Chapter Text
Part One; Trust
“The reason the Zhrau have been taking us by surprise is because we have allowed them to hold the initiative.”
“Ed, there is more to it than that. For more than a year and a half now, Phaing has been taking us off guard and she isn’t even trying most of the time! I’ll remind you of what they taught us at the academy; the most important thing to remember about Aliens is they are ALIEN… not us. I think that what keeps throwing us off is the Zhrau are the only non-humans that are not bending over backwards to accommodate Human expectations!” Captain Ed Mercer arched an eyebrow at her. “Alright, aliens that we are not at war with, not counting Isaac of course.”
They were speaking in her office, not Mercer’s own, which would be the first place a nosy Admiral would hail if they were looking for yet another update. The situation was not an emergency, yet, but it was extremely delicate. A Zhrau ship had left Earth in such a hurry that it had not even asked clearance, and it’s course was an arc that took it through the least densely populated and patrolled parts of the Union, an arc that would take it to Zhrau space the back way, in a manner of speaking. This would not raise too many alarms were it not for a late-breaking item; all of the Zhrau members of an archeological expedition had also disappeared at the same time, leaving most of their equipment behind and taking some large and bulky ‘finds’ with them.
By some cosmic joke, the Orville was one of the few Union ships in position to intercept the Zhrau.
“I’m not talking about culture or personality quirks… maybe I should… but this is more like Galatic Policy. We were so relieved when they handed that Data Core back to us that we have made allowances for them that we would not allow for anyone else trying to enter the Union.” Ed was pacing around near the window, his ex-wife standing at the other side of the room. She was not there out of any discomfort with his presence, but rather to give him room to move and gesture with his restless arms. Her office was smaller than the Captain’s office, and while he was in there it was a matter of courtesy that nobody sit while the Captain remained standing.
Or in this case, prowling around like a caged Gorilla.
“We make allowances for Phaing, and the benefits have been-“
“A mixed blessing, even you have to admit that!” Mercer cut his executive officer off with words and with both hands making chopping gestures. “Remember the time she yawned in the face of the Vorkutan ambassador? And just last month she threatened to turn a cannon on those Shore Police in Florida!”
“Oh, they had it coming! The-“
“That is not the POINT!” Mercer happened to be looking out of the window, so Kelly was able to pretend that he was shouting at the stars. any ‘useful fiction’ helped to avoid a fight on a day like this. Ed’s voice was already fading from a shout to a hoarse mutter as he went on; “This time we have Zhrau smuggling something out of Earth itself. They are committing a crime, or it might even be espionage this time. The point is… can we trust her?”
It was a question that needed to be answered quickly. Unless it had changed its speed, the Zhrau smugglers would be passing through the area the Orville was covering very soon.
Kelly leaned on her desk and thought about it for a moment, a brief one, before nodding her head. “Yes, I think so.”
“Why?”
“Phaing has not received any messages from Erriau since before that ship left Earth.” She nodded at the sharp look Ed gave her. “Yes, I checked on that, first thing.” Trust, but verify “So unless they can pre-plan an archeological discovery, they have not briefed her before today. And, as it stands, I think you know what her reaction to something like this will be.”
Ed was not giving anything away. “I want to hear what you think.”
“I think she will be upset, ad not with us. Some renegade Zhrau are pulling a stunt that endangers her people’s standing with the Union. Of course she will help us over them.”
Ed raised an eyebrow at Kelly. “That’s awfully simplistic, isn’t it?”
Kelly shrugged at him, letting go of the desk so that she could shrug with her palms out. “Sure it is. This is Phaing we are talking about.”
“I thought you were her friend.”
“I am! But if you had ever heard her going on about….” She stopped and rolled her eyes. “Okay, yeah, I’d better stop there before I start talking like she does! Look at it this way, how would you or I react if a Union ship was doing the same thing?”
Ed blinked, and then nodded. “I’d be curious, but I would also be angry, and in the absence of orders I would do my damndest to stop this before it became something that could disgrace the Union.” He took a deep breath and glanced out the window again. The problem with space was that it was so god-awfully BIG. “I’m not ashamed to admit it, we need a Zhrau to catch a Zhrau.”
Phaing was not angry, she was humiliated. There was also a touch of denial. “This…. really happened? It isn’t some trick, did you get official notification of this from the Fleet?”
