Chapter 04 – Answer
The Peregrina had no windows. The only way to see outside was through cameras. Fortunately, the cameras transmitted in surprisingly good quality and with an excellent frame rate. The monitors were almost like magic portals to the outside world.
It was through one of these magic portals that I saw the ship the crew referred to as Broodmother. To simply call it a ship doesn’t do justice to the engineering feat that was this marvel. There were two pairs of counter-rotating gravity rings, each about fifty meters in diameter. Between the pairs of rings was a trunk that served as an anchorage; eight black bricks similar to the Peregrina were attached. At the back, four radiator panels the size of a football field each emit a dim red light. The radiators have the part closest to the engine smaller than the front part, so that the radiators are hidden behind the shadow formed by the engine’s radiation shields. And speaking of the engine, it was an elongated dome about twenty meters in diameter.
With the Broodmother in sight, the crew began the approach procedure. I had a VIP box seat view. I could watch all the panels and camera feeds, but I was forbidden from touching anything. All I could do was watch the celestial docking dance.
The first step was to adjust the relative speed between the two ships. The Peregrina’s RCS was noisy, but also very strong and precise. It fired in short bursts to align Peregrina’s trajectory with that of the Broodmother. To ensure there was no lateral movement, the vectored thrusters constantly needed to adjust the ship’s axis, keeping it perfectly aligned with the larger station. The crew carefully monitored the closing rate between the two ships, using the low-intensity approach radar to ensure no debris or other smaller ships interfered.
“Reduce closing rate to one meter per second,” Cirakari ordered.
“Peregrina is GO for docking, over,” Gulliver communicated with the Broodmother.
“Peregrina, this is Broodmother command tower, approach confirmed, proceed to docking point H2, over,” an unknown voice responded.
“Aligned with docking point H2,” Cirakari affirmed a few seconds later. “Initiating final approach.”
“Reduce closing rate to one-tenth of a meter per second,” Cirakari ordered a few more seconds later.
“Touchdown,” Gulliver stated.
“Peregrina, welcome aboard Broodmother. Please wait until a reception team contacts you.”
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“Does it usually take this long to board the ship?” I asked.
“No, it doesn’t,” said the third officer whose name I still didn’t know.
“I apologize for my rudeness. In all this chaos, I forgot to ask your name.”
“No problem, I’m Hóng Tàiyáng, but you can call me Tài,” he said with a small nod. If he was from Earth, I would say he was East Asian. He carried a calm intensity, sharp brown eyes flickered with quiet focus. His short, neatly cropped hair framed a face that rarely betrayed emotion.
“Nice to meet you, Tài.”
“Likewise, Mr. Almeida.”
“Why do you all refer to me with such formality?”
“Well... You’re almost two hundred years old and seem to be someone quite important, so I think it’s fair to call you that.”
“You can just call me Fred, it’s no problem.”
“I think the reason it’s taking so long is precisely because of you, Fred,” Cirakari interrupted our conversation.
“I know they must be anxious about my presence, but why would that result in such a long delay? Shouldn’t it be the opposite?” I addressed Cirakari.
“I imagine if we were a well-organized and truly united military body, yes. But what must be happening in there now is an arm-wrestling match between the admirals of each nation,” she replied.
“Are the three of you from the same nation?” I asked.
“No, actually, each of us came from a different corner,” Cirakari replied. “I was born in Fillandril, a city-state in the dark part of Vielovento’s twilight zone. It’s not very relevant in the general political sphere, but it’s home to one of the largest space force training academies; we receive students from almost all nations of Vielovento.”
“I’m from Great Lakes,” said Gulliver. “The Republic of Great Lakes is in the hot part of Vielovento. You know, the planet is tidally locked, it’s always daytime there. It is a great place for a vacation, but unfortunately the radiation is too intense, hence our skin tone.”
“I also come from the hot part,” Tài introduced himself. “I come from Xīn Tiāntáng Wángguó, or New Paradise Kingdom in a literal translation. Xīn Tiāntáng was one of the first colonies of Vielovento. Unlike other colonies, we never abandoned our mother tongue, I believe due to some ideological issue from back on Earth. After the independence wars, Xīn Tiāntáng became a monarchy and is one of the main powers in the system.”
