Chapter 4

She looked into my eyes and said, “I will not do anything to harm you, so you can release me, it will be necessary if I am to make the pledge.”

I nodded and released her, standing up slowly, keeping myself ready for if she would launch another attack. No attack came as she took a knee and bowed her head. Tali appeared next to her, with a serious look on her face, that I had not seen since we had met.

“Do you, Vish’ala Ironclaw, pledge to serve, honour and obey the word of your charge?” Tali asked, her eyes not leaving mine.

Softly Vish’ala nodded and answered, “I do so swear.” there was a sound of trepidation in her voice as she answered.

Tali continued, “Do you pledge to do your best to honour your charge’s house with your actions, words and thoughts?”

With more conviction, she raised her head and locked eyes with mine as she answered with another nod, “I do so swear.”

With a slight, smug smile on her face, Tali asked, “Do you pledge to protect your charge and those in his house with your very life?”

With her head held high and steel in her voice, Vish’ala nodded a third time and answered, “I do so swear.”

Tali then turned her focus to me, “Do you, Hugh Stargazer, Captain of the Mac’skarian Empire, accept this pledge of service? Do you accept, knowing that it will only end with your death or hers? Do you accept all the responsibilities that come with this pledge?”

Taking a deep breath I answered, “I do accept this pledge in the spirit in which it is given. I will do my best to honour the choice you have made with my own actions. I will endeavour to make sure you will never regret the choice you have made today, and to honour the responsibility you have bestowed upon me.”

Vish’ala looked up at me and for the first time smiled, as Tali appeared beside me. Vish’ala slowly stood at attention and made a sweeping motion with her left arm, then racked her claws outward. She laughed at the apparent confusion that appeared on my face from the gesture that she made.

Tali leaned over and whispered into my ear, “that is the Mac’skarian version of what you humans would call a salute”

I returned the salute with the human version, which Vish’ala thought was interesting. She spent a few minutes trying to do it herself, even Tali got in on it, though she got it right on the first try.

Vish’ala bowed her head slightly, “I will do my best to ensure you don’t regret the decision we both made today. Hopefully I can earn your trust, and you will never have to doubt you made the right choice in accepting my oath. I do apologize for my initial behaviour and outburst.”

Vish’ala beamed at that, and I found myself wanting to see that as often as possible. I shook my head quickly, trying to get those thoughts out of my head. It wasn’t conducive for what needed to be done at the moment and she was now not only my charge, but I was her commanding officer.

I turned to our translucent shipmate and asked, “Tali, please give a status report on ship repairs and our ETA to the outpost?”

“Repairs to the inertial dampeners have been completed, sir,” Tali answered with a display appearing in her opened hand. “They have been set to ninety percent of their full capabilities. This allows the pilot to still feel the movement of the ship and the academy found this setting to give a better reaction time with vessels such as these. The estimated time of arrival to the outpost is three hours, twenty-six minutes, by earth standards.”

I nodded and turned to Vish’ala, “Very well. Vish’ala, please assist Tali where it is needed. If there is nothing, she needs your help with, please take a moment to go to your quarters and rest.

“Tali, please have all pertinent information about the ship, Mac’skarian customs as well as any other information you feel I will need to know before we arrive. I know I can only get so much done before we get to the outpost, so please mark them in order of priority. That way, I don’t waste any of the time I have. I would like to be notified when we are at the last fifteen minutes out. I’d like to be on the bridge when we return to normal space.”

Both responded with, “Yes, captain!”, followed by a human salute that did make both of them begin to laugh again.

I shook my head, returned the salute, and made my way to my quarters. When I arrived, I found the computer console up and running with the first of the files I asked for ready to start. I went over to my bed and found the protein bars I had kept from my remaining items I had when I first woke up. I placed the old clothes into the receptacle as I was asked and broke them down before I sat down and began the arduous task of learning how to be a Mac’skarian Captain. Thanks to the upgrades that had been done to my brain, I was able to read, process and integrate the new information much faster than I had expected. In the nearly three hours that I had been going through the files, I had managed to get through about four thousand, five hundred and fifty-two pages of information. I had expected to honestly get through a third of that in this amount of time and was starting to enjoy the new perks of these so-called upgrades to my body. The information I had read up on consisted of rules and regulations, a history of their empire, information about their interactions with other species and the schematics for this vessel.

