09: Scheming and Plotting

III: Heading to the Front

The opposite for courage is not cowardice, It is conformity.
Even a dead fish can go with the flow.

Jim Hightower

Fortune favors the audacious.

Desiderius Erasmus

“So are you ready to get underway?” Captain Yitzl asked.

“You’d better believe it,” Al said, approaching his post. “While normally preparing to ship out takes a while, according to my engineers, the amount of last minute repairs required was phenomenal.”

“Not actually. We weren’t heavily damaged. It was mostly normal wear and tear. However, with so little manufacturing of parts taking place, we constantly have to cannibalize one ship to keep the others operating.”

“That’s what I was led to believe, but could you explain what’s happened to the entire shipbuilding and manufacturing capacities of the empire, which led to such drastic steps?”

“Well, as you can imagine, the manpower shortages following hundreds of years of prolonged combat leave few behind to work in the factories, building new parts.”

“I understand that, but wouldn’t every available body be constructing the supplies needed to keep your fleet active? If the fleet fails, there’s nothing stopping the entire Zssizliq armada from invading Tandor itself.”

“Well, there are some remaining manufacturing facilities, but their limited capacities mean the prices are exorbitant. They’re not within the budget of ships not likely to last long, anyway.” Yitzl glanced around, observing who might overhear him. “The top of the line starships grab whatever’s available, but most of the active production is focused elsewhere.”

“With no other world as vital to the war as Tandor, I can only imagine you’re referring to Tandora,” Al guessed.

“Shh! Don’t say that out loud. It’s one thing to allude to it. It’s another making accusations.”

“But that is where the available manpower and construction is going?” Al pressed. “What could they possibly be doing with it?”

“I’m not making any baseless claims, but a single luxury liner costs more than every ship that’s berthed on Tandor in the last decade.”

“Really?” Al asked, arching a brow—though he wasn’t sure the captain understood the significance of such a human response. “I take it they have a few?”

“More than a few,” Officer Lanshalk said, turning from his monitoring of the various shipboard energy requirements. “They’re continually trying to outdo one another with how many they can amass, each bigger than the other.”

Yitzl spun on the junior officer. “You know better than to say something like that. You could get us all charged with conspiracy!”

“Changing back to the original topic,” Groxxl, one of the Bridge’s sensor operators said, “your crew has done an amazing job. While we suspected you were yet another official living high off the hog while the rest of us labor in silence, your team has done astounding work getting us ready to leave. We’re way ahead of schedule.”

“We certainly are,” Yitzl confirmed, glad for the reprieve. “Your human repair personnel have put in long hours, above and beyond their normal duty tours, and kindly tell them I appreciate the extra effort. I’m allocating additional food rations for your people.”

“Please,” Al protested. “We aren’t doing it for ourselves, but for the betterment of everyone on board. If you want to do something, do it for everyone, otherwise it’s not worth the effort. After all, a hungry crew isn’t as likely to accomplish much.”

“Still, since we left Tandor, they’ve been pulling extra shifts, fixing loose ends on the exterior of the ship, as well as tidying up the sloppy construction inside.”

“It’s the same thing we’ve all been doing,” Zita replied from her post at the bridge’s communications. “We’re used to working hard. On our flight to Tandor, we had only a skeleton crew, and there wasn’t anyone to split shifts with.”

“And from what I understand from the gossip floating around, you also reached here in record time.”

“Yeah, though the rest of our crew was in decent shape, I was so tired, I could barely function.”

“And yet, you managed to best the senior Inquisitor and impress the Central Command. Somehow, I doubt you were that incapacitated.”

Al shrugged. “When you’re fighting for survival, you do what you need to.”

Yitzl indicated the various hodge-podge construction jobs littering the bridge. “Yet it doesn’t stop most of us from just doing the minimal work required to get by.”

“When you have some time, ask me about my theories about the war effort,” Al suggested. “From the short time we’ve been here, we’ve pieced together what accounts for many of the fleet’s failures in this prolonged conflict.”

Yitzl laughed. “Now that you can say. It’s no secret we haven’t won a decisive victory in some time, only managing to hold our own against repeated attacks.”

“Please, don’t get him started,” Betty said, operating the bridge’s navigation system. Since the humans were so particular about working together, and threatened a disruption in their performance if separated from their small team, they held a disproportionate amount of the bridge positions. “He’ll talk your ear off about how to increase the entire fleet’s effectiveness!”

“Well, your people have almost bested the efforts of the rest of my crew, so I’m eager to hear your ideas—as long as they don’t compromise our security.”

“Come speak with us later in our quarters and we’ll ensure you don’t have to worry about it,” Al offered, without specifying to what he was specifically referring. Yitzl’s head jerked back, causing his skin to change several color shades in surprise. “In that case, I’ll definitely find the time to hear you out. But we’re finally past the heliosphere, so we’re ready to begin the faster-than-light phase of our journey.”

“Good, I’m eager to get this voyage underway.” Al concentrated a moment, before waving his hand. “We need to jog our planned trajectory to port three at positive two by five vils.”

“Five vils? That’s quite a delay!”

“It can’t be helped. After all, you don’t want to plunge headlong into something you didn’t plan on, do you.”