“I think it’s fair that I introduce myself too,” I said. “On Earth, I lived in Brazil, in Latin America. I graduated as an engineer and got a scholarship for an internship and master’s degree on Mars. I stayed there for ten years and was selected for the TRAPPIST-1 colonization program. I spent the last three years migrating from base to base on the Moon to complete my training, and today I’m here.”
“Apart from Earth and TRAPPIST-1, I have no idea what the other names you mentioned are,” said Cirakari.
“That makes us even, because I also have no idea about the names you mentioned.”
“Yeah, fair enough,” she conceded.
We spent a few more minutes exchanging curiosities about what Earth was like before I left and what TRAPPIST-1 is like today. At first, it was just an icebreaker to reduce the anxiety of being confined inside Peregrina with Louis’s corpse beside us, but as we discovered more things about the differences in our worlds, the interest grew.
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“UTAS Peregrina, this is the Broodmother team, please confirm the start of the boarding procedure.”
Cirakari stretched and took advantage of the absence of gravity to launch herself to her workstation.
“Broodmother, this is Commander Cirakari, we are ready for boarding.”
“Understood commander, your logbook indicates that you are transporting Mr. Frederico de Almeida, rescued from the Genesis IX ship, and the body of Louis Timothée Nicollier who died in combat. Do you confirm this information?”
“I confirm.”
Cirakari exchanged a few more messages with the boarding team, the speed with which they responded to each other made me believe this was something repeated many times. After all the checks, we received the green light to enter the mother ship. As the airlock chamber only fits one at a time, Cirakari went first, Gulliver went right after, and Tài went next. I was the last to leave the Peregrina.
I opened the external hatch and launched myself out. As soon as I exited, two soldiers wearing black armor, steel helmets without any visor, and the A.U.T.N emblems grabbed me by the arms.
“Mr. Almeida, you will be quarantined for your own safety, as well as to avoid disorder aboard this ship,” one of the brutes said. Even if I wanted to resist, I wouldn’t be able to; their strength was superhuman.
“Where’s the rest of Peregrina’s crew?” I asked. Literally everyone I knew was dead, these three I met less than four hours ago were the only people I knew. Not that I considered them friends or anything, but they were the only living faces I would know how to recognize.
“They’re in quarantine too,” the other brute replied.
Each one held me by an arm. They used the supports on the internal bulkheads of Broodmother to launch themselves through the corridors. Their arms seemed like a Renaissance trebuchet; it was impossible for a human being to have so much strength. The only logical explanation that came to my mind would be some kind of exoskeleton underneath the armor.
I was taken to a compartment that connected the main trunk of the ship with the gravitational rings. Surprisingly, it was very similar to the system of the late GIX. Brute 01 started descending the stairs first, I went in the middle, and Brute 02 went last. The piping connecting the rings was just over a meter in internal diameter, another similarity with GIX.
We descended the twenty-something meters of stairs. With each step, we felt more and more of the artificial gravity acceleration produced by the rings. I felt very comfortable with the gravity reaching the last step. It must have been something very close to 1 g. Perfect.
The pair of brutes grabbed me by the arms again, and we walked along the central corridor of the ring. Several people, most dressed in A.U.T.N uniforms, stared at me in a cacophony of distinct expressions; indifference, curiosity, fear, hope, anger, disgust, and so on. I tried not to pay much attention to it, but it was difficult.
We arrived at a door that said [Detention Center]. It was obvious that the so-called quarantine would be in a prison. When we entered the door, inside there was another corridor, this time with mini cells attached to it. The walls separating the cells were metal, and the front wall, which faced the corridor, was made of some transparent material.
They put me in one of the cells. The only glimpse of privacy I would have was some curtains to cover the space designated for necessities. Despite the confined space and being a cell, the environment was quite comfortable. In the cell in front of me was Tài, in my left diagonal was Cirakari, and beside me was Gulliver.
