, like me, watching the world improve and hoping it has enough time to finish the job.



Read.

Lousia Czerkel


April 15, 2154


Florida Refugee Zone



Chapter 1: First Battle of Neptune



* * *



Ben “Torch” Woo
United Earth Stellar Navy
Former crewman, Gunboat XRC014 “Bruce Lee”
Luna Colony


I remember when word came across that they’d picked up ships arriving in the solar system, dropping out of warp just outside of Neptune. In the seventies, we didn’t have anything like an early detection system. The only reason we knew at all was UESPA was doing a survey of Triton, more a training flight than anything really, in one of those souped up Soyuz things they were all about back then. You know, seats three, or two if you need to take a dump. They thought the Vulcans had come by, and they sent greeting messages. They get back pure audio of this loud screeching. The Soyuz had time to relay the reply to us, but that was it. UESPA lost her transponder.


All this was pretty hushed up. I was just enlisted in the new stellar navy. There was a lot of flack for having a new military now all the troubles were over. But that’s the thing, you dig? It wasn’t about security. It was a work program, and it gave unemployed space veterans like me something to do. Kept us out of trouble and believe you me, I would have been in some.


There was talk of preventing piracy now that we were getting out and about in the solar system, but I never heard one thing about a single pirate. The ships they had us in were old Khannate designs from the 1990’s with warp field generators tacked on. They were unsafe, uncertain, and had a limited range. But I never figured I’d live past my 20’s anyway, so what the hell, right? Lily Sloane was in charge but she wasn’t IN charge if you know what I mean. But you KNOW. YOU know. She was the one that made sure we got UESPA messages relayed to us. I heard she and Cochrane had a falling out about stuff like that. Scuttlebutt, who the hell knows, right?


So uh, anyway, we figured UESPA would ask us to do a search and rescue. I mean, that’s about all there was for us to do back then. You got to go out, you don’t have to come back. It was our boat’s turn out of dry dock that month. We couldn’t keep those p.o.s.’s running tip top longer than that with a two month downtime to clean the plasma conduits, so there was never more than three or four ships on active duty. Mostly it was elbows and assholes in zero gee polishing our station for journalists.


We were orbiting Mars. I remember that. Really pretty out the window. We got the call to go on S&R and were about to dump our spatial missiles in a marked location in orbit near Deimos per our lame-ass guidelines. And then the thing is, Skipper gets the order NOT to. Not from Admiralty, you dig? Fuck what you heard. No he got that from Ms Sloane. She had him unsafe the damn things, too. We’d never done live fire training. No budget. Did alright in simulations. Against DY100 pirate barges that never existed, anyhow. But we did really good in those..


* * *


Lily Sloane
Director of Strategic Planning
United Earth Solar System Peacekeeping Operations (UESSPO)
Undisclosed Location


(Czerkel’s note: Lily Sloane is working on a new project, and only agreed to meet with me if I did not know the location and followed along while she worked on said project. She was having several conversations at the time, so this is narrative is pieced together from when she spoke to me in between conversations into her headset.)


Yes, I gave the order. Call it a premonition. Is someone going to say I was wrong? The gunboat nearest had more than enough room to pick up two crew, assuming they were still alive. Dumping missiles would just have made them burn more fuel to eventually retrieve them. There’s no mystery here. It was a gunboat. We didn’t have subspace comms, and Vulcans weren’t obliging with the technology, then. Not after Conestoga.


I don’t remember that exact time, no. I’m not an orbital mechanics egghead, but round trip radio time to Neptune and Earth was over an hour. It fluctuates based on the distances between planets and now that we have subspace no one seems to care except academics. But back then, the Security Council was dealing with a warlord in western Australia, and the Vulcan Embassy was not responding. Something had to be done. Rod (Czerkel’s note: Admiral P. Rodriguez, then head of UESN) could not be reached. The command structure was very sketchy. I felt justifiable in taking temporary command. I scrambled the ships in drydocks and ordered them fueled and ready. Just to be ready, in case called up by the Security Council. I want to emphasize that. Rod finally showed up, had them stand down and locked me up. He had gin on his breath. Tried to hide it with mints. I worked with Cochrane, I know a drunk when I smell one. So I’m locked in a closet sending texts on my phone that they forgot to take, trying to reach someone in the UE. And meanwhile there is one gunboat on its way to Neptune. Now you’ll have to excuse me. I’m very busy.


