Chapter 579

The Alien Ship

The First Officer and the primary bridge crew were having a meeting in the First Officer’s quarters.

“Scan is clean. There is no one listening,” the Science Officer said as he put his instrument away.

“How could anyone even get in here to plant anything?” the Chief Engineer wondered aloud before answering his own question. “But we can’t be too careful with our lives at stake.”

The Navigator shifted in his seat. “If we are here to discuss our asshole Captain, then I vote we kill the bastard and jettison the Paladin Commander and every damn member of his crew, then go rogue. If we let the Commander or any of his group live, we’re all dead when we get back to base, anyway,”

“Good point about the Paladin Commander,” the First said with a sigh, “but the meeting was for input to assist my decision about the Captain’s uncertain future. For the moment, let us continue with that topic. So, you vote to terminate the Captain?”

“I do not see where there is another choice.”

“Although I have threatened to kill him myself, I wish to point out that his death sets us on a final course,” the Chief engineer pointed out, “if we are not, by default, already on that course. Do we all vote to go rogue? Killing him assures that, unless we intend going back to Base and throwing ourselves on the High Command’s mercy – which, as we all know, they have none. We would all be dead shortly after.”

“What about you, Third?”

“Whatever you decide, Captain.”

“I am not your Captain – yet, but thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“But you will be as soon as we terminate that asshole that is masquerading as a Captain,” the Third returned. “And besides, just think about the jump in pay we would receive,” he finished with a sarcastic chuckle.

“Yes, there is that massive jump in pay,” the Navigator broke in with a chuckle of his own. “As in nothing, since as soon as the High Command learns of our going rogue, we would not be receiving any pay whatsoever. But I would still rather you were our Captain and not draw any pay, than draw a salary under that asshole in there,” he said while motioning to the adjoining room where the Captain was stashed under a stasis field.

“And what about you, Steward?” the First Officer asked.

“Me? Surely you do not expect me to vote.”

The First frowned. “Your life is at stake just as ours is. Why should you not have a vote? And we have covered this before.”

“But I thought I was here only to provide refreshments,” he quietly said while motioning to the cart.

The First Officer chuckled. “Well, now that you know, how do you vote?”

The Steward sat for a moment, before, “If you actually want my input, I will go along with whatever all of you decide, for if we are not all one hundred percent behind either answer, we are all lost, anyway.”

“Good point. I am behind you, First, whatever you decide,” the Science Officer agreed.

“I as well,” the Navigator responded. “And, Sir, you asked for input. Guess you have our answer.”

“Thank you. I appreciate the confidence you have shown in me,” The First quietly said as he sipped his stim and stared at a bulkhead while he weighed his options. Finally, “I have decided to awaken the Captain. He is fully healed, but as you know, I have continued to keep him unconscious for the last couple of shifts. When I awaken him, I will, of course, have a serious discussion with him while pointing out that his continued existence will be as a figurehead only. His weapon will not be charged, and it will be randomly checked. If any check shows a charge or that there has been one in the weapon recently, I will execute him on the spot. I am allowing him to live because I think the Paladin Commander will still obey him, and ... I am certain that will not be the case with me.

“As you know, when the Captain is brought back to consciousness, to him, it will be as if he were shot only seconds before. Chances are that all he will remember is the pain when he picked up his weapon. Since we, at some point, will probably all die when the High Command tries us, I will have no problem making certain that our Captain,” he sneered out, “dies an excruciatingly painful death should he not follow my orders.

“I intend to allow him to continue with our standard approach to the takeover of this Earth planet. And yes, I still think that a trade approach would work best, but the old method is tried and true. It works, basically, because of our advanced technology. However, I think it is wasteful, and I have a strong feeling that it will not work well with this planet and its peoples, simply because the beings there, as a whole, are far too aggressive. I worry that once they are attacked, they will resist for as long as any of them are alive to do so.

“Our race has encountered other races that we had to practically wipe from their planets to overcome them, and I fully expect this to be the case with this Earth. When that happened, it was many cycles of the planet around its star before our race even began to enjoy the meagerest of profits. The Captain will receive his finder’s bonus upon our notifying the High Command of a viable planet and its submission. The rest of us, however, will have to wait until the planet shows a profit before receiving our bonuses. I feel that the submission of these Earth beings will be a long time in coming. The Earthlings all seem to be warlike – they continually fight among themselves – so why would we expect them to respond differently to an outside threat?

