CIC Gold Wing Special Standing Protocols
Re: Betelar Federal Colony
Council expects no issues from Betelar authorities, but the problems could arise unexpectedly given the length of time without significant contact. Fascist influence could be in place and we might not know it. Be smart about who official contact is made with when beginning negotiations.
Re: Skygaard Independent Fleet
Council believes Skygaard will be the most likely to cooperate given the ideological leanings. The only complication being the nature of any agreement and a perceived sense of being given the short end of the stick on the part of the more sensitive partisans in the Skygaard arbiters.
Re: Mantonian Planetary Authority
The Authority on Mantos will be the most difficult to approach, and war will not be an acceptable outcome, but Council reminds the flotillas that overly-generous concessions will not be accepted either.
Appeal to Terran unity as a core issue, but make it clear that we do not accept threats as a matter of course.
Director Andre Yakovich will be providing reports to the Council regularly, and will be expecting direct communication regarding new developments in the course of negotiations. Yakovich is given special authority by the Council to accept or deny terms on behalf of the Council and will be transmitting any agreements that may be reached to the Council for adoption. When Director Yakovich is off-duty, Assistant Director Prim Shackleton will take messages and send approved communiques.
Max
“We’re ready,” Parker shouted from down the central corridor, his voice reverberating off the metal bulkheads. “She’s good as new!”
“Awesome, thank you, Mr. Burnham,” I shout back.
Turning around to face the twin viewscreens at the fore of the ship, showing the three other ships in our Betel-bound flotilla, alongside the brown and patchy-green world of Carina below.
I pull the tiny, metallic microphone on my headset closer to my mouth. “This is Captain Max Gomez-Velasco calling the Betel Flotilla, Gold Wing. Come in.”
A few moments pass and the calls of captains and officers of the other ships filter in, taking care not to step on each other’s transmissions. The Mozambique, the Ceres, and the Endeavor float silently, berths attached to their docks, in a neat row next to the Verdant.
On the transponder screen, the signals of eight other ships, four of each to both Skygaard and Mantos, share the station.
I look to my right, Sophie sits right next to me on a similar chair, her screens tuned to engineering and communications information. “Only waiting on Rosa and we can go early,” I say.
“Where is she?”
“Gathering her luggage.”
Sophie chuckles. “Rookie mistake.”
“Heh, yeah,” I laugh. “I’ve done it before.”
“Of course you have.”
“It’s not that bad,” Parker yells from down the corridor, walking up to the bridge. “She could’ve forgotten until after we left.”
“Okay, I’ve done that before,” Sophie says.
“She’ll be back before long,” I say.
Rosa
The rail-shuttle ride from my apartment back to the spaceport was longer than my first trip. It felt like time dilated physically in the car I was riding in. Two rows in front of me sat an elderly man, looking at something on his commpad. Four or five rows behind me were two teenagers leaning on one another, half asleep. In my mind sat Captain Gomez-Velasco and Vice-Captain Paradiso, staring at me accusingly. They are right to do so. I shouldn’t be here, I should be wherever Earth is, whatever the void after nonexistence is.
Living here, seeing the people, watching the star Carina rise and fall every day, bright red over the newly-terraformed sky, changed something. The Enemy weren’t dangerous. The Enemy wasn’t the cause of the Scream.
As I remember every fact about my situation, I feel my stomach drop into free fall. The only thing suspending it is some hidden conviction in the deepest recesses of my mind. Some part I can’t access, some part screaming to complete the mission. It understands that I’d get attached to a place I’ve lived in for over two decades. It understands that being a part of the community was always a risk to morale. That’s what they drilled into me at training. Deep cover requires impeccable mental fortitude, a strong sense of detachment, a deep dedication to the mission.
The mission.
Climb CIC ranks. Become indispensable. Remain committed.
The final briefing still rings in my head, the round conference room and the blinding florescent lights, the shape of the Jovian clouds out the window, seeing Jovia hanging by a thread over the infinitely deep cloud ocean of a gas giant; its emergency thrusters at full power while evac shuttles scatter into orbit like birds fleeing a falling tree.
The first step was a long fall.
That’s what she always said, our mission would begin with an attack on the floating city of Jovia. Tens of thousands of people scattered into that gusty wind were tens of thousands of people that couldn’t oppose the Militia.
The Terran government is weak and they don’t even know it, but the opposition is aware of us and still dangerous, she said.
The shuttle chimes. The old man stands up and slowly shuffles off the rail-shuttle into a park, greener than any I’ve ever seen, even on Earth. Acceleration pushes me back into my seat as it disappears behind buildings overtaking one another in the parallax.
The nations of Old Earth never expected their own downfall, but they did walk blindly into it. That’s when Earth became Terra, when The Sun became Sol.
Andromeda was her name. Her parents were always poetic and obsessed with old schlocky science fiction, when humanity dreamed of what we have now. Obsessed with the time when, even after having its spirits broken by the Ten Minute War, killing hundreds of millions in the course of a day while still only dipping its toe tentatively into the murky black of the galaxy, Humanity dreamed of something large, something beautiful.
The rail-shuttle pulled to a stop in front of a university, and the two lovers quickly sauntered onto the awaiting platform. And just like that, I was left alone. I breathe a sigh of relief.
I expect nothing of Terra, I expect everything from myself. I expect the same of you.
Andromeda espoused the idea that the most important thing in the world was devotion to Terra. We could have a family, in service of Terra. We could have a hobby, in the service of bettering Terra. Anything else was wasteful extravagance, wasteful energy, wasteful devotion. Nothing meant anything unless it was meant exclusively for Terra.
Is that why she ordered its destruction? I ask myself. Some invisible force in my head self-polices my thoughts. It was necessary. It was right. It was for Terra.
Our allies on Mantos maintain devotion to Terra. The other colonies abandon their birthplace. They abandon their birthmother. They don’t deserve her.
The rail-shuttle approaches a junction. Clanking, clattering, thumping, the chassis of the vehicle rotates onto a vertical rail shooting straight up, and begins to accelerate upwards. Through the window over my head, the spaceport grows closer, built on skeleton-like scaffolding two kilometers above the rolling hills that shape New Luksemburg.
Their departure from Sol is not the problem. We must expand or die, but their devotion fails when they build new experiments of society among alien stars, on alien worlds. Abandoning the lessons millions of years of evolution has ingrained into our minds will lead them down the road of hubris, and like it or not, we have a duty to our fellow Man to guide them down the right path.
We must save them.
We’re saving them from themselves, from their hubris, from the destruction that their cosmic hubris will enact.
It’s the only way to secure the future.