* * *



Marcus Jah-love Biko Jupiter
former Pilot of independent freighter craft Harmony
Commodities Inspector, Jupiter Station


My parents had started the commune between the end of one war and before another. We’d done pretty well out there. We were unnoticed. Once Earth got its act together and started moving around, there was this worry that Babylon was going to come take us over. But it did not happen. They were busy, and we were busy. We kept our freighter going, supplying back and forth to them. Business was barter and business was good.


I was on the run back to Jupiter when my sister on the comm station pulled the mayday signal sent from that Earth Soyuz. You must understand, we had no ability to intercept the ship. We weren’t warp capable. It was only a fluke of gravitational lensing from Jupiter, that and a little divine providence that we got the signal at all. It was very weak. Babylon, sorry, Earth was still building Jupiter Station at the time. They were just starting. We could not guarantee they would even have anyone on station to hear it. We turned our dish to Earth and started playing the message on all emergency space frequencies so that someone could rescue the survivor. That and prayer was about it, and I am not much of a praying man.


We knew what the message meant. Everyone who saw it did.



* * *



Oksana Magdanov
Former Chancellor United Earth
Veliky Novgorod Sanitarium, Russia


(Czerkel’s note: The former Chancellor asked to be interviewed when she learned of the program. She was recovering at that time and had been cleared to speak with me. Her one condition was that I bring her her favorite Indian beedee cigarettes, and walk with her so she could leave the building for awhile. I am still pending charges for the beedees, though the case is being mitigated in behalf of the U.E.)


A warlord, I do not remember his name, they used to come and go, had popped up near what used to be Perth and he had some sort of religious following, and a pile of undisclosed VX gas shells. He was getting alliances with communities in the Maylay regions. Zhizn’ ebet meya. The situation in the antipodes had been difficult for awhile and so most of my staff involved in security were concentrating on that. We had made good process on eliminating rogue states despite some objections and we did not want a cascading failure that would have, (she takes a drag on her leaf-cigarette exhaling slowly. She’s still the same dramatic figure on all those old ECON recruitment posters, after all these years.) Would have shown how thinly spread we were, how weak everything was under the facade.


Do you know why I authorized the navy? The stellar navy I mean? I am not some orange skinned reality star playing space Napoleon, whatever it was they used to say. Oh da da da: work program, swords into plowshares, preparing for alien invasions because of that Sloane character. Yes she was right but a broken watch is right twice a day. I still think she is unstable. Keep an eye on her. Definitely keep an eye on her. And that drunk, Cochrane, he drinks like a Russian. (she begins to ramble and I remind her of what she was discussing) . It was high ground. How long did the New United Nations last? You can’t even remember, can you? Okay, here we’ll go back further, how long did the League of Nations last? What good is a paper tiger when it lacks teeth. Well I had my teeth. The future was out there. (she waves at the sky and her beedee goes out. I offer her a relight.) I mean it still is out there. I think.


We had those gunboats in place because we were smart enough to claim sovreignty over the solar system in our U.E. Charter. It wasn’t about pirates. It wasn’t about Vulcans. It was about making sure any domestic power that had a mind to militarize their activities in space find out that it would never be allowed. It was stunting the growth of any future problems. And it worked, though not maybe as I thought it would. That damned hippy ship or rastas or whatever they were.. they alerted the whole world at once. I had a subordinate handling the Neptune incident prior to this. I had no idea. Lily Sloane was calling, then Admiral what-is-his-name, had her arrested on charges of mutiny and stood down his ships and we had one gun boat heading into an alien invasion. And the Vulcans were not picking up the phone. We really did have a phone back then on the desk to them. It was red. Very nice, old cold-war thing. Very heavy handset, bakelite. It felt good in the hand. It used to comfort me. I am tired, Louisa, I want to go back now. The whole world went mad. Is it still mad?

 

[XCV330]

Ben “Torch” Woo


We got the message that the rest of the drydocked ships had been ordered to active duty on emergency, and that the other two actives were readying to join our S&R mission. That was before we went to warp. We were surprised but it seemed like our whole flotilla, I mean fleet, was heading out behind us.


Won’t lie, that felt good. That would increase our chance of finding the Soyuz and maybe saving those two. And well, none of the ships worked well then. It wasn’t exactly a coin toss when you went out. But it was a dice throw. Did they ever find the goddamn Valiant? I knew someone on that ship. Everybody knows somebody who ain’t made it back. Are they dead? Are they just somewhere out there? Don’t know.


