The door to the control room slid open with pleasing ease as he followed into the chamber. Aileena had gotten there before him, already strapping herself into the console she had chosen earlier. Brekt was seated in the one next to her and was barking short clipped sentences. Mellok was peering at a hologram floating above one of the consoles on the upper level. It depicted another ship. It was made of three large curved prongs attached around an engine. The two upper sections were larger than the bottom one, giving the ship the appearance of a cluster of talons. A clawed hand chasing them through space.
“What the hell is going on?” Michael asked. He felt slightly lost. Everyone else had sprung to action, working furiously at their sections. He felt like a spare part, useless dead weight. “Hello? Anyone?”
“Sorry, sorry. Take a seat please and strap yourself in, knower,” Mellok said. He twisted a knob sticking out from the dashboard and an image on the hologram zoomed in closer. “It appears we were followed from Earth.”
“Is that a council ship?”
“Yes. Though it is just a small patrol vessel.”
“So, we’re safe from it then?” Michael said, taking the seat he had placed himself into on their flight from Earth.
“Oh heavens no. It’s more than capable of blasting us to atoms.”
“Perfect. What’s the plan? What are we doing? Maybe we should, I don’t know, do some evasive manoeuvres or something?”
“Obviously!” Aileena said. “Except we can’t unless you strap yourself the hell in. Unless you want to bounce off the walls.” Michael didn’t reply, instead simply locking the seat’s belts around himself. Mellok did the same, squeezing awkwardly into the chair. The way he had to fold his legs to fit looked painful. “Right, hold on.”
The ship shuddered as it rolled left. Michael could feel his body tilting to one side. It felt like a double-decker bus taking a corner a little too tightly. His stomach protested, a nausea building as the feeling suddenly shifted to the other side, the ship swinging violently the other way. A light began blinking on the console before Mellok. He stretched out, straining to reach with his short arms. The tips of his feathered fingers hit a switch and the light swapped from a blinking red to a solid green.
“Unidentified vessel this is the Council ship Gallant. You are ordered to stand down and prepare to be boarded,” a voice said, pumped through a speaker. It was odd, the translated sentences Michael was used to hearing had adopted a British accent, presumably to make it easier for the listener, but this one had a thick American twang. A southern drawl he recognised from television. “This is your one warning, or we will open fire. You are to disengage your evasion, and once we are free from the jump are to come to a complete stop. Please reply.”
“Oh, that is strange,” Mellok said.
“What did he say? I didn’t understand any of that?” Aileena said. Her hands still gripped the controls tightly, shifting the ship around in a random a pattern as she could manage.
“Did you not get that?” Michael said puzzlement stretched across his face.
“No,” Mellok said. “She wouldn’t have, the personal translation units only work on vocal speech, they struggle with anything transmitted. That message came in English. No translation there at all.”
“Wait what? English? I assumed the ship was translating it for my benefit.”
“It is unusual. Hmm, let’s see.” Mellok began pressing buttons on the dashboard, searching for the right setting. “Aha!” He found the one he was looking for, pressing the switch with a flourish. The hologram of the pursuing ship vanished, replaced by the face of a man. A human man, wearing a sharp cut grey uniform with a thin red edging.
“Thank you for responding,” said the hologram. “I am Commander James Orson, captain of the Council ship Gallant. You are ordered to stand down, there is a Council decree out for the seizure of this ship and the arrest of its crew.”
“Oh my, a human captain of a Council ship. You must be very proud Commander Orson, I believe that is a first, is it not?” Mellok said, his voice slick like oil. “I appreciate your concern, but I believe there must be a mistake. We are a simple transport ship headed to Ossiark, a destination I will note is outside of Council controlled space. Why, we’ve never even been to Earth!” The feathered creature was laying it on thick, Michael was impressed.
“We tracked this ship leaving Earth orbit ourselves. We will open fire, please don’t make us do that.”
“No, no I don’t think you will. Tell me, commander, how long have you captained that ship? How many humans are part of Council forces now? It can’t be many, can it? Just a trusted few. I feel like I should warn you that my crew is quite like yours. We also have humans aboard. We’re rather forward-thinking like that.” Mellok tapped another switch, and a second hologram of Commander Orson flicked to life before Michael.
“What the hell? How in god’s name did you get aboard that ship son?” The shock at seeing Michael was written across Orson’s face.
Michael turned to look at Mellok. The alien was giving him a thumbs-up, beaming with pride at using the human gesture correctly. “Oh, well I signed on. Heard they were looking for a good crewmember, and well, who wouldn’t want to travel space?”
“Well, first of all, humans are not allowed off-planet. Second, they recruited you to be a” the Commander leant forward, “tour guide?”
Michael looked down at the badge still clipped to his jacket. “Uh, yeah! Well, our little company here figures that eventually humans will be allowed into Council space at large, so they wanted to be ready. Tour guide to the stars! That’s the plan anyway. Look out the window on the right for a view of Venus. That kind of thing. Personally, when I heard the idea, I thought, wow. You need to get in on the ground floor for these kinds of things. Only really one space for a guided tour in any given location after all. Early bird gets the worm.”
“I thought you were a transport headed to Ossiark?”
“Yes well, why not both? Ossiark is a big tourist hotspot around here right? A lot of people coming and going. Perfect place to start the tours from we figure.”
“Son, you are so obviously lying. Look. I don’t want to hurt another human, not really. But I will if I have to. There is a reason the general public isn’t allowed off-planet yet. Space is dangerous. I will give you three minutes to signal your surrender, or I will open fire.” The hologram shut off, reverting to the image of Orson’s ship.
Two planets hung next to each other in space, orbiting each other as they danced around their star. The surface of each was uninhabitable, the gravity from its twin rendering them roiling tempests of boiling magma and searing heat. Floating between the planets, positioned just so, balanced perfectly by two opposite pulls of gravity, was a space station. An enormous towering thing, a long grey column that rotated around, providing gravity to those within. Around the twin planets was a bewildering array of other stations that bristled with guns. A snarling barrier, protecting the vital location from outside threats.
Within the station, masses of workers toiled. They were humanoid, tall, their skin a pale grey. Each wore a metal ring around their eyes that controlled what they could see, protecting valuable secrets. They wore tattered rags, each a pale blue, the backs emblazoned with strange alien icons. The members of the crowd each carried large metal cylinders, struggling under their weight. Above on floating platforms, strange creatures supervised them. They rumbled as they moved, odd stone golems watching their charges.