“Wait up,” another officer objected. “I haven’t achieved the record speed over distance traveled that you have, but I don’t sense any impediments to our normal route.”

Betty and Zita froze, holding their breaths, afraid to speak and potentially undermine Al’s position.

“Excuse me,” Al said, sensing a potential problem with others undermining him. “Who are you?”

“Sorry,” Captain Yitzl said. “This is Albrechzkl. He’s your second.”

“I was led to understand there weren’t enough Intuits to man the ships you have. How do we rate two?”

Yitzl shrugged. “This has turned into a high-priority mission. Beyond that, Albrechzkl isn’t a full-time Intuit. He normally works in propulsions, as his natural abilities directed him elsewhere. But it was decided by the military high command that you needed an apprentice, learning your techniques so we can spread your advanced skills throughout the fleet. Even though he’s not up to your standards, and can’t approach your prolonged speeds, he’ll allow us to travel faster than light during your off hours.”

Al frowned, not having anticipated someone questioning his actions. “Well, Albrechzkl, the conflict isn’t an immediate risk of collision. Instead, it’s a slight widespread anomaly that will affect the integrity of our journey.”

“Okay, now I’m intrigued too,” Yitzl said. “What sort of anomaly are we dealing with? And if there’s no risk of collision, then what’s the danger we’re facing.”

Al sighed, pausing before speaking. “That’s part of what I was getting at before. The reason we humans have done so well since arriving, is because of the conflicted nature of your Tandorian aids. We never knew it was unusual, but we have the ability to turn off our aids at will. Not only does this prevent them from countermanding us, it also produces a higher efficiency. Rather than allowing our aids to focus on thousands of different functions, we prioritize the tasks they perform. When we’re off duty, we leave most of them running as needed, seeing as we don’t know which will be required. But part of my previous performance was because, by shutting down those alternate tasks, my aids detect more detail than other Intuits.

“This anomaly, while threatening no widespread calamity, stands to substantially delay our journey.”

“And yet you risk taking us five vils out of our primary path, for several hours duration. Traveling multiple times the speed of light, that’ll take us way expected path. What ‘minor inconvenience’ warrants so much of a disturbance?”

“Instead of a standard obstruction, like colliding with a small comet barreling towards us, I’m detecting a gravitational wave. That will not only affect our overall speed, but also our navigation, causing us to accelerate in a new, unanticipated direction. Which will require additional time to identify and correct. Thus the diversion, while unfortunate, will be much less severe than we’ll face otherwise.”

“Are you serious?” Albrechzkl asked. “That’s ... phenomenal. There have been occasional reports of gravitational wave disturbances, but we’ve never been able to predict them before.”

“Again, it’s all a matter of focus. Your aids, while helping a great deal, constrain the very abilities they augment. Just as they provide additional security, they also rob everyone of the freedom to try new ideas and change the steady progression towards a predetermined destiny.”

“Damn, it sounds like that’s not something you can teach others without those innate capabilities.”

“You’d be surprised,” Al said, glancing at Captain Yitzl. “If you don’t accept your limitations, you can often accomplish what was previously seen as impossible.”

The two enlisted men watched as Lamar and Mui entered the ship’s external lock, suiting up for an extravehicular repair activities.

“Are you sure it’s wise letting them do your work for you?” Takkrtr asked. “Weren’t you against everything they stood for?”

“I sure was. A bunch of newbies, forcing themselves on us as the high-command sends us on a new death mission to prove some abstract point, while these ‘humans’ can’t grasp basic Tandorian concepts. I wouldn’t mind blowing them out of that airlock.”

“So why are you allowing them to do your work, making you look bad?” Takkrtr repeated.

“Hey, who am I to complain if they offer to do my job for me? They run the risk of screwing up, while I gain the credit for their efforts.”

“But again, won’t your supervisor know the work was performed by someone else?”

“The stupid humans aren’t claiming credit for the project. For some unknown reason, they’re taking over any assignments any of the regular staff don’t want, in addition to completing their own tasks.”

“And that doesn’t sound odd to you? After all, if they screw up, due to inexperience, you’ll be blamed, while if they do a phenomenal job, you’ll look bad.”

As Lamar and Mui exited the air lock, heading to a position too far away to observe, the two ‘men’ turned and walked away, still discussing the trade-off of services.

“It’s not so dire. As I said, they aren’t taking credit for the extra work. They’re doing a tremendous job, meaning I get to sit back and take it easy. Even if the shift supervisor notices someone else is performing the assignments, as long as the work gets done, they’re unlikely to question who did it. The humans aren’t filing their hours or requesting extra supplies, they’re doing it all on their own time, so nothing can be traced back to them.”

“But again, the work the humans are performing is—while not making them any more popular—making the rest of us look bad. Hell, they’re accomplishing a lot more than all of us ‘old-timers’ are, working double, triple and quadruple shifts, and supposedly doing, as you say, a ‘tremendous job’. Sooner or later, someone’s going to ask why they need us.”

Brrackkr waved his paw at his pal. “If they want to burn themselves out, I say let them. All it takes is one slip up outside the ship—or our not backing them during combat—and we’ll never have to deal with them again. What’s more, if they have an accident, it’ll make them look like fools for trying to accomplish more than they can handle. And in the meantime, they make us look like star performers for accomplishing all our tasks in record time.”