While Making Other Plans:
Chapter 30

  “…and thus it is my recommendation that we get in this fight.  Understanding the threat, it is clear to me that the collective is now aware of us and our weapons technology, and that as a result it is only a matter of time before they do something about it.  If we wait, we risk the friendly Bobbins being taken out or leaving before we can ally ourselves with them and have any hope of defending ourselves when the conflict inevitably arrives at our doorstep.  I suggest we ramp up every anti-matter facility we have to maximum output immediately and work with the friendly Bobbins to weaponize it as effectively as possible.  Admiral Kathryn Barnes out.”

  After pressing the control she’d been told stopped her recording, she turned around to see Bob quivering behind her at the entrance to the shuttle’s command centre, something she’d come to associate with Bobbin general anxiety.

  “Not much more I can do for you than that I’m afraid,” she said.  “I’ve made as convincing an argument as I can.”  She then opened a general channel to the ship.  “All Star Fleet staff report the bridge,” she ordered.  “We will be rifting soon.”

  “We will transmit as soon as we cross the event horizon into the Koboli system,” Bob said, which Kathryn acknowledged with a nod as she brought her thumb up to her mouth to chew on it.  The tips of Bill’s leg talons clacked against the shadow matter surface of the floor as he approached her.  “It appears something is troubling you,” he observed with brown sympathy.

  She reflexively pulled her thumb away from her mouth, his observation prompting her to notice she’d started doing it again.  “I would think that would be obvious.  We’ve stumbled naked and ass first into being a key strategic element in a massive galactic internecine war.”

  “We’ve studied you,” Bob stated matter of factly.  “I think I’ve gotten to know you personally a little at this point.  Something else is troubling you, something… more personal,” he said through his mirror ball.

  Kathryn sighed and turned towards the window, lowering her head with a sigh as she held herself up with her hands spread out against the windowsill.  Her melon collie denied her the usual awe at the majesty of their close approach to a star portal.  He must be picking up on her tension with Jaren, but she wasn’t ready to spill her guts and treat an alien as ship’s counselor just yet.  “You should know this is no sure thing,” she cautioned him, deciding to instead channel what he was detecting into doubts about their prospects.  “I can’t guarantee our governments will agree to help you at all.  Humans can be… risk averse, xenophobic.  Even towards other humans.  We don’t tend to do well with ‘the other’.”

  “But it is the only logical course of action.”  The solid purity of blue on the mirror ball showed his genuine confusion.

  Kathryn turned around to face him and rested her back against the window as she folded her arms.  “I know,” she shrugged.  “You’ve already convinced me.  But if you studied our history, you’d see that we far too rarely actually act out of logic or rational self-interest.  Honestly Bob…” she sighed again as she lowered her head before looking back up at him with a pained wince.  “We’re not great,” she lamented.  “In fact we can often just be outright terrible— both to ourselves and to each other.  Especially as a group.”

  Behind her the energy pillars from the solar collectors poured down on the crystal and exploded it into a purple cloud of energetic mist.

  “We’ll see soon enough,” Bob offered as somber green slowly rolled across the surface of his mirror ball.

   

  The crew shuffled onto the command deck.  Kathryn and Jaren exchanged only formal cold nods to each other as he entered.  Not much was prone to going wrong while transiting to another system with the time it would take to climb their way out of the Koboli star’s gravity well, but being at their stations for it was protocol they were used to after several combined lifetimes in various para-military organizations.  Margaret entered last with Ralph in tow.  Kathryn found herself slightly annoyed with her bringing him, but she decided to stow that for later analysis at a better time.

  “Jaren, please count us down when ready,” she requested evenly, trying above all to mask from others the truth of their current situation.

  “Yes Captain,” he answered in kind, and then a few moments later, “rift transit in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.”

  Kathryn felt the now long familiar feeling of the strange existential shudder which came from momentarily being reduced to something less substantial than vapour before feeling herself exist again and normality resumed.

  “Report.”

  “That’s… weird.”  Jaren said, uncharacteristically vague.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s no ships guarding the crystal,” he reported.  “There’s usually at least a few ships here monitoring the portal…”

  “Any comms traffic?” Kathryn asked.  Jaren’s hands flew over the controls as information streamed by on the screen in front of him.