“From Headquarters, that ship blew right past them on it’s way out.”
Captain Mercer was briefing Phaing in the hallway just outside the bridge. He set a slow pace, but his feet kept moving to let her know that time was important and that Phaing would be included in Bridge operations for this mission.
“Unbelievable! What a bunch of assholes… no, I’m fine.” She shook her head as Mercer bit his lip, and Phaing brought her fists together under her chin. “Alight then, you gonna let me help, or did HQ have something to say about that too?”
“You want to help us? These are-“
“Idiots is what they are!” Phaing sighed. “Sorry, and really sorry that this happened in the first damned place. What kind of ship is it?”
“I believe it is called the… Avios?”
Phaing was so relieved that the edges of her lips started to curl up in a smile. “Not a Navy ship then.” A heartbeat later she came to a stop, frowning and concerned. “That isn’t the name of a ship, its a type of ship. A Dispatch Sloop, chartered to deliver information packets or other high-priority cargo, the kind that does not take up much room. About 80% of that ship is engineering; propulsion, fuel, buffering. It only has one deck for everything else.”
Fuel? Then Mercer remembered the fatal flaw of Zhrau ships; they used Exotic Matter as a catalyst and burned other sorts of matter instead of using up tiny amounts of Exotic Matter the way the Union ships did. “Sounds fast.”
“It is, and it has the range to make the whole trip in one go.”
“Is it armed?”
Phaing had to think about that, and with a gentle nudge Ed got her headed for the Bridge again. “Maybe. Oh, I remember now; they may have something in detachable pods. You will be able to tell just by looking at the hull, those pods can be jettisoned if they decide they need more speed.”
“More speed? If it is a civilian ship why would it even want anything close to military power? And even if it has that, it can’t go any faster than this ship, can it?”
“You are missing the point; unless we are a lot faster than it is, we will only get one chance to intercept it.” She lowered her voice just as they were on the verge of entering the bridge itself. “Unless your ship had a hidden reserve of speed that I don’t know about, we have to be in the right neighborhood before they get there to have a chance at an interception.”
“I know.” Even if the Orville was a little faster, every light-year away from whatever course the smuggler chose made interception less likely. “That is exactly why I want you at tactical. If we miss our chance then all we can do then is send what we saw on to the next ship. I’m not bragging when I say that they probably won’t have any better chance at this than we did.” Even at Hypervelocity, ships could still turn… a little. A little could mean a lot, given the distance to the next patrol area.
“Right.” They entered the bridge side by side. Phaing blinked and looked at Mercer, grinning she nudged him with her elbow. “Wrong! This is the Orville, luckiest ship in the fleet. We’re the ones that always pull the last-minute save!” She winked and marched towards the tactical station.
Phaing even had a word for Kelly as she swept by; “Commander.”
“Marshall.” Kelly nodded and then glanced at Ed as he took his seat, a lopsided grin on her face. “Did you tell her the rest of it?”
“Bortus is about to show her.” They had both lost track of what phase relations between Bortus and Phaing were on this particular day. They seemed to oscillate between being drinking buddies one week and Glaciers on a collision course the next.
Today seemed a rather chilly day; Phaing marched right past him and stood with her back to his console. “I’m afraid that I have lost track of exactly where we are, can I see a star map on the screen?”
This was also another example of Phaing’s odd ideas about courtesy. The same woman who had a tendency to ignore the concept of personal space also made a point of not hovering over anyone’s shoulder on the bridge. She also had a habit of placing herself so that she could not look directly at the read-outs on the boards nearest her. Nobody was sure if this was her idea of respecting Union secrets or just Phaing’s way of showing that she trusted the crew to know their jobs better than she did. Either way, once Ed Mercer had shown the Admiralty proof that this was how Phaing behaved on the Bridge, the last objections to the Zhrau’s presence on the Orville died away.
She was confused for a moment by the display, there were no stars on the star map. “Is there a problem?”
Mercer winced. “Pull back a bit, Commander.”
The blue-white diamond representing Orville shrank to where it was barely visible, and scattered stars appeared at the upper and lower borders of the rectangular screen. Phaing hissed. “A void? Where are we?”
“Scion’s Rift.” Bortus said with all of his usual warmth.
“Instead of taking a direct path to Erriau, their course arcs just enough to take them through this rift.” Isaac confirmed his navigational data. “At the far end is Zhrau space, seventeen hours away at our own top speed.”