So we knew we might need and rescue party too. Doesn’t hurt to have a friend out in the black. We didn’t know they were told to stand down. We did not have the tech to receive radio while under warp, so we were in comms blackout while traveling. We never heard that rebroadcast mayday from Neptune via the hauler on its way to Jupiter. I heard there was riots and panic and shit back on Earth. Any reason to smash and grab a store, right? And people wonder why I don’t leave Luna. People on Earth are nasty freaking animals, sometimes. We thought they had our six. Stupid.


But I’ll be honest. I wonder if we had heard that message if we would have turned back around, claimed we were waiting for clarification on our orders. Not my call. I wasn’t in charge. I just target and fire. And since I never had targeted and fired in my new career, mostly I handled dinner in the galley. Not this fucking day.


* * *


and they came on time and hungry
in the summer of seven and eight, you see
Bruce Lee was late
the cats won’t wait

for their dinner company
Rod Rod, you stupid sod
the fleet’s all buggered
the plumbing’s clogged
can’t stand on your feet
when you’re all cat meat
and you’re stuck in zero gee

he threw our gal in a closet
that day in seven and eight, you see
he had a gun
won’t be outdone
when he’s too far out to sea

Rod Rod, you stupid sod
the fleets all buggered
the plumbing’s clogged
can’t stand on your feet
when you’re all cat meat
and you’re stuck in zero gee

excerpt of drinking shanty popular in spacer bars
sometimes called Rod’s Folly.


* * *


Robbie Johnson, UESPA Retired
Oakland, California


We were going to do a scouting run in our Warp-Soyuz, set a navigation beacon in a Lagrange point between, no that was not it. I’m sorry. We were going to survey cloud formation in Triton’s polar region. I was thinking of another run. It’s funny. You’d think I’d have every detail down. They used to ask me a lot. (Czerkel’s note: Mr. Johnson is very nervous and fidgets a lot with a cube puzzle he moves about but never solves. He has several of these in his apartment overlooking Bay Bridge. None of them are in a solved state.)

We were getting a lot of assignments in the outer solar system. Apart from the odd colony attempt around Jupiter, there really had not been a lot done, and the warp-soyuz ran pretty well, by then. It was dependable, cheap and we were really comfortable using it. With the MSP (Czerkel: modular sensor package), we could fit the right one to our ship, bolt it on, fuel up with our assignment, go get some real science done and bring back the results for the lab team. Me and, we were assigned CT-19, she was about 2 years old. Nice craft, smooth thrusters. (Czerkel’s note: Throughout the interview Mr. Johnson refused to refer to his pilot and friend Jon Magnussen, and that has been observed by other interviewers as well. I chose not to bring it up out of respect.)

I was excited to see Neptune. You have to see it to feel how beautiful it is. Even in visible light. Better with the enhanced view and we always had helmets on. So, we’re orbiting, letting the MSP gather data. We had a smaller auxiliary MSP for navigation sensors. We aren’t good yet at tracking movement of spacecraft at distance, warp signatures and the U.E. wanted to get a handle on that, especially after losing so many big ships lately. Essentially, we were testing if we could see movement from a ship leaving Earth and heading to Mars, a freighter I think, limited jump. We didn’t know when the freighter would jump, and so we left it on just in case. Suddenly that screen just lights up like a Christmas tree. We’re counting 10, 20, 30, 47 warp jumps almost all at once and they’re right on us, right at Neptune.

It wasn’t ours obviously. I mean, that wouldn’t have even been possible. And they’re almost our speed maybe a little faster. Vulcan ships are hard to spot jumping and I don’t think they like us looking. Still, we’ve looked and they’re very high velocity into warp. Cochrane calculated that they might be even a seven on the warp scale. It makes the mind boggle.


Well, me and, well anyway we figure they’re not Vulcans, but we’re not sure. We have a prerecorded greeting in Vulcan just in case and we send it on radio to the visitors. We’re relaying this on the high gain back to Earth as best we can, hoping someone is getting this. We’re thinking, second first contact, we might make history. I guess we did. We get that reply, its just this high pitched growl, this snarl and scream sound. We have to turn the volume down.


We both have multiple doctorates. Neither of ours are in xeno-linguistics or sociology, but we can tell, that sound was not friendly. You can feel it in your gut. And then the particle beam or laser or whatever it was, hits our high-gain dish (He smacks his hands together loudly). Just like that. Fries half our electronics. The backup ECLSS kicks in. The primary MSP is damaged as well. The aux MSP is rebooting but it will take time. We’ve got our eyeballs and that’s it. We can see the first ship coming, moving fast from the blue of Neptune. I don’t think they thought we’d be there. Well, hello. It’s a honest to God flying saucer, only its purple. Or violet. And they’re on us. Scooped us right into a cargo hold and for awhile everything is dark. We’re just breathing. Breathing.”