  “None,” he said with practiced professionalism which almost veiled his panic.

  Bob quivered and turned to his panel which automatically generated controls much better suited to his alien appendages.  “Admiral Barnes… I’m picking up what appears to be debris.”

  A pit of horror was born in her chest.  “Explain,” she demanded, trying to conceal her panic.

  “From here to Kobol,” he answered, “I’m reading what appears to be small pieces of wreckage from human ships, and…” his black eyes narrowed and his mirror ball grew dark as he scrutinized the information streaming into his brain implants.  He turned towards her.  “Residual particulate concentrations are consistent with shadow matter coming in contact with anti-matter.”

  “Oh my God…” Jaren uttered in horror.

  “They came…” Kathryn affirmed in a soft voice with wide somber eyes.  “They learned what we had,” she said as she looked down and thought it through.  “They knew what we were up to, and they beat us here.”

  “It is…” Bob said, seeming to shuffle uncomfortably, “a reasonable conclusion.”

  “You miserable son of a bitch!”  Jaren yelled as he bolted to his feet.  He looked around for someone to unleash his rage at before moving towards Bill with obvious violent intent.  Kathryn had never seen him react violently like that, not once.  

  “Mr. Snow, STAND DOWN!” she bellowed, but not before he’d punched the alien hard in the most head like part of his body.  

  “This is all your fault!!” he screeched, getting two shots in before the mirror ball reconfigured itself into several tentacles which pulled him off of Bill and restrained him.  Another tentacle shot out and covered his mouth, muffling his violent outburst.

  Kathryn and Margaret rushed over, but on the way Kathryn shot Margaret a look which she correctly interpreted as telling her to go check on Bill instead, which she understood.  As Margaret checked on Bill, Kathryn was confronted with trying to calm her husband down from a state she’d never seen him in before.  He was struggling with every bit of energy he could find to rage against the restraints, still screaming into the silver material covering his mouth.  In front of him she put her hands on either side of his face and made him look into her eyes.

  “Jaren.  I know, I know!  But this isn’t helping, okay?  Bill didn’t do this,” she reminded him, gesturing behind her without breaking eye contact.  “His faction has suffered devastating losses themselves at the hands of the same enemy.  They would have found us eventually anyways even if we’d never met Billl.  They would have realized the threat we posed and acted before we knew what had hit us.  I need you to come back to me Jaren.  I know what this means for you, but I need you back in the game.  We still have a job to do here.”

  Her husband’s nose trickled mucus out of it as he breathed furiously through his nose, but she was thankful to see the blind rage in his eyes start to slowly give way to something more constrained, to a more rational anger as he gradually gave up his blind struggle against the restraints.  He continued to breath hard as he settled into a death glare, but fundamentally he was back from whatever place she’d lost him to.

  “I can get him to release you,” she offered, “but you’ve got to get a hold of yourself.  Do you understand?”  His eyes darted back and forth between her and Bob with a renewed wave of anger before the tide rolled back.  A part of her, the personal part she usually locked down when playing Captain was scared for him.  She had no idea that this kind of behaviour was in him.  She’d never suspected it at all.  He’d been so implacably collected and mild mannered from the first day he’d crossed into their space and introduced himself and ushered in a new era for her people.

  “There are bigger things going on here,” she reminded him.  “We don’t know exactly what’s happened.  We don’t know how bad it is, but we can assume there are Koboli out there who need our help.  We need to find out if the other colonies were attacked.  We’re flying blind here, and I need my first officer back.  Just for now I need you to stow the personal shit and get your head back in the game, can you do that for me?”

  Jaren closed his eyes, and she watched as he focused on slowing his breathing and calming down.  When his breathing returned to something more normal, he opened them again.  Again, she saw something new in them which she’d never seen before— cold, calculated hatred held in by grim resolve.  Still a violent disposition, but for now at least a constrained one.  For a moment she found herself attracted to it, the younger, dumber girl she once was, excited at the charged danger of an unpredictably passionate male.  But the moment was short and quickly gave way to profound concern for him.  He seemed to be coming undone in ways she was afraid he might not ever be able to fully put back together.

  “You got this?” she asked, and in response his cold glare turned to her but he slowly nodded his head.

