Story Summary: Current sub-plots in the story: Kallae has been released from suicide watch. Cirres is helping search for more survivors. Five more groups of survivors have been found, adding 5 Master Maintenance Chiefs that had led as many as they could to safe areas, and kept them alive until rescue, 18 mechanics, 1 Doctor, and 1 nurse that had been in the tunnels to give annual physicals to the Maintenance Division’s K Sector team, 75 Maintenance crew members, and 354 Maintenance interns to the list of survivors. There are now 2,955 survivors of the accident. (There is one more survivor, but I won’t mention who. I want to write a full chapter about that rescue) It has been 13 days since the disaster that crippled the Morning Star. The search for survivors continues.

Briefing Document, Captain’s Eyes only: Of the eight Origin Species, only the Atan have visited the six known human worlds of the Milky Way Galaxy. Humans, according to the Atan, are a derivative species of the Aiden, whom control an Empire spanning fifty galaxies, though, the six human worlds of the Milky Way Galaxy slipped through the bureaucracy inevitable in such a large Empire and have remained autonomous, and with the assistance of the Atan, formed the Galician Alliance, of which the Atan have provided limited advanced technology. The Captain flipped through the pages, frowning the further into the Brief he got. Most of it was common knowledge taught to school children. The Earth Governments lived in elite communities with little concept of the reality outside their walls. The discovery that Earth was not alone in the Universe hadn’t brought enlightenment, or a better life for the common person, but it had opened colonization for those with the right political connections, or a lot of money, but mostly as a way to get rid of the undesirables Earth didn’t want. He finally got to the end of the Brief and tossed it aside angrily. He stood and stretched, working out some of the soreness from his muscles; two thousand years in a stasis chamber could make a person’s muscles stiff. He’d only been awake for twenty minutes and the fog of sleep still clung to the edges of his mind, he needed some coffee. He glanced down at the Briefing material sent by Earth, but it could wait. His initial urgency to discover the nature of the emergency that woke him had evaporated when he read he’d only been woken because the ship A.I. had spotted an alien spacecraft ten light years away. The Captain did not consider that an emergency, nor should he have been woken for it. The Universe was filled with alien spacecraft, none of which were any of his concern. He left the small alcove that served as a briefing room. The ship didn’t actually have a Bridge, but just several small control panels in various rooms that swung out of the wall for basic functions. And, he wasn’t so much the Captain as he was the senior shareholder with the most stake in the success of the colony, though, not all the colonists were located in this ship. The early attempts at colonization had met with terrible disasters, because the early ships contained all the colonists, all the supplies, and any one accident could cause a complete loss of the colony. The Atan had taught Earth a new way. The Atan believed in colonization done in small steps. This ship, built by the Atan for human colonization, was only the lead ship in a line of drone ships following her, one launched every six months for three years. Each drone ship carried 300 colonists tightly packed in stasis pods among all the supplies; it was an interminably slow process. The Atan believed a species couldn’t evolve properly if it didn’t slither on its belly across the galaxy like an infant not yet having learned to crawl. Their journey to the colony world would take 20,000 years, and even though you didn’t age, you still felt all those years pressing down on you. Honestly, the Captain felt the Atan were holding them back, and that it would be better for Earth if they just went away and left humans to do things the human way. He had seen several Atan sitting in the lobby of Galician Headquarters unmoving for days, and when he asked what they were doing, they replied, ‘There is a chance of rain. We are waiting for a clear sky to walk home under.’ He had wanted to scream at them, ‘So what, you might get wet, you’re damn amphibians, just go home!’ The Captain entered the small Galley and set a small block of ice out to melt. The Atan would love this, sitting and watching a block of ice melt to make coffee. He tossed the ice into a bowl and shoved it into the microwave. Several minutes later, a man entered the galley. “Is the ship on fire?” “Morning, X.O., no, nothing that serious,” replied the Captain staring through the little glass on the front of the microwave. The X.O went to the microwave and pulled the plug out of the wall. “It will be if you keep running 1000 watt appliances. I told you not to bring that thing. Do you have any idea what it’s doing to the power relay?” The Captain glared at the man. “You do realize I’m the Captain, right?” “You can strut around singing that Gilbert and Sullivan song… I am the very model of a modern Major-General… and it won’t be any truer than the worthless little piece of paper in a filing cabinet somewhere on Earth with your name penciled in on the Charter as Captain. If you like, we can have some fancy piping sewed onto your jump suit.” “You’re in a foul mood.” “Yeah, that happens when I wake up 18,000 years early and see a power relay warning light in my stasis chamber flashing. You are Captain in name only, and I’m a glorified babysitter to keep all of you from doing something stupid. This ship is completely automated, and barring some fool trying to use a 1000 watt microwave, we aren’t even needed to land this splendid gift from our Atan benefactors. So, why are we awake?” The Captain flipped on a screen mounted to the wall and transferred the Brief to the screen. “We are going to attack an unknown civilization that may be the 9th Origin Species, and is at least a million years more advanced than we are, and steal their intergalactic starship.” The X.O. sat down at the small table. “Seems reasonable. Do tell me more about this fantasy.” “Five hundred years after we launched, the Atan packed up their Embassy and left without a word. They haven’t been seen by anyone in the Galician Alliance since, which has all but collapsed. Earth’s population is at a breaking point, resources are nearly exhausted. Earth has cancelled our Charter and conscripted us into Earth Defense Forces. We are instructed to take that ship at all cost.” A woman in dinosaur pajama’s entered the galley. “What ship? What’s going on? Why are we awake? And why does the power relay box smell like it’s about to melt… dammit, John, were you trying to use that microwave again? That’s it, I’ve had it with that microwave. Dave, throw that thing out an airlock” “That’s Captain John to you, Doctor,” replied the Captain. “The hell it is. I’ve got four PhD’s, how many do you have?” “Somebody woke up grumpy,” replied the X.O. The woman stopped and stared at the alien ship on the screen. “Is this the most current image?” “That image was taken three years ago.” The Captain changed the image on the screen. “And this was taken ten days ago.” The Doctor studied the new image. “One of the O’neill cylinders has been destroyed.” “It’s now a derelict ship and can legally be salvaged,” said the Captain. “As soon as everyone is awake, we’ll maneuver into position to take the derelict.” The Doctor didn’t bother turning around to face the Captain, but continued to stare at the image. “And if you were a real Captain, you’d know better. To be an abandoned derelict eligible for salvage rights, the owners have to abandon the ship with no intent to return.” “They have abandoned the ship,” protested the Captain. “You can see their escape pods, it’s our ship now.” “Just because the occupants run out of a burning building into the night to wait for the firefighters to extinguish the flames, does not make the building, or ship, eligible for salvage. They are right there next to their ship, we have no rights to it.” A large burly man with shoulders nearly as wide as the door entered the galley. “I read the Brief in the other room. The orders from Earth are unlawful, we are not attacking that ship.” The X.O. smiled. “Good Morning, Your Honor, I suppose that ends the discussion of attacking.” The big man sat and rubbed at his temples. “Damn stasis gives me a headache.” The man glanced up at the image on the screen. “Is that the most current image of the alien ship?” “It is,” replied the Captain. The big man nodded. “The vessel is clearly in distress. We are required by Mariner Law to offer assistance.” The Captain frowned. “Does anyone realize that I’m the Captain, and I decide what we’re doing?” The big man, the Colony’s Judge, had joined the Colony and left Earth, not in disgrace, but more in a prudent need for a new jurisdiction after an unpopular verdict of finding a Senator’s son guilty of murder. The Judge glanced at the Captain. “I was there when they entered your name in the Charter with a pencil. I can make a solid case you are not legally the Captain.” The Doctor finally turned away from