* * *

Oksana Magdanov


(We walk back down the riverside path to the facility. The former Chancellor is free to leave at any time but she prefers the facility. She sometimes pretends she is being held there, but it is clear she has whatever she asks for. I get the impression she has at last found some comfort in her surroundings. She suddenly starts talking again without being asked.)


We had a total of twenty six gunboats for the new stellar navy. Maximum speed Warp 1.6, duration.. enough to get to Pluto and back without fresh helium 3 for the reactors. You see, I actually paid attention on those junkets and official oversight visits. I actually read my reports not like that clown that’s in charge now. The one that once dated the married race car driver. It’s a disgrace. Do you like racing?


There were riots. Not as many as the news stories like one to believe, but they did occur. Citizens in the pacified zones had become calm and safe. Now the rug was pulled. It was more than an uneasiness. Everyone is used to knowing everything the minute it happens, and now we had to wait. Rod realized his failure and I supposed he wanted to keep his job. He unlocked Sloane from the closet he’d christened the brig, and once again told the ships in drydock to prepare. He picked one of them, ah, the I don’t know the numbers and they all had silly nicknames then. What is Metal Hurlant? As his flagship, that one, and they charged out of there without a plan, without coordination, and without my very much required authorization, to Neptune to assist a ship that was by now already there. And we could not stop him. You understand: he took every single ship, except for some service craft. A good deal of them were not even spaceworthy at the time. He took them on his ridiculous gesture.


We still had the UESPA, for whatever it was worth. They were a civilian agency, completely unarmed.


The Vulcans were still not answering my special phone. So I called Sloane. You should keep an eye on her. You really should. I tell people, keep an eye on her. She knows things. Always one step ahead. I have a knack for that, too.

* * *


Cedella Zion Nguvu Jupiter
Captain, ECS New Harmony
Jupiter Station



(Czerkel’s note: After speaking with her brother, I was very fortunate in finding Captain Cedella, called C.C. by everyone at Jupitier Station, visiting briefly before her new ECS freighter ships out on the inaugural Centauri Run. She has never before been interviewed.)


I handled communications and the IT issues aboard old Harmony in those days. We were all in one accord about relaying the mayday. There was nothing else we could do. We’d seen the footage. If we had withheld something, how would we have had the right to censor it? We could not tell if it was fake or not. Old man Graham was captain of the ship, that was more of a honorific. We run by committee, or we usually do.


It’s safe to say it now. You people have probably gone all over our records and hacked every data bank we had at Home, so I won’t tell you anything you did not know. We’d been out there longer than you all. We had better sensors.


We’d met the Vulcans not long after they touched down on Montana, and they came willing to trade. Apart from some medicines and life support data that they gave away freely, they asked us permission to run scientific scans on Europa. The commune has never claimed any planetary sovereignty but we agreed to be neighborly and they gave our ship a very fine sensor array in return. So we knew when the first gunboat was on its way to Neptune. We knew when the rest of that fleet took off as well. And if we’d known to be scanning towards Neptune we would have seen warp signatures of 47 alien craft of unknown origin at the same time the two scientists out there did. But we could never have guessed.


We were carrying trade goods from Earth, mostly items used in construction, but not bad for hasty repair jobs as well, and we had a medic that probably knew more about first aid in zero gee than everyone in your navy and UESPA combined. We took a vote. We had enough fuel for a burn to Neptune with our fusion rockets, but not enough to get back using Jupiter in a slingshot gravimetric boost. We had no time to see what was going to happen with the Earth fleet. We could render aid, maybe, if there was anything left to give aid to, and hope someone would help us get back home. It was a close vote. It was not harmonious. But in the end we made the engine burn.”