  Kathryn turned her head to the side, but kept her eyes on Jaren.  “Bill, please release him.”  The alien emitted a high pitched squeal mixed with a flurry of lower sounds she could only feel, a combination she could only assume to be some kind of indignant cursing the mirror ball wrapped around Jaren’s face like a vampire squid was too polite to translate.

  She held Jaren’s hand as she more fully turned around to face the alien.  “Please, Bill.  He’s calmed down now.  We can settle scores later if we need to, but right now I need my first officer back at his station.”

  More indecipherable and untranslated sounds emanated from the alien, but this time they were accompanied by the mirror ball slowly unwrapping itself from around Jaren’s body.  He looked down and away seemingly in the first glints of shame as the last silver tentacle cautiously pulled itself away from his mouth.  As it retreated from him and reformed into a sphere on its way over to Bill, Jaren looked neither at Bill nor Kathryn as he turned rigidly back towards his station without saying a word.

  “Bill please set a course for Kobol at best possible speed.  Margaret, please work with Jaren to piece together what we can from sensor readings as they come in.”  The simulant nodded and headed over to join Jaren at his station.  On the way Kathryn grabbed her arm and pulled her close.  “And please keep an eye on him,” she suggested discreetly, and was satisfied enough with the expression of her nod that she understood both ways she meant it.

  “Engaging engines,” Bill stated evenly.  His ball was red with anger, but the intensity seemed to be slowly dropping off over time.

  “Actually, hold on that please,” she requested.  The others on the bridge turned to her inquiringly, and Kathryn let out a slow sigh.  “Bob, can this ship be further divided into smaller vessels?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many?”

  “Safely?” he asked.  “Three.”

  Kathryn slowly rapped her fingers in thought on the captain seat’s armrest for a few moments.  “We need to report in even more urgently now,” she considered out loud.  “And we need to find out if they’ve hit the other colonies,” she further with some wide eyed alarm at the prospect.  It occurred to her for the first time and with some horror that at this point there was some possibility they were the only humans left anywhere.  “If other sites have been hit we’ll need to coordinate appropriate triage.  If they haven’t we need to warn them as soon as possible.”

  “I am not leaving this system until we know more.” Jaren stated coldly with certainty generally reserved for universal constants.  Kathryn looked over at him for a few moments and exchanged a nervous glance with Margaret as he kept working at his station before turning back to Bill.

  “What would make further subdividing the ship more dangerous?” she asked him.

  “The shadow material would be stretched dangerously thin if we divide further than that, allowing more solar and cosmic radiation to penetrate the hull.  Additionally, no material would be available to shift the hull into any other configurations or divide the interior without compromising the hull.  There’d be zero resistance to any kind of weapon’s fire or even stray debris in our flight path.”

  “How many could we split into in a pinch, if we really had to?”

  “Four would be dangerous but feasible if necessary.  Five would be borderline suicidal.  We’re talking about little more than a barely contained bubble of atmosphere and maneuvering thrusters here.”

  “I understand.” she nodded before turning to Jaren.  “Anything at all?”

  Jaren ignored her or was too engrossed to realize she was talking to him so Margaret answered for him.  “No, nothing,” she answered quietly.  “No comm traffic, no ships on sensors.”

  Kathryn chewed her thumb and worried about her daughter.  It had always been a terrible idea to bring her daughter on an exploratory mission but now she better understood why.  There were just too many obligations pulling at her at once, especially now.  How was she to balance her concern for her daughter’s safety, for her husband and friends, her ship, her people… hell, her species at this point.  She found herself having trouble keeping her thoughts from drifting back towards Maggie, to how traumatized she clearly was, how badly she needed to get home to a sense of safety and begin the long process of healing.  One of her homes was already gone, what if they all were—"

  “Okay,” she said, more to herself than anyone else as she shook her head clear.  “Jaren, please create a broadcast message that clarifies that despite appearances we’re friendlies and we’re here to help.  It’ll be hard for them to believe, but we have to figure out how to convince them.”  He nodded without looking back at her station, but she was satisfied with a thumbs up from Margaret.

  “There’s three Bobbins onboard including yourself?” she asked Bill.  His amorphous body did its best to respond with a nod.