studying the alien ship and glared at the Captain. “You are not a certified Captain. Dave should have been the Captain, he’s the only professional spacer here.” Another man appeared at the door. “For God’s sake, you four have been arguing about this during every wake-maintenance cycle for 2000 years. This is an automated transport ship, there is no Captain, or X.O., or Ship’s Doctor, and certainly not whatever the Judge thinks he is on the ship. We don’t even have a Bridge, we’re all just passengers.” The X.O. looked at the electrician curiously. “Who woke you up?” The electrician leaned against the door jam. “The A.I. did, but you didn’t know that because the circuit breaker to the alarm burned out from a massive wattage overload. One of you weren’t running that microwave again, were you?” The electrician waved a hand. “Never mind, it’s moot at this point, we’re all going to be dead in four minutes. Maybe we could have done something twenty minutes ago, but once again – alarm system offline. Your big alien spaceship is coming faster than the A.I. estimated and is going to run us over. I suggest you get back to your stasis pods and hope they hold together when this ship crumples like a tin can. Maybe if you’re lucky, in 50,000 years you’ll get thawed out and find yourselves as exotic dancers in some alien prince’s harem. Good luck, everyone.” The Captain frantically began stabbing at buttons on the small control console, but the X.O. grabbed his arm and pulled at him. “If James could have diverted the ship, he would have already done it. Get to your stasis chamber, it’s the safest place to be now.” The Captain shook the X.O.’s arm off. “The Captain goes down with the ship.” The X.O. remembered the last time he’d had to drag a Captain to an escape pod. That Captain hadn’t been grateful either, and the reason the X.O. had been assigned to this career ending babysitting job, but he wasn’t going to let the man die. He pulled a fist back, and slugged the Captain across the jaw. The Judge grabbed the Captain as he crumpled. “I’ll get him into his stasis chamber, you go,” shouted the Judge. “We’ll do it together, no heroics,” replied the X.O. grabbing the Captain under his arms. Between them, they carried the Captain to his stasis chamber. There were no alarms or flashing lights to signal any sense of urgency, other than the mental image in their heads of the massive alien spacecraft baring down on them. Together, they got the Captain inside his stasis chamber and sealed it shut. The Judge pressed the activation button and stepped back. “Hold on,” said the X.O., then stepped over to a weapons locker and opened it. He took out two pistols and some spare ammo. The X.O. handed one of the pistols to the Judge. “If we wake up, we don’t know when and where we’ll be, at least we’ll have a fighting chance.” “I just hope it’s not in that harem James mentioned,” replied the Judge with a grin. “I don’t think I’d make a very good dancer.” The two men stepped into their stasis chambers without a further word. The X.O. tapped on his control panel inside the chamber. “A.I., how long until impact with the alien ship?” A soft voice with a distinct Atan accent replied. “Two minutes to impact.” “Send a distress signal and launch the ship’s logs to Earth?” ordered the X.O. “I launched the ship’s logs and sent a distress signal twenty-minutes ago,” replied the A.I. The X.O. laughed as he pressed the button to fill the chamber with the stasis foam. “Well, aren’t you the proactive A.I., okay, go ahead and launch yourself back to Earth, you won’t be needed further.” “There is an incoming transmission,” said the A.I. The X.O.’s eyes flicked down to the foam filling the chamber, he only had seconds left. “Open a channel!” “Channel established,” replied the A.I. “This is Lieutenant Commander Dave Mezerick, Executive Officer of the Colony Ship, Renegade. We are about to be run over by an alien starship, we need help!” The voice that replied was thick and in a heavily accented language, and though he had only heard the one sentence the Atan had ever managed to record of that species, it was unique and stuck in his mind. The language was the oldest spoken language in the Universe, and belonged to the oldest and most elusive of all the known species. They had no home world, but instead, their entire civilization wandered the Universe in ships the size of moons. He tried to reply, but the foam had risen up over his mouth, and then his ears, and in that moment as the darkness of artificial sleep descended, he was certain his distress call had been answered by the most ancient of species... the Ruk were coming.