* * *

Ben “Torch” Woo

Jumping out of warp on a lone ship in those days was a leap of faith. It was not exact. We’re just lucky we didn’t materialize inside a Trans-Neptunian object. We arrived with comms and sensors immediately trying to find CT-19 and her crew, but there’s nothing. No beacon, no reply. We have nothing to lock on to. Did the Soyuz leave already while we were in route? We await instructions from Earth. Meanwhile we start finding heat signatures from the orbit of Neptune. We’re orbiting her moon Triton, mind you. We narrow the field and suddenly we’re seeing a lot of heat signatures. And it’s, logical, as the pointies might say, if we can see them, they can see us. We’re not here for first contact and handshakes, though. We’re here for S&R. Warp-equipped Soyuz ships have a very well known and identifiable reactor heat sig. I used them in simulations for target painting, so I know. Now we’re searching 47 heat signatures for one like it. Zilch. Goose egg.


This shit isn’t happening instantaneously. I am compressing hours into seconds here. But one thing we don’t see was assisting ships from our fleet coming in. Or any word from Earth. Finally we get a message, and its the mayday of CT-19 finally relayed to us, not by Earth, though, but from a some indy freighter.


We see the video. We see it all. We could have bailed at that point, but now our job is just harder. After all the implications, it means at least one of those poor bastards might still be alive out there and hiding for their own good, or just unable to respond. Suddenly we’re booking it away from Neptune because those 47 ships are starting to move our way. Don’t think there’s a clean pair of underwear on the ship right then. I mean, most of us are veterans, we saw stuff in the wars, but what they did to that guy Magnussen, Jesus. Speaking of Jesus I think I’m thanking him and Amitofu and anyone else on the line for Lily Sloane having us not dump our missiles, at this point.


It’s about that time I guess that we got another message from that freighter. This time they say they’re on their way, but that they’re sub-warp. Gonna take awhile. That’s a nice gesture but seriously, are they trying to fucking commit mass suicide or did they light their ganja freight all at once? Well that’s what I thought you know, at the time. I mean, we know now, but you wanted to know what I thought then. I sound like an asshole. I’m sorry. Can you erase that bit? Never mind, screw it.

Then they also radio us in the blind that the entire UESN is on its way. I mean the whole enchilada. According to the lady on the radio with the cool accent. Well, nice someone mentioned it, anyway. Admiral Rodriguez, we found out later, had ordered radio silence. Fair enough, I dig it, but why the fuck didn’t someone cancel the order when he went all cowboy and took the fleet with him? Is there anyone with a brain down there? Seriously.

 

[XCV330]

Robbie Johnson

They opened our hatch. None of them were wearing EVA gear. They were large furry feline looking bipedal creatures. You’ve seen all the footage. (Mr. Johnson is starting to fidget more and he suddenly calms and begins to speak in a near monotone, as if reciting another person’s report in realtime).


The UESPA crew have their helmets forcibly removed and the mission commander has his suit and garments removed. In the frenzy of activity that followed one of the two discarded helmets continues to record the incident.


The craft interior shows signs of being assembled from various sources. A lack of technological continuity causes the surviving subject to opine that much of the technology on board may be obtained from other species, or at least, hints at divisions within the culture of this species.


The helmet camera records the feeding frenzy as UESPA Commander John Magnussen is eaten alive slowly from his limbs to his body core, and it records the strange orgy like behavior afterwards between the aliens who seem to relish human flesh. There, Ms. Czerkel. Is that what you wanted?


(Subsequent conversations between me and Robbie Johnson are not relevant to this discussion and will be removed from the audio record. I returned a week later when he was willing to speak, again. He appeared much calmer and sat relaxed.)


It was a fifty-fifty chance, I tell myself. It could have been me. But that’s not true. I don’t wish it was me, even though I feel like I should wish that, and for that I feel guilty, terribly, terribly guilty, too. He was my best friend. My partner. I can’t look his family in the eye and they live down the street. It is something I must continue to deal with. The recording the whole world saw, it doesn’t have audio. Of him, of them, but not me. Fortunately. The truth is, when they’d taken me out and removed my helmet, I played dead. Maybe they knew better. They would have figured it out, anyway, but right then they were hungry and they didn’t care. I was a coward. And everyone on Earth knows it, or they will, now.


I suppose they would have saved me for laters. Maybe the night shift had dibs. I think maybe they are a hunting species that does not respond as well to synthesized proteins. I don’t know, and at this stage in my life, I don’t really care. One thing I am certain of, they’re not more intelligent than us, and that gives us a chance. If they’re best the universe has, fine. Just don’t send your next explorers out in a tiny defenseless little ship. We know better now. But you want me to talk about what happened. I know.


I grabbed the helmet. They were sleeping, honestly snoozing right in John’s blood and remains, after whatever that weird group activity was afterwards. I can’t get that out of my head. There was one guard and he’d feasted as well and was drowsy. I think they just forgot about me. He had a weapon on him, not like ours but it was obviously a weapon.