  “Okay people here’s the deal.  We’re flying blind and we need intel.  We’re going to split into four ships, four teams.  Jaren, you’re going to stay here with Margaret.  Bring Ralph with you too.  Do what you can on sensors and comms to learn what you can and assist in whatever response operations you can.  I’m hoping some ships are hiding out there who will get your message and respond.  The rest of us will split up into three other ships.  It takes time to charge the solar collectors for an outbound rift, so we’ll have to be smart about this.

  “The rest of us will head to Earth first.  If there’s still a welcome party on that side, we’ll muster all the aid we can and return to Kobol first before heading out to warn Haven and Roma.  If not, Patricia and a Bobbin will stay behind to investigate in that system while the rest of us head to the Roma system.  Same deal.  If we can we’ll send help back ASAP.  If not, Bill and another Bobbin will remain to investigate while I head to Haven with the last Bobbin.

  “From the Haven system we’ll open a rift back here as soon as possible to report what we’ve found.  Bill and Patricia, will stay here by the crystals.  As soon as the collectors are recharged, open a rift and report back to the Sol System what you’ve found and then assist Jaren with relief operations.”

  Bob lifted one of his three taloned arms.  “May I make a suggestion Admiral Barnes?” he asked, and she nodded in response.  “Instead of immediately calling back here from Haven, you should open a portal to Bobbin central command.  I have no doubt they would want to send relief ships to assist.”

  “I’m sure,” Jaren sneered.  “And scour the ruins of our civilization for any remaining anti-matter they can use while they’re at it, I’m sure.”

  Bob turned an unblinking black eye at him for a moment before ignoring him and turning back to Kathryn with what passed she interpreted as an expectant expression.

  After chewing on her thumb for a few moments she nodded.  “Thank you, Bill.  I think we can use all the help we can get.”  She turned to what was left of her crew.  “It takes forty-five minutes to charge the solar collectors, people.  Make them count.  If…” it was hard to even say the words, but she swallowed hard and continued.  Her loyalty was to her own home world first, but in a worst-case scenario the strategic imperative would instead be to scour the Koboli system for any anti-matter the Bobbin Collective might have missed.  “If we all find the same thing, we’ll rendezvous back here, recombine into this more capable ship to make for Kobol and engage in independent rescue operations.  Is everyone clear?”

  “Yes Captain,” they echoed.

  “Alright people, lots to do.  Let’s get it done.”

  

☼   ☼   ☼

  

 

  The four teams went to four corners of the existing ship, and when they were ready Bill ordered the ship to separate itself into four smaller vessels.  It made Kathryn nervous that in one side of her new smaller ship which faced the star, the material was so thin she could see the glow of the star through it.  It drove home for her how perilously thin the shell of shadow matter guarding her against the myriad dangers of space from the cold hard vacuum to the furious torrent of radiation just on the other side of the thin shell they were calling a ship.  She also gained a new appreciation for how impressive the shadow matter really was, how it could operate on a molecular level and form complex components and machinery which could simulate gravity, propel them through space, sustain their fragile bodies, and she presumed, shield them from the horribly lethal radiation only a few meters from her face.  She wondered how many centuries it would have taken her own people to develop such technologies on their own.  She had enough pride in her people and their accomplishments so far to have little doubt that given enough time they’d be able to do just about anything that could be done.

  “Put me through to Jaren please,” she asked of the Bobbin who accompanied her.

  “Snow here,” he answered with a vacant expression on the screen at the front of the open area.  He must have known that it was her calling and still answered that way, leaving her to wonder if he privately felt as done with her as she did with him.

  “We’ll be back as soon as we can Jaren, I promise.  It shouldn’t take much more than half an hour to quickly hop from Earth to Roma, to Haven, and back without having to wait for the collectors to recharge.”

  “Understood.”  His response was so cold.  He barely looked back through the screen, his gaze falling slightly off to the side to avoid looking directly at her.  She saw something seem to shift in him though, as though he just then for a moment remembered that she was his wife, that she was the mother of his daughter, and that he loved her.  He looked more directly at her through the screen and softened momentarily.  “Good Luck Kat,” he offered.  “I…” he pause, literally biting his lip.  “I hope it’s only Kobol.”