“If we do not have to destroy too much of the infrastructure of a seized planet, our method generally works. Again, I am trying to choose a route where we will live in the end. The Paladin Commander and his crews are ready to attack the planet, and he has already rebuffed my trade suggestion and called me weak-minded and a coward. If everything goes according to our standard takeover plan, we might yet ‘convince’ the Captain to refrain from mentioning any problems he has had with any of us. At this point, let us just say that I have access to technology that might keep him from discussing anything of that nature when we return home.

“Besides, the High Command will pay little attention to details when, and if, the profits from this Earth come pouring in.”

“Sir?” the Third Officer spoke up. When the First Officer nodded for him to go on, “We have faith in you because you always seem to have another option and another plan waiting in case things go bad. But I did some digging in some old articles. Did you know that the Captain has a relative on the High Command?”

“You are serious?”

“Afraid I am.”

The First sighed. “If you cannot get rank by ability, then kill someone. If that doesn’t work, then make sure that you have a relative in the High Command,” he groused out.

The First caught each of the bridge crew’s eyes in turn. “Then, we’re agreed that I will wake the Captain under the circumstances that I have outlined. If you do not agree, now is the time to voice it.”

The Science Officer frowned. “As long as he fully understands that he will be only a figurehead and that you are the real authority. Also, that we accept orders only from you and your designated chain of command.”

The First came to his feet, as did the others. “Affirmative. Any other comments?”

When they all just stood looking at him, he said, “Meeting adjourned. Those who wish to stay when I awaken our esteemed Captain are welcome.”

The Third Officer chuckled when no one made a move to leave. “He may as well realize from the outset that we are all in this together.”

“Excellent,” the First said. “Come with me then.”

A few micro-cycles later, they all stood watching as the First turned the stasis field off. After blinking his eyes, the Captain suddenly jerked and stirred. Eventually, his eyes seemed to focus, and he gasped as he, remembering, stared at his arm, obviously having difficulty believing that he was alive and the arm was complete again.

The First nudged the Captain’s foot to get his attention.

“Yes, I had you healed, and the system even managed to keep you from bleeding out due to your missing right arm and shoulder – well, I suppose it was the stasis field that actually stopped the bleeding while the system began healing you. A truly marvelous piece of equipment, do you not think? Too bad we had to waste that much energy on the likes of you, though,” he growled out.

The Captain, surprising all of them, let out a curse and began to sit up, only to see the First’s weapon magically appear directly in front of his face.

“Oh, shit, First. He has not learned a thing. Just kill him, and we’ll space the body,” the Navigator growled out. “And please take his head off this time. I hate looking at that sneer he always adopts.”

The Captain, ignoring the Navigator’s comments, hesitantly looked around him. “Then it was not a dream after all?” he questioned uncertainly, obviously now remembering more.

The Third Officer snapped out, “You bastard. You tried to kill the First – tried to shoot him in the back. But he was still faster, although he must have fired at the threat, which, unfortunately, was your weapon. Too bad that you did not have it in front of your body, since the beam only took off a major part of your arm and the top half of your shoulder. I was happily watching you bleed out when the First decided to save your sorry ass. I can not imagine why.“

Reality had finally set in for the Captain, and consequently, he turned an interesting shade of green. “If you throw up, you will clean it up,” the Steward said with newfound courage.

“I did not give you leave to speak,” the Captain snarled out a moment before the barrel of the First Officer’s weapon viciously split the Captain’s scalp open and put him back out.

As the Captain slumped back on the stretcher to the accompanying cheering from the others, led primarily by the Steward, the First Officer turned the healing system on again. “Sorry about that,” he told the others as they frowned at him for beginning to save the asshole again.

“I just wish you had hit him harder,” the Science Officer said as he checked the readouts on the healing system. “The bastard is going to live, but that was one hell of a blow. If the asshole’s skull were not so thick, there would be brains running out his ears.”

The Steward was just standing there. “Sir, I find it hard to believe that you hit the Captain over something he said to me. I do not even know what to say.”

“You are just as much a part of this crew as any of us, and I will not have that asshole,” he said while waving his weapon at the collapsed Captain, “admonishing you. And besides, he will have to learn his new position eventually. Now is as good a time as any to start his training. All of this is probably a waste of time, anyway, because he seems to have proven yet again that he has learned nothing. Chances are that he never will, and he will wind up dead in a few shifts.”