My head hurt, both from the amount of information I had processed in such a short time, as well as from looking at that small screen for three solid hours. The task proved fruitful as I was now far more prepared to take on the role of Captain of this vessel. This ship was an aptly named Comet class scouting vessel. I had an optimal crew complement of ten officers, and the ship’s core was paired with a mid-range AI unit. The ship was armed with Class Three shielding and weapons, enough to help it get away if attacked, but it would do little against a larger, capital ship. The outer hull was designed to look like a piece of rock debris, and, in scouting mode, it wouldn’t give any hint that it was anything but debris. Hell, I had been tricked when I first came across it, given that I had thought it was an extremely large chunk of obsidian. The Comet class were usually tasked to sit outside of a planet’s scannable range and provide surveillance on new worlds or possible threats. That is why this class of vessel had the most state-of-the-art sensor relay system of any ship in their fleet.

The hull was of a strong composite they called faristeel, that had been strictly designed for these ships. The development process was responsible for the dark colour of the metal composite, making it matte black. The metal could absorb some heat from plasma and laser blasts, as well as some level of projectile impacts. That was proven true as the ship had survived whatever attack it had received and came out relatively intact. It was the failure of the inertial dampeners that led to the damage that spelled the end for this ship’s crew. If there had been damage to the ship’s hull from the attack and crash, I was sure Tali had repaired it prior to me finding the ship. The engines were capable of both subspace and hyperspace travel, though I was still reading up on this. Apparently, travelling in hyperspace was much like what was imagined in the science fiction television show Babylon Five. The ship opened a path or tear into hyperspace, which allowed it to travel great distances a fraction of the time. They would then have to open another tear before exiting at a predetermined jump point back into normal space. However, there were no jump gates, like on the show, even a vessel as small as this scout ship was capable of entering and exiting hyperspace.

Each system in the Mac’skarian Empire had a hyperspace marker that allowed their ships to find and exit hyperspace at the proper location outside of the system. From the telemetry reports I got from Tali from her long-range scans when we had entered hyperspace, thirty percent of those markers seemed to be, including the core worlds, completely cut off from the network. This was no doubt to prevent the enemy who had attacked them so ruthlessly from easily attacking the core of their empire. But it could have been done to ensure that no reinforcements could come to help protect the worlds from the enemy’s assault. Hopefully it was the former, meaning there was something to return this ship to. I hoped that the loss of the markers had proven fruitful in their defense and allowed them to endure the attack. We would not know until we arrived at the outpost and gauged how things had fared there before we could even speculate on how the core worlds would be.

I was lost in thought when Tali suddenly appeared beside me to let me know we were soon going to arrive at the outpost. I had been so immersed in what I was reading that I had tuned out everything around me. I wasn’t concerned about how much time reading everything was going to take, only to get as much done as I could, because I had to be ready for what would be waiting for us.

Tali smiled and said, “Captain, we will be coming out of hyperspace in the next twenty minutes. I took the liberty of arriving a little earlier than requested so that you may be able to eat something before we arrive. We don’t know how long it could be before you have a chance to eat once we arrive and crew member Vish’ala is taking the time to grab a meal as well.”

“Very well, thank you Tali,” I replied with a nod. “Please have meal three-alpha-two prepared for me. Meat medium rare, and some clava juice to go with it please.”

With a quick smile and bow, Tali disappeared and, with a flash of light from the food dispenser, my meal was ready. Remembering that there was a table in the common area shared by my quarters and the crew quarters, I grabbed my meal and headed out to join Vish’ala. As I left my quarters, she was doing the same from hers. She greeted me with a nod and tentative smile, before moving to sit at the table. I took a seat across from her, as I placed my meal down on the table. My plate contained the well-seasoned steak of a Ch’iltor, a large mammalian creature that was an herbivore and docile in nature. The creature was found on a planet on the outer rim of the Mac’skarian empire around seven hundred years ago. The region in which they had lived, had been closed off from predators, allowing the creatures to thrive. Their meat was found to be both flavorful and succulent when prepared in various ways.