“Enjoying A.U.T.N’s hospitality?” Cirakari asked sarcastically. We were silent for a few seconds, but soon after, a contagious laughter took over the environment. Not so much because it was actually funny, but because of the bizarreness of the last few hours.
“I’m so sorry for all this, guys,” I said, actually feeling guilty for all the trouble I caused, even without having any logical fault.
“This says more about us than about you,” she replied.
“What do you think will happen?” I asked.
“I think they’ll first call us, individually, and see if our descriptions of the facts match. After that, they’ll call you and bombard you with questions. As I said, we made an absurd investment to rescue you, there’s enormous internal pressure for you to be useful in some way.”
“And if I’m not useful?”
“You’d better be,” she said while making a silence sign and pointing to the ceiling.
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They first took the Peregrina’s crew for interrogation, exactly as Cirakari predicted. The interrogation was apparently quick, each one stayed there for about thirty minutes. Until it was my turn. The pair of brutes escorted me to the interrogation room.
The interrogation room was actually a meeting room. An oval table in the center with large, imposing chairs around it. Dark walls and flat lighting coming from a central light. What caught my attention the most was a three-dimensional hologram projector in the center of the table; I imagined what it would be like to play video games on that thing.
Seated around the table were five officers, I presumed them to be the admirals Cirakari kept talking about. Two men and three women, all stern-faced and in imposing uniforms. All the uniforms were the same, with A.U.T.N colors and symbols, however, unlike the other uniforms I had been seeing around the ship, theirs had an extra little flag on the chest. Each had a different little flag; I imagined it must be the nation of origin for each of them.
I repeated everything I had already told the Peregrina’s crew about what Earth was like when I left and everything else. Following Cirakari’s suggestions, I tried to sell my fish with some knowledge of human history that I had. Apparently, it worked; the five were fascinated by my summary of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Admittedly, I made up some parts because I couldn’t remember everything by heart, but I believe I summarized the essence of the book satisfactorily. I also recited some passages from Machiavelli’s The Prince; I believe I was much more faithful, as it’s a book I really like. Lastly, I tried to summarize all the major wars that I could remember as well as the large empires of ancient times.
“Admirals, do you know what this means?” asked High Admiral Lánhuā, representative of Xīn Tiāntáng Wángguó. “That in addition to technology, resources, and manpower, the Overseers have millennia of human knowledge that has been hidden from us.”
“It’s a bit too late to apply this knowledge, the Overseers’ cruisers will arrive in a few weeks! Our defense preparations have been organized for years and based on state-of-the-art space strategy. We can’t replan everything to apply this bunch of nonsense from the time we fought with swords and horses,” replied High Admiral Baraka, representative of the city-state of Fillandril.
And so began another round of bickering between them. I stayed quiet, hoping for things to calm down. Instead, the situation escalated.
“High Admiral Baraka is right,” I said out loud. Which propagated a silence in the room that made everyone look at me. “I know absolutely nothing about space combat. Even when I was a child, the governments of the solar system signed a treaty of non-militarization of space. Where I came from, or rather, when I came from, there were no space wars.”
“Excuse our decorum, Mr. Almeida. This discussion shouldn’t be happening at this moment and place, especially with you here,” Baraka replied.
“But isn’t this strange?” Lánhuā inquired. “According to the timeline described by Mr. Almeida, the space non-militarization treaty must have occurred around 2180, and the submission of the human race happened sometime between 2200 and 2220. After Genesis IX had departed and before the Overseers’ first colonizer.”
“Where are you going with this, Mrs. Lánhuā?” Baraka inquired.
“What if the non-militarization treaty was already influenced by the Overseers as a way to weaken the human race?”
“You’re seeing faces in clouds. It may even be a real correlation, but we have no way to prove or test this hypothesis.”
“Look at our current state. Since the independence wars, we’ve been killing each other. We’ve had some advances in recent years, but we’re still very much divided. What if all this was caused by the Overseers? Every intrigue and conflict we’ve had in the last hundred years could have been their response to our independence.”
“Well, let’s have this discussion then, but first, let’s take Mr. Almeida back to his quarters,” Baraka concluded.