I’m not a fighter. I don’t have any martial arts training, but I was desperate. I grabbed for the weapon on his belt, pushed what I assumed was an actuator for it and it blew a hole the size of a fist in his chest. I guess they don’t have safeties. No recoil. I have my helmet on and I’m heading for the Soyuz. They’re waking up. I didn’t know my helmet had stopped recording when I put it back on. I wish people could have seen that. I don’t care. I used the mag locks on my boots against the steel part of the hull hatch and fired repeatedly against the cargo hatch seals where they had taken me in. They’d never even taken me out of the cargo hold. They were that much in a hurry to eat us. They didn't even try to ask us questions.


The hull wasn’t armored very well, or that gun was just way more powerful than I thought. The chamber we were in started to depressurize and the hatch blew. I start drifting out with .. you know the remains, and the aliens that were spaced now, dying.


I manage to get in the Soyuz and use the cold gas thrusters to get some distance from that ship, hoping it will take them awhile to get sorted, if there’s anyone else on the ship not there for the feeding frenzy. I’m still not in my right mind really. I’m acting on impulse, and in my mind, there’s still at least 46 other ships out there even if this one is currently having troubles. I thought I was going to die and I wasn’t going to go out like my partner did.


I found that the helmet camera feed recorded most of the whole thing and the interior of the ship. CT-19’s main dish had been destroyed earlier but I still had the aux MSP for navigation and and antenna is an antenna, if not always very efficient. Standing wave ratios and so forth. I wasn’t in a good enough frame of mind to get a lock on Earth, but my options with that setup were limited even if I had been.


I couldn’t get much signal out before the aux MSP died too. That left me deaf and blind, essentially, after I sent a mayday and the video feed. I didn’t know if anyone would see it. My plan was to drift into as low of an orbit of Neptune as I could maintain, using a drop-wire as a kind of electrodynamic tether for passive propulsion. That way I would avoid getting pulled into a destructive entry for a few hours and hope help came. I decided that if the aliens came close and tried to take me back, I’d point that weapon at my reactor containment wall and blow myself and them to hell. I wish I had had the chance, now.


* * *


Ambassador Skon, Son of Solkar
Vulcan Embassy Compound
Paris, France


We were not aware of the migratory movement of the species Kzin near your home world until they were within the system. They seemed to stop by your system’s eighth planet to gather resources, and as far we we were aware, the United Earth government held no active territorial claim to your outer solar system. We were not aware of the unfortunate incident that befell your two researchers until your government had made the choice to overreact.


Once perceived weakness and flesh was shown to Kzinti hunters, it was logical to assume they would continue to raid your weaker territories in order to harvest meat and resources. I speak only from their point of view. The Kzin had not come near your world before, and it caught us by surprise. At the same time we would not compromise your world’s development by intervening as a defensive body. We did send a ship to observe, however.


* * *


Ben “Torch” Woo


The Bruce Lee was slower at warp but she could turn on any dime. Pick your axis. We’d managed to evade the enemy for awhile. We’d noticed they’d split up. One ship was in a high Molniya orbit of Neptune, and two had split off like they were looking for something and it wasn’t us. They had us dead to rights, if they could catch us. That meant maybe they hadn’t eaten that poor bastard that sent the S.O.S.


We couldn’t get a target lock with the missiles though. They had some kind of counter measure. Finally one of their flying saucers closes in to kill range, and whatever its anti-targeting stuff is doing, they can’t shrug off the railgun with me eyeing the target. Skipper safetys-off the rail and tells me go for it, and I’m on that muther like spam on toast. Chudder chudder chudder chudder! I must have put 100 disks in that bad boy. I bulls-eyed her on the seam, cracking her like an egg, and she’s venting gas into space and veering off nadir-starboard. They pinned a medal on me for it. I got it somewhere, if you want to see it. That gave us a breather. But it took a lot of power and the reactor was overheating.


It always stinks in one of those ships. Groins, farts, ozone, my cooking. Its all pretty bad, right? It’s this eternal funk that clings to the cabin safety padding and won’t go away. But when you smell the liner on the firewall to the reactor room getting hot.. fuck that. But there we were. We couldn’t thrust away from them and we had no more power to the rails. My shrink says I use foul language to avoid dealing with my internal issues. How can I put this? We were royally and violently intercoursed. That is my metaphor for the simulation.