The marbling of their fat was much like the Wagyu beef on earth, only there were even higher concentrations of it. Before the food replicator technology had been made a part of Mac’skarian lives, they would only collect a handful of animals each year. They didn’t want to run the risk of the animals dying off. The main council set up strict guidelines and harsh penalties for any who disobeyed the mandate. I could only imagine what the steak of a fresh Ch’iltor would taste like. The meat was tender and the spices that had been used only amplified the taste as it melted in my mouth. The greens that accompanied it gave a subtle but welcome contrast to the meat and served to create an enriching complete meal. I had been surprised when I had learned that the Mac’skarians had evolved to become omnivores, given the mostly carnivorous nature of felines on my world. The meal was beyond my expectations, and I looked forward to sampling more exotic meals in the future.

As I was enjoying a morsel of my steak, I looked over at what Vish’ala had picked for her meal. It looked to be a stew of some kind, with hints of various earthy spices and herbs. It reminded me of some of the meals my grandmother used to make when I visited her as a child. I had half expected her to lap up the soup, much like an Earth cat would drink water or milk, but she used a spoon to collect her soup. It was cute trying to watch her not get too much of the liquid on the fur near her mouth. In one or two instances where it did spill, I noticed her eyes glance my way, but I hopefully moved my focus away before she realized that I had been looking at her. I continued to eat my meal, well aware of the awkward silence that was filling the room.

Wanting to break the growing tension I asked, “How is your soup Vish’ala? Based on the smell I would assume it is rather good.”

She nodded and replied, “It is, sir. I had it programmed into the replicator system before we left on our mission. It was my mother’s recipe and one of my favourite meals growing up.”

She got a sad look on her face, no doubt from the memories she had triggered, and the realization that her mother was now long gone.

“I am sorry Vish’ala” I said, placing my utensils down. “I had hoped to break the silence with a harmless question, but instead I had brought troubling thoughts and memories to your mind.”

She shook her head, “No, it’s ok, sir. You didn’t intend to make me sad, so I thank you for trying. It will take some time for me to acclimate to the fact that everyone I ever knew, save for Tali, is dead and has been for centuries.”

I nodded, returning to my steak, and kicking myself for messing up like that. We finished our meal in silence, placing the dishes and cups into the replicator to be broken down before heading to the bridge. As we entered, Tali was standing on the bridge, next to my chair. I took my seat, and Vish’ala took her post as pilot directly in front of me.

“We will be dropping out of hyperspace in a few minutes, Captain,” Tali announced. “Inertial dampeners are working at peak efficiency, so you should not feel any discomfort this time when we exit hyperspace.”

I nodded, “Vish’ala, please set a course for the outpost as soon as we return to normal space. Tali, set all systems to scout mode and have defense systems on standby. Though this is supposed to be a friendly system, we have no idea what we are about to walk into, I don’t want to be caught with our pants down.”

Vish’ala turned and looked at me quizzically, which resulted in Tali and myself laughing at her obvious confusion.

“It is an earth saying,” I explained as my laughter died down. “It means ending up in a situation unprepared. We have no guarantee that they will be welcoming to us, and there is no way we can know that the outpost is still under the control of the Mac’skarians.”

Vish’ala nodded and turned back towards her console, the display screen lit up and we could see the green turbulence of hyperspace. Offset from the static green of the screen was a countdown of Mac’skarian in the upper left corner. Once the counter reached zero, the hum of the engines changed and the view in front of us began to spin, as we began to create an exit from hyperspace. The turbulence spun clockwise, increasing in speed, looking like a top-down view into a hurricane or tornado. Soon we could see the blackness of space before us as we left the tunnel that the engines had formed. A holo-display of the system appeared before me showing our position relative to the marked position of the outpost. We were sitting a few hundred thousand kilometres from the outpost, which was orbiting the system’s resident gas giant. Based on the orbital patterns, it looked like this was one of two planets, and the outermost one. A ring of asteroids separated the gas giant from the other one, which looked to be another gaseous planet as well.

Rubbing my chin, I asked, “Status report, Tali. How are our systems looking post hyperspace and what can the sensors pick up from both the system and the outpost?”