“Why would they do that?” Malloy swung away from the helm, looking around as if someone could give him a good answer. His eyes settled on Phaing. “There is nowhere for them to hide, we could detect them from a light-hour away!”
Phaing sighed and her head dipped forward, but her eyes remained locked on the map. “No kidding…. and guess what? they can detect us from even farther away. Damnit!” Her head turned just far enough for her to look at the Captain and the Commander. “You know why, right?”
Ed nodded, and answered while Kelly slumped in her chair. “I know. We have to burn pretty hard to match velocities. The problem is, our sensors are not as good looking aft, no starship’s sensors are when propulsion is burning that hard. The smuggler will be coming up behind us. Once they spot us, they just alter course, they have plenty of elbow room for that out here. Gordon, there is no place for us to hide, that’s the real problem.”
“Oh.” Malloy settled back into his station. “Damn.”
“Okay, lets get creative here.” Kelly spoke up, tapping on her console until a blue line showed on the map. “That is the smuggler’s most likely course, and we aren’t there yet. So, what if we keep going as fast as we can, and then shut down…. go as dark possible? At the same time we fire off as many probes as we have to, in order to simulate our own engine’s signature.” She held up a hand to cut off Isaac’s objections. “I know, it won’t work for long, and only from a distance, but long-distances are just what we are dealing with! If we have the phony Orville cross the most likely path, the smugglers will avoid it. Most likely, they will cross behind the probes, so they will probably come very close to where we actually are.”
“If anyone can rig something like that up, it’s John.” Malloy grinned.
“Right! We can do it if we have the time, how soon will the Zhrau be here?”
Ed crushed Kelly’s enthusiasm with two sentences. “According to the Admiralty, any time now. It is possible that they have us in sensor range already.”
And there it was; they had been sent on a hopeless mission. The best the Fleet was expecting from the Orville was to set up the next ship in line for success.
Malloy shook his head. “Ah… son of a bitch!”
“You said it.” Kelly crossed her legs, still slumped low in her hair. Her only hope was that Phaing could come up with some sort of trick, a foolish hope as it now appeared. The little Zhrau woman looked frustrated, and was not even looking to Isaac, her usual partner to bounce ideas off of. A long of painful silence passed, and just when Kelly was ready to give up Phaing looked at Ed.
“Wait, why? What makes you so certain that they are so close?”
“Its not me, Phaing. Until it entered this rift, the smuggler was spotted several times. I doubt it will travel exactly along that blue line there, but I also doubt they can go any faster than they already are.”
“Sure.” Phaing rubbed her chin, looking at the map again. “But, what about … slower?”
“What? Why would they do that?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kelly uncross her legs and sit up. “Isn’t that wishful thinking?”
“Maybe.” Phaing walked to the map, leaping up on a ledge so that she could reach it with her hands. “But put yourself in that ship. You do not have many options and you don’t know exactly how many Union ships are in this rift. You have a ship with a known course, no way to hide and nothing but empty space to confuse your pursuers with. Now, imagine this;” Her hands made sweeping gestures, arcs from the stars above and below the rift. “You know ships will come out try to head you off… whoa!” She nearly slipped, but held her perch for a moment. “So, if the enemy is timing it’s moves to head you off, why not slow down so that you can see their energy signatures pass in front of you? The more enemy ships you imagine ahead of you, the more this would work in your favor… up to a point.”
It was so outlandish and counter-intuitive that none of them would have considered it, not without putting themselves in the smuggler's role.
“Malloy, full power, lite ‘em up!” Mercer ordered immediately.
Kelly leapt to her feet. “I’ll be in engineering.”
Phaing just made it back to the floor as the ship surged forward. There was no actual momentum to fight, but the view from a ship moving at high speed had a psychological effect on almost everyone that saw it happening. “Mind if I stick around for the action?”
One of the things Mercer liked about Phaing was how she never took her access to the Bridge for granted. He pointed to the seat next to him that Kelly had just vacated. “I’m sure the Commander won’t mind if you keep it warm for her.”
Sitting carefully, Phaing grinned and leaned back, looking straight up through the round viewport over her head. “Nice view. I like how you people refrain from burying your bridge in the depths of a ship. Sure makes things more… livable.”
“What good is life if it can’t be livable?”