Then Admiral Rod comes in like that guy from that old movie, I can’t remember, forget about it, anyway he’s there and saves our asses. Say what you like about him, but I wouldn’t be talking to you if he hadn’t been there. Dumb? Maybe but he saved my worthless ass, I’ll tell you that right now.


We saw them, we even managed communication for awhile. We relayed what we could, about the countermeasures, success with railguns at contact range, all that. Never would I have thought they’d dive right in. You know the story. Rod takes his whole f.. damn.. his whole flotilla right into the fleet. No tactics, just yee haw, sayonara. His action takes a few enemy ships out of it, too. We counted ten. And the furballs took every one of his. I mean some they just blew up right then, but there were survivors. Shit. They took those. I don’t like thinking about that. Semper Explorandum my brothers and sisters.


But thing is, math is like a shower on water rations: it’s cold, to the point, and it shrinks your ego. They still outnumbered us maybe 35 ships to one, you dig? By now though that Soyuz has heard the traffic and whoever is inside knows the calvary just arrived. He hit his EPIRB (Czerkel’s note: “Emergency Positioning Indicating Radiobeacon”) and we trace him lickety-split. We turned about and went to rendezvous quick as shit through a goose, while the aliens were regrouping and, well, you know, the eating thing. This was still Search and Rescue. We could still get it done.


* * *


Robbie Johnson


There weren’t procedures for how to act under aggressive alien attack. I hear they have some now. I activated the EPIRB when I was reasonably sure I stood a chance of being rescued. I did not know their entire fleet had been wiped out. I’d managed to avoid the two saucers still cruising in on me, but I was almost atmospheric and the soyuz was taking a beating. My port nacelle was holding on by a few welds. About that time the aux MPS came back to life yet again and I saw the Bruce Lee coming in for rescue, and then I saw the Vulcans approaching faster. They must have just jumped in at a velocity so high we did not have a calibration for it. They didn’t say anything, just grappled my Soyuz and pulled me away from the scene. (Czerkel’s note: Robbie is staring out the window at Bay Bridge as he relates this part of the tale, towards the direction of the new Vulcan compound in San Francisco)


I got a panic attack. I knew it was a Vulcan ship but I’d already been inside one alien ship that day and I don’t want to be in another. Ever. But they didn’t bring me in the hold. They just keep me towed into a high orbit around the system. Deus ex-Machina. For me, anyway. The other aliens, Kzin we found out they were called later, stayed away from the Vulcan cruiser. That tells you something, doesn’t it?


* * *

Skon, Son of Solkar


It is Vulcan High Command policy to assist, where possible with distress calls. When UESPA craft CT-19 sent its first distress call we had no ships in your star system. By the time of the second call we were able to provide assistance, as we could verify his ship was not armed, apart from a sidearm on the sole occupant, and it was damaged to the point that it threatened the life of the crew. We could not involve ourselves in the conflict, however. And we did not.


* * *


Marcus Jah-love Biko Jupiter


We were almost trucking fast enough that time dilation was going to become a problem. Fortunately we had a few bits of tech borrowed from here and there on the Harmony that we’d all been sworn to only use in most dire need. That is how it was back then. We arrived about two hours local time, after the main engagement. We found dozens of alien saucers getting into some sort of formation, a Vulcan cruiser, and a lot of Earth navy wrecks in a debris field that looks like it has been picked clean. So that’s what a space battle field looks like. It was all new to us.


We see an intact Earth ship returning from the debris field towards what must have been the safety of the Vulcan ship, and it became clear they were being pursued almost leisurely by the saucers. On comms channel the Vulcan ship is warning the Earth ship off, stating they will not allow sanctuary to either aggressor. They’re arguing that they were there for Search and Rescue. If the Vulcans were having a simular conversation with the Kzin, we did not notice it.


We saw the Vulcans had that Soyuz, the original ship in the region, tethered by some kind of cable. We did not always see eye to eye on Harmony, but for once, I think the name was correct. We were still coming in at velocity, and had not turned and burned to reduce. Instead we flow right at an arc across the top of the Neptunian clouds, deploying a ballute to handle the thermal stress. It was some damned fine piloting on my part. And of course the rest of the crew were brilliant, the captain, and so forth.


That got us in between the Earth ship and the Kzin, though it fried so many systems our own freighter was unflyable under her own power. We had enough backup systems to keep life support going and, fortunately, the emergency beacon. My sister Cedilla hit the distress signal.