  Kathryn got the sense that while the sentiment might not feel true to him, he at least understood that it was how he ought to feel and wanted to manifest it into reality or at least assure her and anyone else listening in that he wasn’t completely lost or insensitive to the fears of others regardless of what he might be going through in the moment.  She took the moment to remember that he was a good man, that she’d had reason to fall in love with him and to create Maggie with him.

  “Thank you Jaren,” she said.  “I hope it’s not as bad as we fear on Kobol as well.  I’ll be back as soon as I can so we can find out together.  Barnes out.”  She nodded at Bill and he cut the channel.  She was impressed with how quickly Bill and his compatriots were able to adapt to how the humans operated and interpret completely alien gestures and sentiments.

  “Alright Bill let’s get underway.  Open a rift to the Sol System please.”  He nodded and turned to his console and after a few talon jabs at the controls, she saw on screen the now long familiar yet still awe inspiring sight of the massive pillars of raw energy streaming down onto the purple crystal and exploding into energetic mist.  

  She looked down and pressed the button she’d learned was ship to ship.  “Beta here, we’ll take point.  Gamma and Delta you follow close behind.  Think good thoughts people, there’s not much we can do if there’s a Collective armada on the other side.  And on that note, everyone start broadcasting friendly IDC now on this side before we go through in case there’s a human armada waiting to blow any alien vessel out of the sky.”  After hearing acknowledgements from the other ships, she gave the order to head out.

  As soon as they emerged from the rift cloud, her view screen lit up with a flash and she felt her frail little ship rocked with shudders from explosions on its surface, but the bombardment ceased before she could finish demanding a report from Bob.

  “We’ve been intercepted by a small fleet of human vessels.  They fired on us immediately but not with anti-matter weapons.  They’ve stopped now, presumably having accepted your identification codes.”

  She pressed the ship to ship button again which was pre-configured to broadcast on human frequencies. didn’t wait to ask why their weapons hadn’t penetrated the thin hull, instead pressing the ship to ship button again, tuned to human communications frequencies.  “Hold your fire!  This is Admiral Kathryn Barnes onboard an alien but friendly ship, please respond.  Be advised that there are two similar friendly ships following behind us.  I repeat, hold your fire, we are friendlies.  Please respond.”

  An unknown but stern voice with a stern ‘no fucking around’ tone answered her.  “Alien vessel.  You will come to an immediate relative stop and hold your position.  If you make any other move while we attempt to verify your IDC you will be destroyed immediately.”

  “Understood.  Thank you.  Standing by.”

  “Unlikely,” Bob surmised though his mirror ball as she closed the channel.  “They appear to only be carrying conventional kinetic weapons.  Compromised as our hull may be stretched so thin, it can certainly still withstand such a barrage.  I’m not detecting any nuclear or anti-matter warheads on their vessels.  We should be safe even if they determine us a threat.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” Kathryn responded.  “You’d be surprised how inventive humans can be at doing damage when they’re backed into a corner,” she added with bittersweet pride.  “Have the other ships come through?”

  “Affirmative.  All ships have successfully transited.”

  “Can you make out any identifying markings on that ship?”  She asked and then watched as the viewscreen narrowed in on the hull of the lead human ship and scanned.  She recognized it as dreadnought class, but as the fleet workhorse there were quite a few of them out there.  The viewscreen stopped on the serial number and name painted on the hull.  “S.F.S. Sengupta…” she rubbed fingers on her forehead trying to remember who commanded that ship and then snapped her fingers when she remembered then reopened ship to ship.

  “Is that Captain Ryan I’m speaking to over there?  I don’t think we’ve ever actually met but I’m a fan of his work.”  She didn’t actually have any flipping clue about his service record but at this point…  “I’m sure you have a lot of questions, and I can’t wait to answer all of them.  I have a fair number of my burning questions myself over here.”

  A video call pinged on her console and she put it up on the main screen.  A man in his forties with a face of weathered skin framed by a sparse salt and pepper beard and military cropped hair appeared on the screen.  She imagined his general sneer to be a permanent feature of his face; she’d known a number of old sea dogs in the fleet who preferred to spend their lives in space and recognized the kind of man she was dealing with immediately.