* * *

Skon, Son of Solkar


As I have stated, already. It is Vulcan High Command policy to assist, where possible with distress calls. Due to damage taken by the Jupiter settlement freighter, we were compelled to assist. Our cruiser did fire a warning shot at the lead Kzin craft. (Czerkel’s note: I was compelled to point out that the shot he mentions obliterated the Kzin craft, at this point. I try not to interrupt the narrative, normally.) In our dealings with the Kzin we have found this qualifies as a warning shot.


* * *


Ben “Torch” Woo


Holy shit, that indy freighter just came out of nowhere. The Vulcans had been threatening to fire on us if we came further and suddenly, God bless em, we have a friend from out of nowhere. That must have really rankled the Kzin cause they revved it up a notch. It surprised the hell out of us when the pointies popped that first saucer like it was nothing. BLAMMO. I still get a kick out of watching that video we recorded of it. I don’t mind saying that.


We were about to load all our remaining missiles and go for broke when the lady on comms on that freighter said to stand down. She was begging us to disarm the rail-gun and dump the missiles. That did not sit well with some of us, but the skipper was so addled that he did it. And then the freighter, which was grappled by the Vulcan ship that also grappled that Soyuz, grappled US. So we start moving, strangest freaking train ride, since, well, ever.


It was a slow ride but the aliens, the bad aliens I mean not the pointies, stayed holed up at Neptune and you know how that went. We had a lot of radio traffic between our slow ride back to Earth orbit and there. Nerves were high and I spent a lot of time answering questions before a lot of committees. But when we were ready to being the fight back to the cats, I was ready. I was there, the whole damn war, lady. Whole damned war. Just cauterized my legs and shoved me right in that goddam seat, you dig?


(Czerkel’s note: Torch Woo runs a surfing shop and beach side bar in Maui. He’s become a local fixture with his tales of the Kzinti War. Recently, the Vulcan Embassy offered to replace his Earth-made prosthetic legs with genetically regrown replacements. He refused.)


* * *

Robbie Johnson


I was debriefed. I did not hide anything. People tried to be supportive but I could tell. They weren’t there when they looked at me. They were in that hold, looking out my helmet, wondering where I was. UESPA limited my appearances, gave me a grant funded study where I’d be out of sight, and finally gave me early retirement when the conflict was over. My whole addition to the sum of the world’s knowledge was a stolen plasma laser that has allowed Earth to get even better at killing.


I came close to suicide. More than once. I’m not afraid to say THAT, anyway. You see out that window? That bridge has been kind of challenging me to do it. But I’m a coward still. It’s too violent. I keep saying I ought to go to the new colony they’re planning. I could use a new start and I think I’d be an asset. I heard New Harmony is flying on it. Wouldn’t that be something? Maybe I will. Or maybe I will just keep staring at the bridge, every day.


(Czerkel’s note: Robbie Johnson was certified to be medically unfit for colony selection and was found dead by overdose in Golden Gate Park the morning after, two weeks after this interview.)


* * *

Lily Sloane


(Czerkel’s note: Ms Sloane caught up with me as I was leaving Undisclosed Location, she wanted to add a few words for posterity).


I was placed temporarily in charge of what was left of the Stellar Navy after we lost our fleet. But what was I in charge of? An empty station. We had some recruits in training, we had one heavily damaged gunboat, and a very interesting weapon Robbie Johnson brought back home.


A lot of people still second guess the creation of Starfleet, but all Earth had left were some larger exploration ships in the final stages of work by UESPA, and the resources of the Stellar Navy. They had to be combined and to do so in a way that would allow us to continue to be race of explorers when peace returned. I’m still not wrong about that. We're going to run into a lot of challenges down the road. We have to be strong enough to face them without giving up our better aspirations. I have a premonition, we'll make it.
(end)

 

[Tim Thomason]

Love it! Nice use of a Vulcan Hello.

 

[GiovanniBlasini]

That was nicely done, and captured the feel of Earth between First Contact and Enterprise in a real World War Z style. I find myself torn between whether I want to see more, or if hinting at the full war instead like you did and leaving it here without ever saying what happened with the Kzin is better.

 

[XCV330]

That was nicely done, and captured the feel of Earth between First Contact and Enterprise in a real World War Z style. I find myself torn between whether I want to see more, or if hinting at the full war instead like you did and leaving it here without ever saying what happened with the Kzin is better.

thanks. my Lousisa Czerkal wasn't a very coy Studs Terkel reference