  “IDC acknowledged Admiral.  You were declared M.I.A. over a week ago.  The vessel you are travelling in matches characteristics of a fleet of vessels reported to have obliterated Kobol twenty-seven hours ago.”

  Kathryn’s face and heart sank at the news.  “Any survivors?” she asked.

  “What information we have is from a small number of survivors who rifted here soon after the attack.  The aliens came here as well.  They left soon after, but not before destroying the patrol ships stationed at the crystal who intercepted them.  We’ve had reports of similar encounters in the Haven and Roma systems as well.”

  Kathryn took what small comfort she could in hearing of the more limited encounters in the other systems compared to Kobol.

  “Now if you wouldn’t mind explaining your role in all this,” he said, leaning forward as intimidatingly as he could while floating in his restraints, “why you’ve arrived in an enemy ship, and more generally what the hell is going on here.  This transmission is being relayed to Command back on Orbital One.

  “It’s…” she sighed and shook her head.  “It’s kind of a long story to be honest.”  Captain Ryan frowned with a menace which threatened violence.  “I’ll explain the need to know now and can fill the rest of the details in later.  But first tell me, is there a relief effort being organized for Kobol?”

  “Relief?”  The captain repeated, seeming confused.  “No Admiral, no relief efforts.  The small group of survivors who made their way here were the only survivors.  A small research ship happened to be in transit back to Kobol at the time of the attack.  They made a pass over the planet and found nothing left on the surface to search for survivors in.  Kobol for all intents and purposes is just gone, destroyed.  There’s no one there to rescue, nothing left to salvage.”

  Kathryn let her head drop in grief and resisted the urge to hold her face in her hands and sob.  Her heart broke for Jaren, knowing that about now he was finding out the same thing for himself.  The her heart broke for all of the survivors, then for the millions of dead.  “I understood.” she grimly acknowledged as she looked back up at the screen.

  “I’ll bottom line this for you Ryan.  The aliens we have both encountered are the same species but from two different factions.  I’m afraid we’ve stumbled ourselves ass first and naked into the middle of a galactic civil war we are in no way prepared for, but we’ve made friends with the other side.  We’re travelling with some of them now, in ships of their design and technology.”  She gestured over her shoulder to Bill.  “This one in particular I’m happy to call my friend.

  “We came to propose an alliance.  We were hoping to prevent what happened to Kobol but we were too late.  “If Bill’s side-” she paused and winced at hearing herself refer to him by the stupid name and the way Captain Ryan’s eyebrow raised when he heard it, but she continued.  “If his side loses it’s only a matter of time before the enemy faction overruns the galaxy and exterminates us completely.  They only left the other systems alone because they didn’t detect anti-matter, and they’re otherwise preoccupied.  It’s the only thing that threatens them and unlike the other colonies they detected an abundance of it on Kobol.  They have more pressing war imperatives at the moment, but they know we can make it, and as soon as they can spare the resources, they’ll be back to finish the job in every colonial system.”

  Ryan looked down and slowly nodded for a few moments as he absorbed everything she was telling him.  “What do you need?”

  “The moment the collectors are recharged I need our three ships to be allowed to transit back to the Koboli system to retrieve our fourth and bring them back here.  In the meantime, I need you to put me and my friend here in a room with the senior staff and the highest available representatives of our remaining governments so we can explain and negotiate.”

  “Understood,” Ryan acknowledged with a nod.

  “These three ships will reconfigure into one larger ship and wait to rift back.  I’d appreciate if you could spare a ship to escort them.  In the meantime, with your permission Bob and I will transfer to one of your ships and head for Earth.”  Ryan nodded again.

  “One more thing Captain.”

  “What is it?”

  “New Horizon II.  Where is she?  My daughter was onboard as well as a number of close friends.  Are they safe?”

  “To my knowledge the New Horizon recently docked at Orbital One with everyone you sent back safely accounted for.”

  “Oh thank God…” she uttered, not meaning to say out loud.

  “Small miracles Admiral,” Ryan offered with mild sardonia.  “Small miracles.”

  “I assure you Mr. Ryan this fight is far from over.  You’ll have your chance for payback, I promise.  We all will.”

  The man’s disposition brightened every so slightly and Kathryn closed the channel.